Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, and our BookBrowse Review of The View from Castle Rock.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Book
In her most personal collection to date,
Alice Munro has created stories based on her
own past as well as by elaborating on the
tracesletters, records, tombstonesleft
behind by her ancestors from Scotland who
sailed for Canada in 1818. In the title
story, ten-year-old Andrew Laidlaw is taken
by his father James to see the view of
Americathough later he learns that its
really Fifefrom Edinburghs Castle Rock.
When the family takes ship for the new
world, the father who had longed to leave
Scotland becomes solidly a man of his
homeland, nostalgic for the world hes left
behind. His daughter-in-law gives birth at
sea, and his son becomes intimate with a
young woman dying of tuberculosis. The
immigrants struggle to create a new world
for themselves, as their lives become a part
of the history of the land theyve settled.
A father dies, a newborn baby
disappearsapparently kidnappedand is found
again.
In the second part of the book, Munro
moves closer to her immediate family and her
own girlhood in a world where families
struggle to get by on small farms along Lake
Huron. A hired girl, working for a wealthy
family at a summer resort, is faced with the
realization of her lack of status in the
social world. In an apple orchard, a clever
girl and a canny young man discover a
private place for romance. A young woman
about to be married hears about the love
affairs of her grandmother and great aunt,
and is offered a surprising gift. The
landscape, throughout, is marked with human
toil and traces of habitation, and all its
vanishing detailsa cellar hole, a
gravehold the stories of those who lived
there long ago. In
The View from Castle
Rock, Munro brings the passions, the
labor and the yearnings of the dead to life
again, allowing readers to recognize, in
them, ourselves.
For Discussion
- "No Advantages":
Visiting the graveyard of Ettrick Church,
Munro finds the tombstone of her
great-great-great-great grandfather, and is
struck with a feeling that "Past and present
lumped together here made a reality that was
commonplace and yet disturbing beyond
anything I had imagined" [p. 7]. What is
disturbing about this merging of past and
present?
- "The View from Castle Rock":
Agnes is a willful, sexually alert woman,
trapped in her fate as a woman and mother
[p. 72]. She is married to Andrew Laidlaw
although she had been involved with his
brother James [p. 67], who has already gone
out to Nova Scotia. Andrew, we are told,
"was the one that she needed in her
circumstances" [p. 55]. What might her
circumstances have been? In what ways does
Agnes seem to embody the desires and
frustrations of women in her time, and
possibly in our time?
- Why does the old James mention "the
curse of Eve" with regard to Agnes [pp.
44-45]? Discuss Munros prose in the
paragraphs describing Agnes childbirth [pp.
46-47]. What is most effective, moving, or
realistic about this scene?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.