Titles and backstories

The novel derives its name from the title of Bernard’s poem, which, as several have pointed out, we are never allowed to read.

But I also found “An Imagined Life” to be an interesting title of Roman’s book. Why did Chang choose these titles, do you think?

“For each of us, he understood, is born into our own time and eventually the things we held as the center of the world, dearly, unforgivingly, must fade.”

Writing without soul

Miranda says at the beginning of their relationship that Bernard writes as if he has no soul. Years later, Bernard says, “Roman, your self is never present in the poems. You seem to risk nothing.” Is this what makes great poetry, in your opinion? That someone has to be vulnerable, has to risk something, has to reveal – in some way – one’s soul?

Question

If some cocky schmoe breaks your heart, a schmoe you might legitimately think of as a rival because he competes for recognition in your profession, and you are put in the position of determining whether he should win a prestigious award, how tempted would you be to vote against him?

One Great Reader

Bernard says he came to the School to find his Own Great Reader – “the one person to whom I write, whom I will imagine as the ideal witness for my artistic life and work.” That intrigued me, because I hadn’t thought of it in that way before. Do you have a “Great Reader,” and if so, whom do we “write” for?

The Detweiler

Should Miranda not have supported Roman’s work as the chair of the jury? Was it really, as Roman put it, like she had given the prize and then taken it away?

Miranda and Roman

Theirs is, to say the least, a complex relationship. “But each time they made love, he felt a queer evanescence, as if her body were slipping from his grasp.”

Bernard’s love for Miranda goes unrequited, yet Roman envies him at the end. Why do you think Miranda’s presence is so powerful on these students?

Diminishing poetry

Miranda says, “There was a time, decades ago, when every schoolchild in this country memorized Shakespeare, Blake, Shelley. We were brought up on the poetry of human experience, and we turned to poets when we sought truth … Poets are still living. But there are fewer and fewer now, and it seems to many that the art has been diminished.”

What’s your take on this? Do you think, like Miranda, that poetry is diminishing partly because of poems that interest only the author and “the author’s illustration of prevailing ideas”?

For February

This short sci-fi novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares is similar to the better-known "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H.G. Wells but has its own extensive cachet as a point of many different cultural allusions, including the TV show "Lost." The protagonist, a fugitive on a desert island, finds his lonely existence altered when a group of tourists arrives on the island, but then they disappear again. He's forced to consider various theories as to what's really happening.

How about Feb. 14? My social calendar is empty that day. Hehe.

What remains ... "All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost"

Hope everyone has finished the novel by now! What are your thoughts? I really liked it, but I'd also hope that I'm not the only one. :)