PAAE: the end

Free write: "I struggled to my feet and began to walk. My father had been right — the paintings were not to be found — and had turned back as soon as he sensed this, which was almost instantly. I had gone on, blindly. I was a work on paper: weightless, sketchy, all impulse" (210). What is Max realizing about himself? What insight does this offer us into his character? Into the character of his father?

Now -- bring it to you. Reflect on and write about a time when your parents saw something more quickly than you did. And I'm not talking about seeing a spider or a deer crossing the road. I'm talking about seeing something monumental, something important that it took you a while to understand.

Discussion

1. Let's look at Micheline as she appears throughout the novel. In what ways does the discovery of Micheline make Max rethink his past?

2. On p. 220, Daniel says, "Let us never speak of this again." What does Daniel want to forget? Think literally and figuratively.

3. p. 225: "And so my father's picture joined the other images in the lost museum of my mind."

4. p. 227: "The will told me Rose was most likely in Paris, and I felt a vague unpleasant anger toward the dead. How often had my father been in contact with her during my decades of faithful silence? With what knowledge had he died."

5. p. 231: "Did this mean that a son's love and grief for his father triumphed over all? Or that, in a moment of reckoning, I had seen and remembered nothing? I understood then that Rose had begun to bid only once I had stopped. She had been sent to Drouot's, or went of her own accord, in case I had forgotten what I would see there."

6. p. 231: "The shimmering of the city was also part of the canvas: Matisse's lemons seemed to float above the table and the white plate on which they might have rested, if they had been given rest. It was a still life that had not been granted stillness. I thought of the dimensions of the painting, of its flat and hovering planes, and that somewhere, in between the two, lingered those whom I had lost."

PAAE: 176-204

Free write: Max struggles to find a balance between what he wants and what Rose has done for society. He also struggles with the decisions his parents made about keeping his sister's death a secret. This is a classic individual versus society conflict.

**How have we seen this manifested in the novel thus far? (be specific and use the text)

**How has this type of struggle come up in your life OR the life of your character?

Max has a sister! What?! Where can we see Micheline in the text? Break up into groups and find her. Put your findings on the board.

PAAE: 147-175

Free write: "Her every belonging, Madam van Seyveld said, has been replaced by something that resembled its predecessor but was fundamentally different" (123). This same sentiment was shared by many people after the war. We can even see this happening to Max as he is trying to replace Rose/their relationship and his father's paintings.

Option 1: Think about your character for the scrapbook project and write about something that was replaced in their lives with a similar yet "fundamentally different" item.

Option 2: Think about your own life and write about how something was replaced with something similar but "fundamentally different."

Jacques Jaujard and more

Discussion

** Let's look at some slides, first

1. In what ways is Chaim's refusal to have his passport stamped "Deporté" a sign of his struggle with identity, a struggle with its dynamics and what define him?

2. p. 124: the resourcefulness of the art dealers (I love this story!)

3. p. 129: Chevalier's "Valentine"

4. What does Sara contrast of Chaim and Max's war time experiences on p. 131?

5. In what ways has Max receded from the foreground of the action?

6. Exactly what did Rose do during the water (p. 148-152, 158, 170-175)?

7. Do you think Max needs Rose or wants Rose? Justify your response.

8. Recovery of one painting ... p. 162

9. Dream p. 165

10. Rose's rebuttal: p. 169

**How has Max's voice changed over the course of the novel thus far? How would you describehis voice in Parts 1 & 2? Part 3?

PAAE: 113-146

Night & Fog video

** Let's look at some slides

PAAE: 81-112

Free write: How much change can we survive and still remain ourselves? Think about how context informs our identity and what happens when the context changes to the extent that Max and Daniel experienced it.

Some questions from prior reading ...

1. "You love to learn, Max, you love to desire" (58) Is this a true assessment of Max as we, the reader, know him?

2. What role does Bertrand serve as this point in the novel?

3. Tone of the start of Chapter 6

4. Part 3: the homecoming. Let's read the chapter out loud. How would you describe the tone and mood of the chapter?

From last night's

1. What has become of Paris? Reference specifics from the text as to the changes that have occurred or are observed.

2. p. 96: the curse. What's that all about? How does Daniel's response to the stolen art work reveal his true character?

3. p. 98: What are we to think of Daniel's comment that, "This is why we do poorly when we affix ourselves to objects. They lead to longing and to speculation." What then is Daniel missing? Why is he so depressed in Paris? So depressed is has begun to die.

4. How is Max surviving in Paris? How is he trying to recapture what was lost in his life?

PAAE: 57-80

Some creative writing

p. 43: Pictures at an Exhibition Promenade (walking between paintings), Gnome (first painting seen), The Old Castle (next painting)

"This is the closest you can ever get to that exhibition. They say all of Hartmann's paintings have been lost, so there is only the music."

What do you see?

PAAE: 24-56

Free write: How does absence register in our awareness? When we miss something or someone, how do we know that?

When Max notices his curiosity about Rose, it comes through the hot water he misses in his shower, from the outline of light cast from her window at night, from the empty chair at meals.

For your writing today, you have two choices. If you want, target this to your character for the scrapbook project. Imagine a journal entry in which your character is missing someone or something. By what means does your character measure what is not there? How is that someone or something known in its absence?

If you can’t imagine (at least right now) what or who your character would be missing, think about the phrase “the room was empty” and think of what an empty room contains that makes us know it as “empty”. Use all your senses. If you closed your eyes, for example, what would tell you about a room and it’s being empty?

Perhaps the room exercise will lead you later to something about your character.

**Let's move to the board!