September book: The Wall by John Lanchester

The Wall

by John Lanchester

Discussion led by AD







Some background links to get you started: 

• Publisher's page for the book (Allen & Unwin)
• Review in The Guardian: The Wall by John Lanchester review – dystopian fable for our time by Johanna Thomas-Corr
• Review in The New York Times: Rising Seas, Migrants, War: A Timely Novel From John Lanchester by Alec Nevala-Lee
• Review from The Independent: The Wall by John Lanchester, review: A dystopian novel that is almost unbearably timely by Daisy Buchanan
• The Washington Post: ‘The Wall’ imagines the wall of Donald Trump’s dreams by Ron Charles
• The Financial Times: The Wall by John Lanchester — a brilliant dystopian portrait of Britain by Jon Day
• The Scotsman: Book review: The Wall, by John Lanchester by Stuart Kelly
• The Times Literary Supplement: Twenty Questions with John Lanchester
• Readers Guide from The Booker Prize 2019
• The Guardian - Interview with John Lanchester by Lisa Allardice: ‘Walls were coming down around the world – now they are springing up’
• Video: John Lanchester: The Wall | Town Hall Seattle
• Video: Bill Kenower interviews John Lanchester, author of The Wall.
• Podcast: London Review of Books - John Lanchester and Daniel Soar: The Wall
• Podcast: Beyond the wall, with John Lanchester By Jonn Elledge
• Podcast: Talking Politics: The Wall

What we discussed about the book: 

• The opening sentence is “It’s cold on the Wall.” The final sentence is also ‘It’s cold on the Wall.”What is the significance of this? Is it a form of concrete poetry?
• Does ‘everything have to be all right’ for a story to make sense? Why does Kavanagh think that telling the story of the Wall fits that bill?
• How do we feel as readers when we think it is not all going to be alright? 
• Are you left with a feeling of hope or possibility at the end of the novel?  Or despair? 
• Trump’s use of ‘the beautiful wall’ in talking about the border fence was a form of storytelling – to what extent is this an oppositional story that shows what happens to a society if you do build walls?  
• Does this book's dramatisation of the threat of climate change hit the mark?
• Did the events seems realistic or too far-fetched to be seem a possible future? Does this matter in dystopian fiction? 
• Are the young right to hate the old? What does the novel say about the ways that generations interact? In what other situations do you see this type of generational discord? (e.g politics, Covid, refugee issues, marriage equality) 
• Who is to blame for the Change?
• Is this an allegory about global warming, populism, isolationism, or Brexit — or is it literally just a story about a guy standing on a wall? In the opening page Kavanagh says ‘You look for the metaphors...’ 
• If it is an allegory – which parts are easy to decode vs what is not? 
• So many of the names are capitalised – the Others, Breeders, Elite, the Wall, Defenders, the Help - what is the effect of this?
• What is an Other? How did you imagine what an Other was, how it felt to be an Other? We never really get to see those Others, how does the author create empathy for the Others? 
• Is this a novel about powerlessness? How is that explored as a Defender vs as an Other? 
• Who was the Captain? What do we as readers know about him? What was his motivation? 
• As a narrator, is Kavanagh reliable? Do his views align with our own? Does his first person voice restrict us from seeing or knowing as much about the world and the circumstances as we want to?
• Boredom is a feature of life on the Wall – how was that portrayed?
• What we wanted to know about the Change and its effects but didn't...e.g. how it happened, what parts of culture are retained and what is not, how was that achieved? 
• Are the characters, particularly the women, under developed? What is the effect of that? Initially, some of the Defenders appear gender ambiguous, what is the effect of that? 

And we were sidetracked into...

• Second readings of books - how knowing an ending affects subsequent readings...to what extent is each reading a 'different book'.
• What is the purpose of walls? Keeping people out or keeping people in? (i.e. fortress or prison) Keeping the sea out? Demarkation of ‘property’? What are the features of a good wall? 
• The Wall seems to draw on or reflect a lot of contemporary events. What real-life images came to your mind with the symbolism of The Wall? (Mexico wall, Brexit, Berlin wall, Great Wall of China, city walls, sea walls, prison walls, refugee crises) 
• What is the symbolism of walls?

In other news, we discussed:

• navigating the medical system in Covid-times
• home-schooling - dress standards
• the experience of hotel quarantine
• perceptions of WA life by those on the outside of the border and vice versa
• The Social Dilemma - Netflix documentary-drama hybrid exploring the dangerous human impact of social networking
• The Great Hack - Netflix - documentary about Cambridge Analytica's dark role in the use of social media in the 2016 US presidential election.
• The Bureau - SBS on Demand - drama based on real accounts from French spies, 

Ratings

Range: 5 to 8.5

Average: 7.09

Next up:

Educated by Tara Westover