Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (Picador 40th) (20 page)

6. ‘We have slipped through the science to a place of pure and perfect motion.' (p 90) What does Jean's description of making love imply?

7. ‘I don't understand this gulf between our bodies and our minds and why it is so hard to move between the two.' (p 136) Jean describes here the dilemma confronted in all relationships. Some are dominated by the body and some the mind, and perhaps the more perfect combine the two. Discuss.

8. ‘Fences mark one man's crop from another but they have no power over the land itself.' (p 160) This statement is not only a true statement about the land, but a magnificent metaphor for nationhood, and for the global effort to create artificial boundaries between cultures and races. Discuss.

9. Internment of foreign nationals as ‘aliens' in war time is an invidious aspect of war. Discuss the imprisonment of the Japanese (such as Mr Ohno) and the Germans in this novel. For instance, did you know about the Vienna Boys' Choir being stranded here?

10. What do you make of the character of Mr Ohno in this novel? Is his connection to Jean an infatuation or something more?

11. Robert's decision to leave and go to war is born of failure. His confused memories of his mother and her lost babies have fuelled his desire to make a perfect life, and when he fails in farming, and in saving their baby, he can't find solace in Jean, or in the healing power of love. Is there any hope for him?

12. Jean is a woman who desires not simply a perfect union with Robert, but wants to feel ‘at one with' herself. This theme relates not only to her but to the people of a nation and their intimate connection to the land in which they live. Discuss.

Picador has been publishing the finest writing from across the globe since 1972. To celebrate its 40th anniversary we are reissuing a selection of classic fiction
.

White Noise
– Don DeLillo

American Psycho
– Bret Easton Ellis

All the Pretty Horses
– Cormac McCarthy

Last Orders
– Graham Swift

Bridget Jones's Diary
– Helen Fielding

Dirt Music
– Tim Winton

The Lovely Bones
– Alice Sebold

The Line of Beauty
– Alan Hollinghurst

The Sea
– John Banville

Mother's Milk
– Edward St Aubyn

The Savage Detectives
– Roberto Bolaño

Room
– Emma Donoghue

Exclusively for Picador Australia

That Deadman Dance
– Kim Scott

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living
– Carrie Tiffany

Exclusively for Picador India

The Palace of Illusions
– Chitra Divakaruni

Between the Assassinations
– Aravind Adiga

Exclusively for Picador Africa
(non-fiction)

Mukiwa
– Peter Godwin

I Write What I Like
– Steve Biko

Shirley, Goodness & Mercy
– Chris van Wyk