A VISIT FROM VOLTAIRE – DINAH LEE KÜNG

A VISIT FROM VOLTAIRE
A Comic Novel — About the Unlikeliest of Friends
Dinah Lee Küng

                             




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Questions for Reading Groups

1. Discuss the three narrative threads running throughout the book; Voltaire's story, the narrator's background and the comic frames of each chapter set in her new locale. What themes link each thread to the other two?

2. As the narrator repeatedly admits, she's no match for the Great Voltaire.
But in what way do her hapless travels and quest for meaning match Candide's?

3. If Voltaire were still around to run his website infame.org, can you think of some other causes he might pursue? Or reject? What might he say about torture, slavery, child abuse?

4. If Emilie were alive today, what do you think she'd be doing? How might her balance of love, work and social obligations shift? How do you think Emilie stacks up as a "modern woman"? How does Voltaire rate as the "enlightened" partner of such a liberated woman?

5. What do you think Voltaire would say about today's Vatican, and trends under the newly installed Pope Benedict XVI who says one of his missions is to re-evangelize Europe?

6. How well do you think Voltaire survives as a philosopher? What do you think was his greatest achievement after all?

7. Which Voltaire would you like to spend a month with - the ambitious social-climbing playwright whizzkid, the curious and reclusive scientist and historian in Cirey, the crotchety human rights campaigner or the "Father of Europe" on his estate in Ferney?

8. Can you compare anyone in today's world to Voltaire?

9. What lessons does Voltaire teach the narrator by the story's end? What might he have learned from testing twenty-first-century waters?

10. In many ways this book is about adaptation, flexibility and maintaining a sense of humour in the face of life's unexpected curves - no matter what your century. Think of some challenges, transitions or setbacks you've faced. Name the historical person who could best help see you through. (No points for Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun. Pillage doesn't pay. You'll have to clean up after your houseguest has left.)