Huntsville-Madison County Public Library discussion

Good evening! If you plan to meet at 7 to discuss A Gathering of Old Men, I am Annie and I am going to post questions/moderate the discussion. I look forward to talking with anyone who might join!

I'll throw the first question out there - did you read all of the book, and if so, was this the first time reading it or had you read it before? I finished it last week, and it was my first time reading it and any Ernest Gaines book.

Welcome any group members who might be joining the discussion! Since it is now 7pm I will post the first question. Forgive me if this seems awkward - I know it's not exactly IM, but I thought I would give this a try and see how it goes!

Reading A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines uses a multiple narrator technique - someone new is introduced each chapter. What effect did this narrative technique have on your reading of the book, and what was the purpose?

Annie wrote: "Reading A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines uses a multiple narrator technique - someone new is introduced each chapter. What effect did this narrative technique have on your reading of the book, and wh..."

I sometimes will give a silent groan when I come across multiple narrators - I think it is just my lazy brain getting comfortable with a character and not wanting to switch gears, but then I'll get completely wrapped up in each new person that is introduced. I think it was very well done in AGOOM - especially with such charged viewpoints of these characters, and it helped to move the story along in the 12 or so hours it was mostly set in.

Second question - Many of the old men express gratitude for the fact that they can confess to Beau's murder, even though they did not kill him. Why would they feel grateful when they could be possibly punished for their confessions?

I think this one is kind of a softball - these men had been subjugated, insulted, injured and many had family members killed or suffered great injustices their entire lives, going back through generations of slavery. This was the last chance for many of them to make their stand against decades of wrong done to them.

Third question - Although the book seems to deal mostly with men, black women are quiet but still strong characters in the novel. Discuss their role.

Fourth question - The book deals with many serious issues of miscarried justice. What do you think of the judge's final verdict? Why does the author choose to close the book with a comical courtroom scene after dealing with such serious issues?

Fifth question - Gaines frequently reports upon how the black characters have different skin tones. Why does Gaines think that this fact is important? Using at least three black characters as examples discuss their skin color in relation to their personality and the community.

Sixth question - On the way to Mathu's house, why do the old men linger in the cemetery? What does the graveyard represent?

Seventh question - Sheriff Mapes sits down and seems to give up during the shootout even though he is barely hurt. Why does he do this?

Eighth question - Why does Jack Marshall spend his days in a drunken stupor? How do his daily actions relate to his family's history?

Ninth question - Originally, Gaines had intended to use as narrator, Lou Dimes, a sympathetic white reporter with ties to the quarters through his relationship with Candy, the niece of the white couple whose family had owned the plantation where the black sharecroppers had worked and their ancestors had been slaves. "The original idea," Gaines told an interviewer, "was that Lou Dimes was a 'liberal white guy' who's played basketball with blacks, who sees a relationship with Candy and Mathu and between Mapes and Mathu, sees something bout these old men, and from a liberal viewpoint is learning and trying to understand and tell it" (Conversations with Ernest Gaines, 167). But Dimes could not understand or reveal to readers all the inner thinking of the African-American characters. How would the impact of the story have been different if Dimes had been the single narrator?

Tenth question - There are obvious injustices spoken of in the stories told by the different first-person narrators. But, what are the small ways in which Gaines shows the everyday indignities to African Americans at the time the story takes place? For example, the white women are given the honorific title "Miss" or "Mrs." There is a climactic scene in which Charlie, an African-American man in his 50s, is finally addressed as "Mr. Biggs" by the white sheriff. What significance does his choice of words represent?

Annie wrote: "Good evening! If you plan to meet at 7 to discuss A Gathering of Old Men, I am Annie and I am going to post questions/moderate the discussion. I look forward to talking with anyone who might join!"

Sorry about not joining in the online discussion - I didn't know about it earlier and, truth be told, I have only been following the Madison Mega-Reads group since that is what got me into Goodreads. Anyhow, I did pick up this book, read it, and this is my first Ernest Gaines book.

Annie wrote: "Annie wrote: "Reading A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines uses a multiple narrator technique - someone new is introduced each chapter. What effect did this narrative technique have on your reading of th..."

I groaned at first with the multiple narratives. Luckily, this book didn't go back and forth between narratives so it wasn't as confusing as other books I've read that did that. The author did a pretty good job about giving individual voices to each new character. And, it did help with the flow of the book.

Annie wrote: "I'll throw the first question out there - did you read all of the book, and if so, was this the first time reading it or had you read it before? I finished it last week, and it was my first time re..."

I read it all and this was my first time reading it.

Annie wrote: "Reading A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines uses a multiple narrator technique - someone new is introduced each chapter. What effect did this narrative technique have on your reading of the book, and wh..."

I've read other books that use this technique, so I didn't mind it. The technique was used in this case to introduce new information, and the purpose was probably varied: 1) to give the book depth in general; 2) to help introduce new characters; 3) to give background to the central action; 4) to flesh out the varying black and white points of view.

Annie wrote: "Second question - Many of the old men express gratitude for the fact that they can confess to Beau's murder, even though they did not kill him. Why would they feel grateful when they could be possi..."

This is the opportunity for the "old men" to finally stand up for themselves as "a man should" and that a lifetime in the Jim Crow South had never afforded them. I can see that slavery might be brought into the discussion because of the cemetery and the quarters that are being encroached upon by the Cajuns, but that is background. The more immediate experience is post-slavery.

Annie wrote: "Third question - Although the book seems to deal mostly with men, black women are quiet but still strong characters in the novel. Discuss their role."

For the "youngsters" in the group, this might not be as compelling a question, but it is one of the things that I was conscious of while reading the book. The time of publication of the book (1983) was about the time that questions of black women as feminists in their own right were becoming acute. Before, their role in the Civil Rights movement had been put aside. They had to put race first before gender. Of course, in 1970s rural Louisiana, none of this would have applied. But I can see the seeds of this attitude being born as the desire for the black man to "be a man" is revealed in the novel.

Annie wrote: "Fourth question - The book deals with many serious issues of miscarried justice. What do you think of the judge's final verdict? Why does the author choose to close the book with a comical courtroo..."

The judge's final verdict ties it up very neatly, but is probably the best justice that the black community has ever gotten in that no one else had to pay for the death of a Cajun (i.e., Fix's group didn't get involved).

My first thought about the ending is that this was published in 1983, and Gaines spent part of his time at USL beginning in 1984. I attended classes at USL one summer. If he didn't want to be fed to the alligator on campus, I imagine a comic ending might have been preferred. ;^)

The other thought may be way out there, but some say that the difference between a comedy and a tragedy in Shakespeare is whether there is a wedding or a funeral in the end. In this nover, there are a couple of funerals and an implied wedding that may or may not ever happen. Was the comic ending intended to be ironic?

Annie wrote: "Fifth question - Gaines frequently reports upon how the black characters have different skin tones. Why does Gaines think that this fact is important? Using at least three black characters as examp..."

There are two reasons.

One is a very popular topic now, but I think it was intended to imply a very close relationship between the blacks of the community and the whites who are descended from the original plantation owners.

The other is an implied differentiation within the black community based on darker to lighter skin pigmentation.

Annie wrote: "Seventh question - Sheriff Mapes sits down and seems to give up during the shootout even though he is barely hurt. Why does he do this?"

Mapes is one of the more interesting characters me. Once the fight has come to violence, he has lost control of the balance that he carefully maintained in the situation. I could "see" the tightrope he was walking, but once shots were fired, he had fallen.

Annie wrote: "Eighth question - Why does Jack Marshall spend his days in a drunken stupor? How do his daily actions relate to his family's history?"

Jack was able to maintain his "seigneurie" attitude over the blacks in his "care" as long as segregation was in play, but once it was abolished he lost his footing. Candy then took over, and it is her attitude that is very interesting, once "the old men" want to assert their own rights.

Thank you Jessie and Liz for the thoughtful comments and for participating in the discussion! Jessie, I think you mentioned before that you would be interested in doing another discussion like this, where I post questions that we could comment on at leisure. I'd like to try that!

I'd also like to add, that if you wanted to read more along the lines of A Gathering of Old Men, I am just now starting a non-fiction book called Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson. I am about 50 pages in and it is riveting. It concerns the shooting of a black man in 1970 Oxford, NC and from Tyson's (who is white) point of view of the murder and aftermath - he was 10 at the time, and his father was a Methodist minister who advocated for reason and they were eventually driven out of town.

Annie wrote: "I'd also like to add, that if you wanted to read more along the lines of A Gathering of Old Men, I am just now starting a non-fiction book called Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson. I am a..."

Added it to my "to read" list, on your recommendation. :^)