Hello All!
So a few things! One, tomorrow is book club day. For more details on the book club meetups in your area see this lovely spreadsheet and/or the Facebook discussion page. Two, set your clock back an hour tonight, enjoy that extra hour of sleep, and then see us tomorrow. At the right time.
And finally, some book club questions for your perusal, thanks to Team Practical:
- Gilbert talks about how pragmatic marriages caused alliances and saved kingdoms and ran farms. Now marriage is mostly touted as a very individual, or a ‘for the kids.’ Do you think there is something that marriages, generally or individually, can offer to the larger community? Economically? Socially? Emotionally? For our neighborhood, our nation, our friend group, our families, or another group? Discuss.
- Has the evolution of men’s and women’s roles in our social network negatively or positively affected our marriages in the Western world? (see page 31)
- Gilbert asks on page 185 “how might we work together as a society to construct a world where healthy children can be raised with out women having to scrape bare the walls of their own souls to do it?” Discuss.
- Early in the book, Elizabeth Gilbert says that “every intimacy carries the ever-coiled makings of complete catastrophe.” Do you think that’s true of your relationship? Does it make you feel doomed, or hopeful?
- On page 35 Liz states “… the person whom you choose to marry is perhaps the single most vivid representation of your own personality. Your spouse becomes the most gleaming possible mirror through which your emotional individualism is reflected back to the world.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
- How has/have your own parents’ marriage(s) influenced your view of marriage? Have you learned anything surprising about their marriage as an adult?
- How did Gilbert’s list of demographics’ effect on marriage make you feel about the prospects of your own marriage?
Bay Area ladies, I hope to see you tomorrow. I’m fighting with my health though, so we’ll see. Health come first, bookclub comes second. But long-suffering-intern Lauren will be there, for sure. And how great is that? Dallas ladies will be hanging out with Alyssa, as always.
Smooches,
Meg
