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 get a discussion started for The Glimpses of the Moon:
1. Do you find Susy and Nick sympathetic characters? Do your attitudes toward them change during the course of the novel?
2. Talk about the reason the two marry and the bargain they strike with one another. Do you consider their plan morally bankrupt...or not? If Susy and Nick exist in a social strata that privileges material wealth above all else, are they dishonest ...cynical... opportunistic...simply besting their social "betters" at their own game...or what?
3. Susy says to Nick that "we're both rather unusually popular." What is it about the two that makes them so appealing to others?
4. Nick and Susy seem to occupy two ends of a spectrum in terms of character values. How would you define the difference between them?
5. Ellie Vanderlyn asks Susy to help her deceive Nelson Vanderlyn, her husband. Was Ellie right to agree to help, given that she and Nick are dependent on Ellie's hospitality? What are her options? What would you have done?
6. In what way does Susy's participation in Ellie's scheme undermine her relationship with Nick?
7. How does Wharton portray those of the moneyed class, their values and lifestyle? Does she draw them affectionately...satirically...scornfully? How do you feel about the fact that Wharton, herself, is part of that social milieu?
8. Both Susy and Nick undertake a personal journey. Trace the journey they both make—where they start from and where they end up? How does each change...what does each come to learn about him/herself and about the world in which they live?
9. What is the significance of the book's title? What does the moon represent symbolically?
10. What "lesson" is learned by the book's end? Are you satisfied with how The Glimpses of the Moon ended? Is the conclusion "earned" — in other words, does it flow naturally from what precedes it, or does it feel forced and tacked on?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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