 
字體：小 中 大 |
|
|
|
| 2019/05/05 21:15:30瀏覽739｜回應0｜推薦4 | |
|
Writer: Lauren Groff was born and raised in New York. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction. Her third novel, Fates and Furies, was released in September 2015 and was also a New York Times and Booksense bestseller. Fates and Furies is a portrait of a 24-year marriage from two points of view, first the husbands and then the wifes. It was nominated for the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction, the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and was featured in numerous "Best of 2015" fiction lists, including the selection by Amazon.com as the Best Book of 2015.President Barack Obama chose it as his favorite book of 2015. Groff is married with two children and currently lives in Florida. Groffs sister is the Olympic Triathlete Sarah True(r.1) Story: The novel tells the 24-year married story of Lotto and Mathilde Satterwhite. He is the darling of a prosperous Florida family. She, an apparent “ice princess”, is the survivor of a sad and dark past. The first half of the book offers Lotto’s view of their life together as he rises from charming but failed actor to celebrated playwright, thanks in no small part to Mathilde’s editorial finesse. The second half reveals that Mathilde has, through implacable willpower, transcended circumstances that read like a hotchpotch of Greek tragedy, fable and detective novel. Much of what Lotto takes for granted in his good fortune, it turns out, is due to Mathilde’s ruthless machination, right down to their marriage itself. She genuinely loves him, but she initially set out to win him for mercenary reasons. They are at that point in life when they realize that a wedding is less the end of a fairytale than the beginning of a mystery, and sometimes an ugly one. But Fates and Furies, like Gone Girl, wrenches the old wronged-woman formula out of joint. These are both tales of female puppet masters, geniuses who invisibly engineer their marriages to appear to best advantage to outsiders – and, in the case of Groff’s novel, to the husband himself. Amy Dunne in Gone Girl does it to take revenge, to bring the hapless Nick to heel and to consolidate her power over him. Mathilde in Fates and Furies does it to preserve the security she has sought all her life and to protect Lotto from ever knowing “the scope of her darkness”. Each woman is far cleverer than her spouse. Amy’s scheme is outlandishly criminal, while Mathilde’s is mostly just patronizing. The good husbands in Victorian novels sheltered their wives from the world’s harshness, but now the roles are reversed. As exaggerated as they are, Amy and Mathilde resemble every working mum who wonders if her husband has any notion of how much effort she puts into the administration of their family life. That includes not just the serious stuff such as the kids’ healthcare and schools, but social labour on everything from birthday celebrations and the coordination of dinner parties to holiday plans. She schedules and organises; he blithely assumes it all just happens. She shakes her head and, in her rare free hours, she curls up with a copy of Fates and Furies. Fates: Lotto’s grandparents died in a car crash. Lotto’s father is Gawain bottling plant boss. Her 17-year-old aunt Sallie and Lotto’s mother Antoinette are colleagues in Weeki Wachee, Sallie introduced her to her 30-year-old brother Gawain. Lotto is the calm eye of a hurricane, Sallie chewed up the fruit, and put them into Lotto’s mouth. they stuck all the best into the only-child,Lotto’s mind to teach him to be the greatness. He can recite Kipling’s poem “if” while he was 2 years old. His atheist father passed away while he was 12 years old. A privileged kid starts to face his miserable destiny. His sister Rachel was born . Lotto lost his mother’s concern. He starts to fool around with beer, drugs and girls. Lotto got delinquents while he has sexual intercourse with Gwennie and got caught by the cop(p.21). He got bail by paying considerable money. Childhood vanished(p.23), Lotto was so down and out, try to commit suicide like Jelly Roll, the dean helped him and chose him to play the role of Falstaff, Samuel, the crew comforts Lotto to go back to the right track. He became a famous actor and get married with model Mathilde. At age 22, they are madly in love, a decade later, the learn more than love. Mathilde quit her job and took over the business side of Lotto(p.96) Lotto, with Mathilde’s help, his carreer is from a star to a famous playwright. Mathilde felt that Lotto maneuvered her(p.194) and making her flap like birds into the blistered sky. Mathilde felt so failed and empty.(p.206)
Furies: Mathilde’s mom is a fishwife, father is a stonemason. She is the first girl of 6-sister family(p.259). Her brother passed away by an accident. Mathilde felt so guilty for losing her brother. She took all the guilty from her self and parents. While sixteen, she lived with her uncle who ran a bad organization, sometimes was not home, Mathilde crept like a mouse living in a worldless arts with flute, swimming and books. At 18, she wore red dress which was a gift from her uncle to attend party, It’s the time to say good-bye to her prepubescence. All the dating sex starts her new life. She left her uncle’s shelter and go on self-living . At 17, Mathilde met Lotto, Lotto sees Mathilde is a virgin and never knew her past. Even Lotto’s best friend Chollie knew that Mathilde had affair with others. He dared not to be the nark. Till Lotto died, Chollie told Mathilde the truth. From Chooie’s point of view, Mathilde didn’t deserve Lotto’s love, she was a liar. Chollie thought that Mathilde didn’t love Lotto at all. cos Lotto loved kids, she chose to be sterilized(p.274). Ariel is Mathilde’s admire, her boss of art gallery, trying sexual assault to her, so she quitted her job (p.313), Ariel thought that Mathilde married Lotto is for the money(p.308). After 24 year-marriage, Lotto passed away with the aneurysm(p.243) Lotto never found out the truth till he died. Mathilde is born to learn to deal with everything by herself alone. Mathilde found out that to deal with daily life is more heavy than love.’Faux amis” (p.241)hub brings her tortured, even after he was gone with wind. After her hub passed away, she uses sex to cure her soul.(p.244) Lotto was so popular and succeful which she put all her effort to help him achieved it. All ended up for Mathilde more difficult to deal with his death alone.
Highlights vs self- reflection: 1.p.221: She hadn’t been a virgin, but there had been only one man before him. This was a secret that Lotto would never know. His egoism would not admit a precursor. 2.p.163:Sometimes people who create are so narcissistic we assume that our way of living is the jewel in the crown of humanity. 3.p.236:”the sum of her life was far greater than its sum of love.” After the long-run of marriage, love is the power to help us deal with life to keep her life run on rail. 4.p.266:”The cat trotted off, its tail jaunty with pride.” The cat portrait Mathilde in the real life. So alone, but calm. 5.p.389:”It was mathematical marriage” Marriage is more than a math problem. If we take it as math, we will flunk. 6.p.313:”The clouds had descended, though the day through the window gleamed withsunlight .“ The window to our life will be like cloud, gone with wind one day. What left for you is your own gift from life. 7.p.317:”Let me be the wave. And if I cannot be the wave, let me be the rupture at the bottom. Let me be that terrible first rift in the dark.” Mathilde chose not to have a baby, cos she want to terminate her destiny instead 8.p.354:”Mothers were people who abandoned you to struggle alone.” The past scar didn’t solve comes to another more serious problem for her to solve in her life. 9.p.357:”Wife comes from weip, means to turn, twist , or wrap….or shame.” Mathilde didn’t find any significant meaning of a woman. What she had done, means meaningless. 10.p.334:Chollie said: If he turns out to do something big with himself, it’ll be because of you.”…”He would have been great without me.” Mathilde helps her hub with a very humble way. Golden Sentence: 1.p.220:peacock her grief 2.p.221:He deflower her 3.p.6: He’d always say, in the calm eye of a hurricane. 4.P.11:Baby as a lump of flesh molded out of hope. 5.p.12:formidable memory revealed itself 6. p.23: Enough cash will grease any wheel. 7.p.26:Storytelling is a landscape, and tragedy is comedy is drama. It simply depends on how you frame what you’ re seeing. 8.p.38: One door closed behind him. Another , better, flung open. 9.p.71:Success is money? Success is finding your greatness, 10.p.30:Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning. 12.P.163:Knowledge has been democratized. 13.p.219: She rode at the head of a shining line of black limos like the head raven in a convocation of blackbirds. 14.p.219:Clean people never aspired to the floral. 15. p.218:The wolf spun, settled in her chest, snored there 16.p.221:You didn’t give me one last sweet word that I might remember in all my sorrow. 17.p.233:Time swallowed itself 18.p.333:The man swallowed praise the way runners swallow electrolytes.
Conclusion: 1.Life needs a more sophiscated and professional actor to play the best role 2.beatiful language opens us a world beyond pride and prejudice of Jane Austine before marriage, shows us the fates and furies of Lauren Groff after marriage. Except love, we need to cultivate our soul to promote our daily life. 3. Sex consumes their marriage. Skin-deep love is a weak foundation to support the life loading. 4.Lauren Groff do have a precise, sharp pen to carve a wonderful conflict between man and woman, marriage and single life. 5. Compare to boys, girls need to pay more price to be a woman who will get more ability to face conflict 6. Honest will be the most difficult part to fulfill in the marriage life. 7. Mathilde’s hurting from losing her brother and not getting parent’s forgiving brings her a bad influence to her family. 8. We may blame others, but we lost the chance to grow from it. 9. “When you make the finding yourself-even you are the last person on Earth to see the light- you’ll never forget it-Carl Sagan, Cosmologist 10.”We are all starstuff.” -Carl Sagan, Cosmologist 11.Mathilde is an exhausted bread-winner to take care of her narcissist of playwright who has one-night stand with Gwennie whose brother Choolie arranged to have an adoption by a lawyer friend of Choolie. 12.To a man, marriage is sex, to a woman, marriage is to enlighten people. 13.Christopher Marlowe:It lies not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is overruled by fate. 14.”Volumnia” says she would rather his son die in battle than avoid it in fear and shame. because his wounds will persuade the people to support him. 15. Peggy, our thoughtful leader of reading "Fates and Furies" is also irritated by happy-go lucky narcissist Lotto who do trigger us an intense discussion: marriage is related with sex or agape love? Carol is a great heckler to force us to think that Mathilde is a great giver for helping her hub fullfilling his career or a greedy controller for fame and revenge, furthermore, Carol confessed that this book is too literal wordy to sink into the swirl of trivial daily life. Marriage brings us two sides of concepts which are rooted by our original family. "Choose what you like, like what you choose" is a great lesson for us to learn. Enjoy the procession than product. If we keep blaming others. we will lost the scenery of our life, Just like Torey ends up that reading club is a cure-all place to dump our true feeling of the book. Theresa didnt agree with ”We are all starstuff.” -Carl Sagan, Cosmologist" she reminds us of "dust" life cos we are smaller than the star, be humble to see through your past and enjoy here and now, cherish what we have and keep walking together! Part of struggles will turn out strikes! Fates and Furies Questions and Summary by Peggy Author: Lauren Groff Lauren Groff was born in 1978 in Cooperstown, NY. She graduated from Amherst College and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is married and has 2 children, and lives in Gainesville, FL. Fates and Furies is Groff’s 3rd novel. Summary: A 2015 US best book of the year, Fates and Furies tells the story of a 24-year long marriage from 2 points of view. It was nominated for the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction and was featured in many "Best of 2015" fiction lists. President Barack Obama chose it as his favorite book of 2015. In Fates and Furies, the husband and wife each have totally different views of their marriage. The husband, Lotto, is the beloved son of a wealthy family. Mathilde comes from a tragic past which Lotto knows almost nothing about. The first half of the book is about Lotto’s view of his childhood and the life he and Mathilde share, in which he becomes a successful playwright. In the second half, Mathilde tells her story of tragedy and difficult circumstances, and the choices she makes, including the choices that lead to Lotto’s success. Just as every story has 2 sides, every relationship has 2 perspectives. The perspectives of Lotto and Mathilde are so radically different; they almost seem like 2 different novels. Fates and Furies raises many questions about the complexity of marriage, including how well husbands and wives actually know each other
Questions: 1. How did you feel as you read this book? ”Volumnia” says she would rather his son die in battle than avoid it in fear and shame. because his wounds will persuade the people to support him. I assume to see a lot of furies from Mathilde, but i see more endurance to face the furies. 2. How would you describe Lotto’s personality? Did you think he was likeable? Why or why not? (1) narcissist of playwright who has one-night stand with Gwennie whose brother Choolie arranged to have an adoption by a lawyer friend of Choolie.happy go lucky person, cos he was well protected by Mathilde and his friends. (2)p.311: “You meet the guy for three seconds, and you know he has a close full of skeletons. Possible literal ones. He’s a fat shhithead puckered-asshole sniffer and I want to flay him alive.” Mathilde knows Lotto is good for nothing, but she takes over all the responsibility to help him. And help him find the meat from the skeleton.
3. Were told that “his parents and aunt, early on, believed Lotto was destined for greatness: It was taken for granted by this trio of adults that Lotto was special. Golden.” What effect might this expectation have on his life? How much influence do you think parents’ expectations, either positive or negative, have on their children? (1) only God is the best playwright, we just need to face the draft we got and play the best role of it. (2) p.317:”Let me be the wave. And if I cannot be the wave, let me be the rupture at the bottom. Let me be that terrible first rift in the dark.” 4. How did the inclusion of Lotto’s writing affect your reading experience? Did Lotto’s plays help you to understand his character? (1) ”We are all starstuff.” -Carl Sagan, Cosmologist 5. How would you describe Mathilde’s personality? (1)p.354:”Mothers were people who abandoned you to struggle alone.” The past scar didn’t solve comes to another more serious problem for her to solve in her life. (2) Mathilde is an exhausted bread-winner to take care of her narcissist of playwright. 6. How do Mathildes early years—in particular, its tragedy—shape the path of her life? Mathilde’s hurting from losing her brother and not getting parent’s forgiving brings her a bad influence to her family. The past scar didn’t solve comes to another more serious problem for us to face in our life.
7. How much do you think early experiences shape character and life events? How have you seen that in your own life? (1) “When you make the finding yourself-even you are the last person on Earth to see the light- you’ll never forget it-Carl Sagan, Cosmologist
8. What do you think draws Lotto and Mathilde together? What factors do you think provide a strong foundation for marriage? (1)Christopher Marlowe:It lies not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is overruled by fate. (2) To a man, marriage is sex, to a woman, marriage is to enlighten people. To accept our roles in life or we need to face it again and again. 9. Mathilde chose to keep her past a secret from Lotto. Do you think she should have told Lotto the truth? Why do you think she chose not to tell him? (1) p.30:Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning. 10. Mathilde has a significant hand in Lotto’s success as a writer, but she is never recognized for it. Do you think she should have taken the credit? Why or why not? (1)p.219:Clean people never aspired to the floral.
11. Why do you think Lauren Groff structured her book the way she did, with two separate chapters told by two different characters? Why might she have started off with Lottos account before Mathildes? What difference would it have made if she had placed Lottos after Mathildes? (1) p.221:You didn’t give me one last sweet word that I might remember in all my sorrow. It’s a way to dig up deep to find the sorrow.
12. What do you think each of them wants from the marriage? Do you think Lotto and Mathilde had a happy marriage? Why or why not? (1)Life needs a more sophiscated and professional actor to play the best role (2)beatiful language opens us a world beyond pride and prejudice of Jane Austine before marriage, shows us the fates and furies of Lauren Groff after marriage. Except love, we need to cultivate our soul to promote our daily life. (3)Sex consumes their marriage. Skin-deep love is a weak foundation to support the life loading.
13. Lotto and Mathilde have radically different perspectives on their marriage. Do you think this is typical for most husbands and wives? Why or why not? (1)p.333:The man swallowed praise the way runners swallow electrolytes. (2)p.219:Clean people never aspired to the floral. (3)a good marriage comes from different personality and make it a complete 14. With which characters were you most sympathetic? Least sympathetic? (1)”Volumnia” says she would rather his son die in battle than avoid it in fear and shame. because his wounds will persuade the people to support him. Mathilde’s strong will to overcome her furies (2) p.333:The man swallowed praise the way runners swallow electrolytes. Lotto never grow from marriage, Life needs a more sophiscated and professional actor to play the best role. Lotto is a great playwright, but not a great life playwright. Dear All, Today’s discussion of “Fates and Furies”, led by Peggy, was lively and engaging. Several group members were irritated by Lotto, the happy-go lucky narcissist husband. Carol was a great heckler who prompted us to consider whether Mathilde gave sacrificially to help her husband succeed in his career or was a greedy controller who wanted fame and revenge. One question that the book raised is whether marriage is about sex or agape love. Carol found this book to be too literal and wordy in talking about trivial daily life. In our discussion, we observed that in the context of marriage, we are all, like Lotto and Mathilde, confronted with issues that are rooted in our original family. We were also reminded that to "choose what you like, like what you choose" is a great lesson for us to learn. So many things in life develop over a long time, so we can decide to enjoy the process, and not just the product. If we keep blaming others, we will lose the beauty of our life. Just like Torey, we all find that this book club is a great place to express our true feelings about the book. Theresa didnt agree with ”We are all starstuff.” -Carl Sagan, Cosmologist" she reminds us that like "dust", we are smaller than stars, so we should be humble to see through our past and enjoy the here and now, cherish what we have and keep walking together! Part of our struggles will turn out beautiful!(thank you for Peggy’s sweet modifying for the sentences) Related Reading: 1.Lauren Groff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauren_Groff 2.Fates and Furies: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/dec/24/why-the-fates-and-furies-this-years-most-talked-about-novel 4.Victoria novel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature 5.The Light of The World: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22875479-the-light-of-the-world 6. Fates and Furies Chinese Review: https://okapi.books.com.tw/article/8376 7.Sylvia Plath quotes: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/sylvia-plath 8. Lancelot: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%B0%E6%96%AF%E6%B4%9B%E7%89%B9 9.Timucua: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timucua 10.Seminole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole 11.Weeki Wachee: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeki_Wachee_Springs 12. If: http://classic-blog.udn.com/readingclub/125710388 13.Gawain: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AB%98%E6%96%87_(%E4%BA%9A%E7%91%9F%E7%8E%8B%E4%BC%A0%E8%AF%B4) 14.Falstaff: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falstaff 15.Othello: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A5%A7%E8%B3%BD%E7%BE%85 16.Antigone: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%89%E6%8F%90%E6%88%88%E6%B6%85 17.Andromaque: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromaque_(Racine) 18.Calzone: https://www.silviocicchi.com/pizzachef/5-semplici-passi-per-preparare-la-pizza-calzone/?lang=en 19.Carl Sagan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan 20.Phoebe Delmar: https://www.amazon.com/Phoebe-Del-Mar/e/B078MDB5KC%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share 21.Stoppard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Stoppard 22.Suzan-Lori Parks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzan-Lori_Parks 23.Chkhov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov 24.Circe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circe 25.Telluride: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%89%B9%E6%9F%B3%E8%B3%B4%E5%BE%B7 26.Roles in Fates and Furies: https://www.gradesaver.com/fates-and-furies/study-guide/character-list 27.Miss Marple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Marple 28.Philip Marlowe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Marlowe 29.Volumnia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volumnia Dear All, Hot summer is around the corner. Peggy is going to guide us “Fates and Furies” , a best nominated book for the 2015 National Book Award for Fiction and President Barack Obama chose it as his favorite book of 2015. Don’t miss this great sharing and join the summer fling! May Activity: Book: Fates and Furies Leader: Peggy Owen Time: 1 p.m. May 6., 2019 Place: Qubit Cafe (Hanshin Arena) No.6, Lane 50, Bo-Ai 3 Road, Zuo Ying District, Kaohsiung. Tel:07-3459477 Parking: in the basement of the Qubit Cafe You can have your lunch meal around 12:00 noon before our meeting. We look forward to seeing you. Please let me know if you will be absent in the meeting. Florence Cheng - Correspondent |
|
| ( 創作｜另類創作 ) |
