Discussion Guide: Strawberry Fields

This guide for classrooms and book groups contains discussion questions, activities, and a list of key terms and notable people and places from Patrick D. Joyce's novel Strawberry Fields.

NOTE: If you haven’t finished the book, there may be spoilers below!

 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. What did you know about Czechoslovakia and the Prague Spring before reading this book? Did you look things up while reading? Did the story or characters change what you thought about them?

  2. How much did you know about Beatles songs like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “I Am the Walrus” before reading this book? Has it changed your impression of these songs, the band, or their music generally?

  3. The Playwright speculates that Czechoslovak leaders ordered the country’s military to stand down because they feared a repeat of what happened in Budapest in 1956, when troops sided with Soviet invaders and much blood was shed. It must have been a difficult decision, and it shaped the nature of the resistance and underground movement that followed. What do you think might be some of the factors leaders must weigh in deciding how to resist an invasion? Is there a “right” response? How might it differ depending on the circumstances? 

  4. Josie comes to understand that “Home could mean more than a place. It could be a feeling.” What do you think she means? In what ways can home mean something other than a physical location? 

  5. Laurent reflects that a poem can be a mystery, and discovers that a song can be too. What does he mean? In what ways can music and poetry hide secret meanings or reveal truths about the world? 

  6. Václav Havel, the Czech playwright and underground activist who was elected president of Czechoslovakia after the fall of the Soviet Union, wrote that, “If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth.” A major source of that threat was “young people who wanted no more than to be able to live within the truth, to play the music they enjoyed, to sing songs that were relevant to their lives, and to live freely in dignity and partnership.” What do you think Havel meant? What is the relationship between music and truth? Do young people somehow have greater access to truth? 

  7. Janek Mroz expresses the wish that “society could be as beautiful and as orderly as a sonnet.” Members of the Stasi, East Germany’s feared secret police during the Cold War, actually formed a poetry club inspired by a similar desire. We normally think of poetry, art, and music as inherently good things. What do you think is right and what is wrong with Mroz’s wish? How does Laurent later challenge him?  

  8. Laurent says his father wrote poetry in his native Ethiopian language of Amharic “that would say one thing but hint at its opposite, and we had to figure out the double meaning. It’s traditional in Ethiopia. Our poets mask insults with praise, a gentle form of rebellion against the powerful.” Can you think of other examples of this in literature, music, or everyday language? 

  9. Josie and Laurent face choices between advancing their careers as journalists and helping a cause. Do you think they let personal attachments (Josie’s grandmother, Laurent’s friendship with Mroz) influence their choices too much? Too little? What choices might they have made differently? 

  10. The Playwright says that, “The invaders can kill people and destroy monuments. But they cannot shoot ideas.” She fears an even more potent weapon: lies. What do you think she means? 

  11. Laurent says, “Sometimes absurdity is the only rational response to the world around us.” What do you think he means? Can you think of examples today? 

  12. One theme in the story concerns transformation, or “metamorphosis” as referred to in the chapter title or Kafka’s short story. Who or what is transformed over the course of the book? Are the changes real or merely perceived? What are the consequences? 

ACTIVITIES

  1. Pick a favorite song and examine its lyrics. Are there any lyrics that you think might be considered dangerous or be banned in a place where an authoritarian government restricts freedom of expression? Can you find any “hidden meanings” in the song? 

  2. Read Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky” and listen to “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles. How are they “absurd”? In your opinion, does their absurdity magnify their impact, or lessen it?  Can you find any “hidden meanings” in them?  

KEY TERMS 

Amharic

Central Committee

Communist Party

Eastern Bloc

Iron Curtain

Kremlin

National Assembly

Prague Spring

Presidium

Radio Prague

StB

VB

Velvet Revolution

Warsaw Pact

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR, Soviet Union) 

NOTABLE PLACES

Addis Ababa

Czechoslovakia (Czechoslovak Socialist Republic)

Davle

Malá Strana

Minsk

Moscow

Old Town Square

Prague

Prague Castle

River Vltava

Soviet Union

Vitkov Hill

Wenceslas Square

NOTABLE PEOPLE

The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr)

Leonid Brezhnev

Alexander Dubček

Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll

Franz Kafka 

Martin Luther King Jr.

President Svoboda

Arthur Rimbaud

Robert F. Kennedy

Vaclav Havel

MUSIC & LITERATURE

Magical Mystery Tour

King Lear

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass 

The Trial

The Metamorphosis