The Past (Hadley) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Past...then take off on your own:

1. Talk about the book's title and the role the past plays in the adult Crane siblings' lives. Can any of us escape the hold that the past has on our lives? Can the Crane family?

2. Why does Kington have such a deep psychological pull over the Crane children?

3. Describe each of the four Crane siblings: Harriet, Alice, Fran, and Roland. How are their lives portrayed by Tessa Hadley? Whom do you find most sympathetic and whom least?

4. Why do Roland's sisters continue to dismiss him, even see him as "slightly ridiculous," when he has so obviously made a success of his life? Is their treatment of him a fair assessment or simply mean spirited?

5. Both Pilar and Kasim are "outsiders" when it comes to British society. How does the author use them to reflect both the "archetypally English" scene, as well as each of the Crane siblings? What different perspective do they bring to the story?

6. What role does class—or class division—play in this novel? What affect does it have on the Crane family, both in the present and the past?

7. Using the rural setting of Kington, Hadley hearkens back to an ancient literary form, the "pastoral," a form that incorporates erotic encounters—the mythical god Pan who pursues wood nymphs and shepherdesses, for one. Talk about the ways sexual desire plays out in this novel.

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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