Moral Analysis of What Is ‘At Stake In This Story’

Naomi Kanakia on discussing novels

People by PixLoger and books by Mystic Art Design, both from Pixabay

Nonfiction is easy to discuss with friends, but fiction is more slippery. And yet, book clubs want to read fiction. I’m looking at Naomi Kanakia’s essay, “The Dreariness of Book Club Discussions” (Los Angeles Review of Books, November 2, 2022).

People discussing fiction, she complains, tend to examine “what the author doesn’t say (deconstruction), or why the author said it (power analysis), or how the author said it (New Criticism), or how we felt about what the author said (book reviewing).” In book clubs, there’s probably a better way.

Those Four Unproductive Approaches

As Kanakia explains them, and as I have absorbed what she says:

Things unsaid

You can deconstruct a novel. But if you’re just going to ignore its apparent meanings, look for hidden meanings and things left “unsaid,” and ultimately talk about whatever interests you, why did you pick this book and not another?

Things shaped by harmful systems

Power analysis lets you discuss how a novel is “racist or misogynist or homophobic or whatever.” But you’ll find what you’re looking for, so this approach inevitably…