1. Why is the first section of the novel entitled "The Drowned
City?" Why is the title repeated for a later section?
2. Jakob says that Athos''s fascination with Antarctica "was to
become our azimuth. It was to direct the course of our lives" [33].
Why do you think Antarctica obsessed Athos? How does the story of
the Scott expedition relate to that of Athos and Jakob? Do you
agree with Jakob that Athos''s fascination directed their
lives?
3. "When the prisoners were forced to dig up the mass graves,
the dead entered them through their pores and were carried through
their bloodstreams to their brains and hearts. And through their
blood into another generation" [52], Jakob writes, and later,
"It''s no metaphor to feel the influence of the dead in the world"
[53]. How does the theme of the dead''s influence on the living
work itself out in the course of the novel?
4. The communist partisans in Greece, who had valiantly resisted
the occupying Nazis, themselves committed terrible atrocities after
the war, as Kostas and Daphne relate. Do you agree with their
theory that violence is like an illness that can be caught, and
that the Greeks caught it from the Germans [72]? What other
explanations can be offered?
5. "I already knew the power of language to destroy, to omit, to
obliterate," says Jakob. "But poetry, the power of language to
restore: this was what both Athos and Kostas were trying to teach
me" [79]. What instances does the novel give of the destructive
power of language? In what ways does writing - both the writing of
poetry and of translations - help to heal and restore Jakob? Does
silence - the cessation of language - have its own function, and if
so, what might it be?
6. "We were a vine and a fence. But who was the vine? We would
both have answered differently" [108]. Here Jakob is speaking of
his relationship with Athos; of what other relationships in the
novel might this metaphor be used? Does Michaels imply that
dependence is an integral part of love?
7. What is it about Alex''s character that attracts Jakob and
makes him fall in love with her? Why does he eventually find life
with her impossible? Do you find Alex a sympathetic character, or
an unpleasant one?
8. "History is amoral: events occurred. But memory is moral"
[138]. "Every moment is two moments" [161]. How does Jakob define
and differentiate history and memory? Can you see Fugitive
Pieces as a comparison of history and memory?
9. Music is an important element of Fugitive
Pieces, and it is central to the lives of at least three
of the characters, Bella, Alex, and Naomi. What does music mean to
each of these characters? Why has Michaels given music such a
prominent metaphoric role in the novel?
10. What does Fugitive Pieces say about the
condition of being an immigrant? Jakob never feels truly at home
anywhere, even in Greece. Ben''s parents feel that their toehold in
their new home is infinitely precarious, an emotion that
communicates itself to Ben. Does Michaels imply that real
integration is impossible?
11. Can you explain the very different reactions Ben''s parents
have had to their experience in the Holocaust? What in their
characters has determined the differing ways they respond to grief
and loss?
12. The relationship between Ben and Naomi is a troubled one.
Why is he angry at her for her closeness to his parents and her
attention to their graves? Why does he reject her by leaving for
Greece without her? How can you explain his intense desire for
Petra - is his need purely physical? How do Petra and Naomi differ?
What is the significance of their names?
13. Science has as important a role in the novel as poetry and
music. Why is geology so important to Athos, meteorology to Ben?
Does science represent a standard of disinterested truth, or does
it merely symbolize the world''s terrifying contingency?
14. Why might Jakob have named his collection of poems
Groundwork, and in what way does that title relate
to his life? Jakob calls his young self a "bog-boy" [5]. Why does
Ben take such an interest in the preserved bog people he reads
about [221]?
15. The last line of the novel is Ben''s: "I see that I must
give what I most need." What does he mean by this? What does he
most need, what will he give, and to whom?
16. What is the significance of the novel''s title? What do
"pieces," or "fragments," mean within Michaels''s scheme? Where in
the novel can you find references to fragments?
Discussion questions provided courtesy of Vintage Books, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.