The People of Paper

We were lucky to have Salvador Plascencia come to the Notre Dame campus and read from The People of Paper on September 15. He was a very engaging speaker, and quite personable at the party afterward, as well. Because of this, our book club chose his book for our discussion yesterday. I really loved it! It is probably the most original book I have ever read.

Oddly enough, I could not find any discussion questions online, so here are the ones I wrote. Feel free to add more in the comments.

Spoilers below…

• Why does the author choose to represent himself as Saturn, rather than any other heavenly body?
• Why a war on Saturn? That is, why does EMF specifically choose Saturn to fight? What do they think they will gain from it? Why do they think he is their enemy? How is it that they believe in both a Catholic god and Saturn?
• What do the mechanical tortoises represent?
• Which “facts” are untrue? For example, can eating too many limes really kill you? Are there really people who get off on bee stings? Does living near lead (rather than ingesting it) cause nausea? What are the purposes of these “facts”?
• What do the drawings of the hands (in the table of contents and at the beginnings of sections) represent?
• Is Baby Nostradamus really able to see the future? Or is it just in the heads of other people?
• What does it mean that some characters (Baby Nostradamus and Little Merced) can block their thoughts from Saturn? How can the author not know what his characters are thinking?
• Do you think the author originally intended to write a different, less complex book that morphed into the published version after his breakup with Liz? Or was it planned as is from the start?