House of Many Gods (53 page)

6. The novel dramatizes Hawai‘i’s conflicted if not hostile relationship with the U.S. mainland. How is the state-country relationship presented? What myths or preconceptions does the novel debunk—or perpetuate? What issues does it introduce or shed new light on? What is the place of Hawai‘i in the collective character of the United States? What is unique about the islands?

7. Particular emphasis is placed on injustices perpetrated by the U.S. military. How do the decades of reckless weapons testing take on an ironic if not sinister meaning in light of the way Hawai‘i’s veterans of major U.S. wars are depicted?

8. The causes and consequences of environmental degradation are played out on a global scale in this novel. Do you see Ms. Davenport’s handling of the motif turning polemical, or does she manage to keep the subject rooted in the lives of her characters? To what degree does Nikolai’s ambitious film on the environment resemble
House of Many Gods?
What is the place of politics in the novel, the novel in politics?

9. Varieties of expression appear throughout the novel: spoken language, letters, silence, work, violence, dance, sex, film, and sign language—to name a few. What does Ms. Davenport reveal about how expression shapes identity? What are the limits and possibilities of each medium? How does the novel wrestle with the truly ineffable?

10. Rosie, Ana’s cousin, introduces a key theme early in the novel. “
Everybody
wants forgiveness,” she tells Ana. “A chance to wipe the slate clean.” How does that idea reverberate throughout the novel? What prevents or makes possible forgiveness in the lives of these characters? Is anything depicted as genuinely unforgivable?

11. Though Russia and Hawai‘i seem like incongruous settings for a novel, Ms. Davenport draws out a number of common denominators between the places. What are they? How do the geography, politics, religions, and collective character of one overlap with the other? How do the similarities and differences of each place frustrate or facilitate Ana and Nikolai’s relationship?

12. The novel is peopled with a vivid, eclectic group of secondary characters who stand on their own as well as enrich our understanding of Ana; chief among them are Rosie and Lopaka. Discuss each cousin’s relationship with Ana. What is consistent throughout their years together? What changes? To what extent is Ana’s understanding of herself indebted to each cousin?

13. Death and illness cast a long shadow over the novel, yet in the end it seems that light trumps dark, life trumps death. Do you agree? How does Ms. Davenport dramatize the contest before presenting her victor?

14. Ms. Davenport mentioned that twenty-plus drafts of the novel’s conclusion preceded the one you just read. “I realized that this couple, Ana and Nikolai, had suffered enough,” she said in an interview. “Both orphans in a way, they had overcome amazing odds, they had achieved important things. I felt that these two people, whom I loved, had earned their right to be happy. I finally realized that the bleak, logical ending would have been entirely false.” Do you agree?

15. After completing her previous novel,
Song of the Exile
, Ms. Davenport mentioned that a quotation from novelist John Gardner expressed her goal as a novelist: “To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one’s work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write, as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on.” Said Ms. Davenport, “That’s the level of writing I want to achieve, one book at a time.” How does
House of Many Gods
meet—or fall short—of this ideal?