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Reading Group Guide for "Teach Me How To Die"
If you've read "Teach Me How To Die,"Teach Me How to Die I hope it's gotten you thinking about a lot of different subjects.
This discussion guide is for anyone looking for a more formalized way to think and talk about the book, and for book clubs. I'd love to hear your answers to these questions and prompts. Thanks!
<spoiler>
READING GROUP GUIDE for
TEACH ME HOW TO DIE by Joseph Rauch
1. What is your impression of Walter as the book opens? As the book continues? Once you know the history of his childhood and dramatic experiences with and separation from his mother?
2. Why do you think the author chose to begin Teach Me How To Die with such a gruesome scene? Did you like the book’s slightly non-linear structure?
3. What did you think of the man Walter encounters in his bedroom when he first dies, the one who urges him toward violence? What did you think of the process Walter undergoes where he is allowed to experience performing horrible acts to purge himself of repressed desires?
4. Share your own conception of the afterlife.
5. How do your spiritual and religious views affect your interpretation of The Truth, the being who oversees the book’s version of the afterlife? How do David (the sex-addict/adulterer soul) and Yolanda (the nun soul) process the afterlife as a place that is far from a Christian vision of heaven?
6. Do you agree with Walter’s guide, Vincent, that “both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ men…have the same potential for horrific action” (page 35)?
7. Vincent calls The Truth “an asshole.” Explore Vincent’s negative views of humans and spiritual beings alike, and his frustrations over being a guide that he voices near the book’s conclusion. Are they well-founded?
8. What are your thoughts about Teach Me How To Die’s version of justice and judgment, as witnessed in the courtroom setting? What about the trials being viewed as entertainment for the spiritual beings; does this remind you of any historical precedents or recent/current events? Share your experiences if you have ever been on a jury or witnessed a trial from start to finish.
9. Walter muses: “What would happen in the physical realm if technology existed that could dole out rewards and punishments in the way The Truth did?” (page 79). How would you envision that possibility?
10. What lessons can be gleaned from the life, experiences, and attitudes of Hilda, Walter’s mother?
11. If you had the Right of Choice granted to you, where you could select nothingness or a fantasy, what would you choose? What do you think of Walter’s choice of “‘Nothingness is perfect for me’” (page 149), especially as he explains his decision to Vincent?
</spoiler>
This discussion guide is for anyone looking for a more formalized way to think and talk about the book, and for book clubs. I'd love to hear your answers to these questions and prompts. Thanks!
<spoiler>
READING GROUP GUIDE for
TEACH ME HOW TO DIE by Joseph Rauch
1. What is your impression of Walter as the book opens? As the book continues? Once you know the history of his childhood and dramatic experiences with and separation from his mother?
2. Why do you think the author chose to begin Teach Me How To Die with such a gruesome scene? Did you like the book’s slightly non-linear structure?
3. What did you think of the man Walter encounters in his bedroom when he first dies, the one who urges him toward violence? What did you think of the process Walter undergoes where he is allowed to experience performing horrible acts to purge himself of repressed desires?
4. Share your own conception of the afterlife.
5. How do your spiritual and religious views affect your interpretation of The Truth, the being who oversees the book’s version of the afterlife? How do David (the sex-addict/adulterer soul) and Yolanda (the nun soul) process the afterlife as a place that is far from a Christian vision of heaven?
6. Do you agree with Walter’s guide, Vincent, that “both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ men…have the same potential for horrific action” (page 35)?
7. Vincent calls The Truth “an asshole.” Explore Vincent’s negative views of humans and spiritual beings alike, and his frustrations over being a guide that he voices near the book’s conclusion. Are they well-founded?
8. What are your thoughts about Teach Me How To Die’s version of justice and judgment, as witnessed in the courtroom setting? What about the trials being viewed as entertainment for the spiritual beings; does this remind you of any historical precedents or recent/current events? Share your experiences if you have ever been on a jury or witnessed a trial from start to finish.
9. Walter muses: “What would happen in the physical realm if technology existed that could dole out rewards and punishments in the way The Truth did?” (page 79). How would you envision that possibility?
10. What lessons can be gleaned from the life, experiences, and attitudes of Hilda, Walter’s mother?
11. If you had the Right of Choice granted to you, where you could select nothingness or a fantasy, what would you choose? What do you think of Walter’s choice of “‘Nothingness is perfect for me’” (page 149), especially as he explains his decision to Vincent?
</spoiler>
Joseph Rauch's Blog
Short essays, fiction, and supplementary pieces by Joseph Rauch
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