4321 (Auster) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for 4321...and then take off on your own:

1. Of the three (longer) lives of Archibald Ferguson—a journalist, a memoirist, a novelist—which do you prefer? Which engaged you more, which has a perferable outcome in your estimation?

2. To what degree, in terms of an irreducible identity, are the Archies similar? Are they sometimes too similar, making it hard to distinguish one life from another? Or do you find each Archid distinct from the other?

3. Archie's "sole ambition" is to "become the hero of his own life." Does he achieve this goal in any of his incarnations? What does that ambition say about someone?

4. Talk about the role of chance in Archie's lives. To what degree does accident, as opposed to fate or a sense of inevitablity, determine his various lives—and, by implication, our own lives. Consider, for instance, his belief that the 1969 draft lottery was "a blind draw of numbers that would determine "whether your were free or ot free." And that the "whole shape of your future life [was] to be scrlpted by the hands of General Pure Dumb Luck." Where else does chance come determine the shape of life.

5. Follow-up to Question 4: Consider, also, the Manhattan Archie who deliberately sabotages his own class standing in a desire to upend any plans that God might have for him. Where do you stand on the issue of self-determination, action, or God's will?

6. What about Amy Schneiderman and her varous incarnations? She and Archie have a romantic attachment in only one of the lives, and yet he pines for her in the others. What is Amy's powerful draw for Archie?

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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