1. One of the quandaries
at the heart of Michael Ondaatje's novel is reconciling Rose Williams's
bravery, indeed her patriotic heroism, and her treatment of Nathaniel
and Rachel. How do readers, and especially her (fictional) children,
wrap their heads around this inconsistency? How are we to consider Rose?
2. What do you make of Moth and Darter? As Nathaniel, in the opening
lines, puts it, "our parents left us in the care of two men who may have
been criminals."
3. Consider this passage from the novel and how it might be said to sum
up one of the story's central concerns:
We never know more than the surface of any
relationship after a certain stage, just as those layers of chalk, built
from the efforts of infinitesimal creatures, work in almost limitless
time
.
4. Warlight's structure is anything
but linear as it shifts back and forth in time and point of view. Is it
confusing? Might the structure be a reflection of Nathaniel's own
confusion: his sense of being able to see reality only dimly—as if
through "warlight"?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: What are your thoughts on the
second section of the novel with its sudden switch from to the
third-person perspective? Did you find it difficult to integrate this
outside voice into the overall narration?
6. "The lost sequence in a life, they say, is the thing we always search
out," Nathaniel tells us. How has that "lost sequence" of Nathaniel's
life shaped who he is? When he and Rachel discover that the reason their
mother gave for leaving them was not the true reason, how did her lie
make them feel? What lasting repercussions does her untruthfulness
leave?
7. What does Nathaniel resolve within himself by the novel's
end—what understanding has he come to? Or are things left unresolved for
him—and for us? Is there a satisfactory resolution at the conclusion?