PSA: My book club spent 40 minutes arguing about whether a character's dog was a metaphor and I almost walked out | Book Club Debates - The Community Guide
PSA: My book club spent 40 minutes arguing about whether a character's dog was a metaphor and I almost walked out
Last month we read a 320 page novel and the whole meeting turned into a fight about the dog. I used to run my club with a simple rule, everyone brings one question and we move on after 10 minutes. Now we have a shared doc, a reading schedule, and somehow more chaos than ever. Two people walked out early at the last one in my living room. I get that close reading matters but when did fiction stop being about the story and start being about proving you caught the hidden meaning? How do you all keep your group from turning every symbol into a hostage situation?