So, this is also a domestic novel, isnt it? Its stage is the home and the family. But it plays on ou

So, this is also a domestic novel, isnt it? Its stage is the home and the family. But it plays on ou

So, this is also a domestic novel, isnt it? Its stage is the home and the family. But it plays on our expectations in sly and artful ways. Talk about how Baker takes the conventions of the domestic novel and spins or subverts them (and also selectively honors them) for his imaginative purposes. What do you find surprising about this novels relationship to the domestic novel tradition? It might help to use one or two more traditional domestic novels as benchmarks. [R]
11. There is a long tradition of poems, prayers, novels, allegories, and essays premised on a speaker contemplating the place of man in the universe (of space and time) from a perspective of one alone in the dark. Three examples are Philip Larkins poem “Aubade,” Coleridges poem “Frost at Midnight” and Paul Austers novel Man in the Dark. If you know any of these, or another in a similar vein, construct a thoughtful intertextual reading of A Box of Matches. [R]
12. The narrator is a man with interesting reading preferences and habits. He mentions liking specific Robert Services poems, editing medical textbooks, reading Kipling, reading users manuals, and other kinds of texts. Zero in on some of these passages that mention or allude to other texts, research what you can, and explain what you think these details tell us about him and about Bakers larger themes in the novel. [R]
16. Emmetts morning reveries lead to some wildly imaginative fantasies. One (pp. 20-21, on the fifth day) is reminiscent of a famous story by Julio Cortazar called “A Continuity of Parks.” See if you can find it to compare to Emmetts version. Any thoughts on Emmetts brain, or Bakers?? [R] Why does Emmett riff on suicide?
21. What does this book have in common with one of the following?: Annie Dillards Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Thoreaus Walden, Kazuo Ishiguros The Remains of the Day, Gerard Manley Hopkins poem “Spring and Fall” (“Margaret, Are you Grieving?…), Shakespeares “Hamlet.” [R]