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The Dark Monk by Oliver Pötzsch
Summary: 1660, a small village in the Alps: In the thick of a blizzard, a town priest discovers he’s been poisoned. As numbness creeps up his body, he summons the last of his strength and scratches a sign in the frost that will lead the town hangman, his daughter, and the town physician in pursuit of a treasure of the Knights Templar. But the priest’s murderer is already on their trail, and he’s not the only one after the legendary fortune: a dark monk is not far behind, and a band of thieves is roving the countryside, attacking solitary travelers and spreading panic. The race is on, and the stakes are high.
Discussion Questions:
1. There are a number of allusions to the Templar text Ordinis Templorum Historia and Latin quotes throughout the novel. Explain these references: How do they help to solve the mystery?
2. Explain the various roles religion plays in The Dark Monk.
3. Augustin Bonenmayr is seeking the True Cross of Christ—“It will adorn this church, and crowds of pilgrims will once again come flocking to Steingaden!”—and is willing to do anything to obtain it, even kill. How does history show that religious fervor always leads to violence?
4. The novel opens with a quote from Aristotle, Poetics, XXIV: “We delight in marvelous things. One proof of that is that everyone embellishes somewhat when telling a story in the assumption he is pleasing his listener.” How is this sentiment explored in The Dark Monk? Who in the novel embellishes their story? What, if any, punishment is given to this person?
5. Compare how Oliver Pötzsch fleshes out the male and female characters. Do you think he does a better job with one gender? Why do you think he chose Magdalena Kuisl instead of Jakob Kuisl to title the series after?
6. Discuss the significance of Andreas Koppmeyer. What is his role in the story?
7. How does Benedikta serve as a foil to Magdalena? Who, if anyone, fills that role for Simon?
8. Why is Simon “both attracted and repelled” by Benedikta?
9. How does Simon’s superficial love of fashion and appearance blind him to potential danger?
10. How much, if any, has Johann Lechner changed since the first novel? Is Lechner still willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of Schongau?
11. Explain Kuisl’s worry for Simon while having hardly any for his daughter, Magdalena, while she is in Augsburg. Was it was a wise decision to send Magdalena, a young woman, to Augsburg without an escort?
12. Who do you think the hidden “master” of the story is? Who do you think is the fourth robber?
13. Discuss the significance of Jacob Kuisl referring to his time as a soldier as “from before.”
14. What do you make of Jakob Kuisl’s distinction “I’m a hangman, but not a murderer”?
15. What are some of the pleasures and drawbacks of reading historical novels, especially those with a grounding in reality?
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The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, The Making of a Navy SEAL by Eric Greitens
1. Greitens opens his memoir dramatically with a suicide attack on his barracks in Fallujah. Why does he open the memoir with this incident? In what way is this incident a pivotal moment in his life?
2. What effect does the death of Lieutenant Travis Manion have on Greitens?
3. Greitens writes: “On the frontlines—in humanitarian crises, in wars overseas, and around some kitchen tables here at home—I’d seen that peace is more than the absence of war, and that a good life entails more than the absence of suffering” (p.11). What is needed to create and maintain the “good peace, a solid peace” of which Greitens speaks?
4. How do the heroes of history and legend that Greitens reads about in his youth shape his later interests?
5. What does Greitens mean when he says that after a few weeks of attending college, he felt as if he’d been lied to (p.15)? Why is he disappointed in public policy studies?
6. When Greitens returns from China, why does he decide to take up boxing? In addition to boxing, what are some other things Greitens learns from his trainer, Earl Blair?
7. When he sees his grandfather for the last time, what does Greitens not do that leaves him disappointed in himself?
8. While volunteering in the war-torn former Yugoslavia, why does Greitens refuse to take pictures of a donor who has come to hand out gum to refugee children? What did he dislike about the aid organization advertisements for refugee children?
9. Greitens says, “It was in Gasinci that I got my first lesson in international diplomacy” (p. 60). What does he learn?
10. When Greitens visits a local church congregation to show slides of photographs he took in Bosnia and Croatia, the questions
the audience asks leads him to a sort of epiphany. What does he realize?
11. In Gaza, what does Greitens learn about poverty and the root causes of insurgency and terrorism?
12. After traveling to Rwanda, Colombia, India, and other places around the world, Greitens concludes that aid is not enough. He writes, “It took people with courage to protect those people in need of protection … I could keep talking or I could live my beliefs” (p. 125). How does this realization lead him to enlisting in Navy SEAL training?
13. What are the various reasons the men in Greitens’s group want to be SEALs? Is Greitens’s motive unique?
14. Greitens says, “It’s true that SEALs are capable of great violence, but that’s not what makes SEALs truly special” (p.189). What is it that makes the SEALs special?
15. Writing about Afghanistan, what does Greitens mean when he says, “You can’t buy peace but you can sometimes make a down payment on it” (p. 223).
16. In what ways does Greitens embody the characteristics of the classic citizen-warrior?
17. In the opening chapter, Greitens says Travis Manion reminded him of a line from a speech Pericles made to the families of the Athenian war dead: “What you have left behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” (p. 30). How is the quote reflective of what Greitens has done and continues to do with his life?
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One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer by Nathaniel Fick
1. How does Sergeant Olds compare to drill instructors you have seen portrayed in films and television? What impression does Sergeant Olds make on Fick?
2. What are some examples of how Fick and his fellow candidates are acclimated to violence at Quantico?
3. What five rules of Marine Corps leadership does Captain Fanning share with the candidates?
Which of the rules does the book’s title reference? What does “one bullet away” refer to in the leadership rule?
4. What does the Infantry Officer Course (IOC) represent in the Marine Corps? What is taught in IOC? How does that training compare to the rest Fick receives?
5. What is Fick’s reaction to being placed in command of Bravo Company’s weapons platoon?
6. What are Fick’s first impressions of Jacobabad? Why does his unit’s mission there quickly become a frustration?
7. Before leaving for Kandahar, Fick listens to a CD of a 9/11 benefit concert and says, “A feeling of profound gratitude that I was in a position to get revenge for 9/11 surged through me” (p.106). He says the intensity of the feeling surprised him. Do you think this was a common sentiment among the military sent to Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks? Ten years later, how do you think this sentiment has changed for soldiers serving in Afghanistan?
8. What does Fick mean when he says, “We never returned to the country we’d left? (p.142)? What changes does Fick observe?
9. What disturbs Fick about the “bluster” he observes when he returns to the United States (p.143)?
10. In what ways do the Marine Corps’s reconnaissance units differ from special operations units like the Navy SEAL and Army Special Forces?
11. What motivates Fick to apply for Recon training? How would you characterize the training he receives? What is the worst part of the training for Fick?
12. Before the invasion of Iraq, Fick and other officers listen to a lecture on “rules of engagement.” The lecture reminds Fick of St. Augustine’s “just war” theory he learned in college (p.182). What do you think of the concept of “rules of engagement”?
How is it possible to fight a war according to rules? Is it reasonable to expect that soldiers will follow rules in combat? Is it possible for war to be just? Under what circumstances can war be considered justified?
13. What is the “hyperclarity” that Fick places so much importance on in combat?
14. What is Fick’s reaction to the officers photographing and laughing at the insurgents his unit killed? What are his feelings about the men they’d killed?
15. When Fick’s unit comes across the wounded girl, what does he realize about the difference between training scenarios and reality?
16. Why does the captain want to relieve Gunny Wynn for insubordination? What is Fick’s initial reaction to the captain’s decision? How does Fick convince the captain to reconsider his decision?
17. What insights does Fick offer into the differences between military ideals and military practice?
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The Things They Carried
by Tim O’Brien
1. What are some of the intangible things the soldiers carry in the title story? Which do you think is the greater burden, the tangible or intangible? Who in the unit do you think carries the greatest emotional burden?
2. Of the good-luck charms the soldiers carry, the most macabre is the thumb from a dead VC that Norman Bowker carries. When Mitchell Sanders cuts it from the corpse of the teenage boy, he says “there’s a definite moral here” (p.13). What do you think the moral is that Sanders refers to?
3. How does the death of Ted Lavender affect the men?
4. “They were afraid of dying but they were even more afraid to show it” (p. 20). Why do you think the men are more afraid of showing their fear of dying than death itself? In what ways do they cope with their fears?
5. On the morning after Ted Lavender is killed, why does Lieutenant Cross burn Martha’s letters and photographs?
6. In the story “Love,” the narrator meets Jimmy Cross many years after the war and says “he’d never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death” (p. 27). Why does Cross feel guilty for Lavender’s death? How was he responsible? Should Cross blame himself?
7. In the story “On the Rainy River,” the narrator begins: “This is one story I’ve never told before. Not brother or sister, not even to my wife. . . . Even now I’ll admit the story makes me squirm” (p. 39). What has made him want to tell the story now?
8. The narrator has to choose between accepting the draft or dodging it by going to Canada. He asks, “What would you do?” (p. 56) How would you answer?
9. In “How to Tell a True War Story,” O’Brien writes: “A true war story is never moral” (p. 68). What does this mean? Is it possible to tell a true war story? O’Brien’s stories are autobiographical but works of fiction. To what extent can fiction be true?
10. O’Brien writes: “In any war story, but especially a true one, it’s difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen” (p.71). How is it possible to tell a “true” story when what happened cannot be separated from what seemed to happen?
11. The stories “Speaking of Courage,” “Notes,” and “In the Field” all deal with Kiowa’s death told from different perspectives.
How do these different perspectives shape your understanding of Kiowa’s death and the incident’s effect on the platoon?
12. What are some literary devices O’Brien uses to make the reader feel the immediacy and reality of the war?
13. In “How to Tell a War Story,” O’Brien writes: “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty” (p. 80). What are some examples of the paradoxes of war that O’ Brien reveals through his stories?
14. “A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe” (p.78). Which of the stories made your stomach believe? What is it about them that felt “true”?
15. In “The Lives of the Dead,” O’Brien writes: “Stories can save us” (p. 225). How do stories save the narrator?
Downloadable Guide for Group Discussion and Classroom Use.
