I’m so excited to bring you these book club discussion questions for Weather by Jenny Offill. This novel is so rich in potential conversation starters, plus it’s pretty short, making it a great book club book for 2020 and beyond.
Somehow, I hadn’t read Offill’s hit novel Dept. of Speculation (2014), a story of a fraught marriage, but I remember hearing the buzz about it. Suddenly, everyone was reading Dept. of Speculation and taking a hard look at their own marriage, some of them even getting divorced not long after. Wow, I thought, what powerful fiction! What a powerful writer! And having devoured Weather, Offill’s 2020 follow-up, I totally get it. In this post, I’m sharing 10 book club discussion questions for Jenny Offill’s novel Weather. This novel is particularly rich for discussion, and the novel is certainly getting so me buzz for its zeitgeisty, on-point relevance to this moment in time (yet, in its own way, timeless, too). I’ve already recommended this book as a book club book idea for 2020 in my related post about short book club book suggestions. If your book club selected Weather, this reading group guide has you covered.
And without further ado… here are some thought-provoking discussion questions on Weather for your book club!
10 Discussion Questions for Weather by Jenny Offill
Note, these 10 discussion questions for Weather by Jenny Offill do spoil the story. I’d hold off on consulting these book club questions for Weather until after you’ve finished reading the novel.
1. Why do you think Offill named her novel Weather? In what ways does weather show up as a theme in Offill’s novel?
2. Weather is written in micro-moments. Lizzie’s narrative is comprised of sentence and sometimes paragraph-long segments that build into a larger story. What was the experience like to read a narrative like that? How does this unique format serve the story and its contemporary, zeitgeisty setting?
3. How does Lizzie change over the course of the story? What specific examples did you see of her changing, or lack thereof?
4. How would you characterize Lizzie’s relationship with her brother, Henry? Compare and contrast it with other relationships Lizzie has a duty to uphold, such as with her husband, Ben, and son, Eli?
5. Before the novel begins, Offill includes a quotation as an epigraph. Let’s review it now:
Voted, that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; voted, that the earth is given to the Saints; voted, that we are the Saints.
NOTES FROM A TOWN MEETING IN MILFORD, CONNECTICUT, 1640
How do these notes from a town meeting in Milford, Connecticut, in 1640, more than 350 years old, connect to themes in Weather? Would Lizzie consider herself to be a “Saint”? Would you?
6 – At the beginning of the fifth and final chapter, spiritualist / yoga teacher / group therapist Margot asks her class a question:
“What is the core delusion?” Margot asks the class, but nobody knows the right answer, and she doesn’t bother to tell us.
Jenny Offill, Weather, p. 193
The final sentence of Weather seems to be Lizzie’s answer to Margot’s question:
The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.
Jenny Offill, Weather, p. 201
What do you make of Lizzie’s answer? How is her view supported by her actions, emotions, and thoughts? Do you agree with her answer, that “the core delusion is that I am here and you are there”?
7 – One of the odder recurring themes in Weather is teeth. Discuss some of the ways that dentistry shows up throughout the novel. Why does it play such a big part in the fifth and final chapter, the ending of the story?
8 – Lizzie’s husband is a Classicist. Ben has a PhD in Classics, but he takes a stable, paying job creating educational games rather than deal with the stresses of academia. Still, the Classics show up again and again, and it’s clear that Ben has a passion for them as he is often reading about ancient life. How does his passion for Classics mirror Lizzie’s interest in the future? Does Offill suggest there is common ground between the past and future?
9 – Although Lizzie does not often directly identify herself as anxious, Weather undeniably incorporates anxiety as a theme. Can you think of some ways that Lizzie grapples with, overcomes, or surrenders to anxiety? How did this novel make you feel?
10 – At the close of the novel, review Lizzie and her family’s situation. Would you say that Weather ends with a sense of hope? If so, where do you find it? Or do you believe the ending is more pessimistic, or perhaps a mix of both moods?
Further Reading about Weather
Want to learn more about Weather?
You’ll find a full list of reviews of Weather on Book Marks.
To check out reviews on Goodreads, check out its page and see if any of your friends have read it yet.
Read more about author Jenny Offill’s conceptualization and writing of Weather in these interviews:
- Vulture interviews Jenny Offill: “Jenny Offill on WEATHER, Writing the Perfect Worry Novel”
- Elle interviews Jenny Offill: “Jenny Offill Talks WEATHER”
- The Paris Review interviews Jenny Offill: “Learning to Die: An Interview with Jenny Offill”
Plus don’t miss her author event with the Philadelphia Free Library, which you can view here:
Pretty cool to hear her talk about Weather at a library, considering heroine and narrator Lizzie is a librarian!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this book club discussion guide! Let me know how you liked the novel.
