Things As They Are
By Paul Horgan

408 Pages • $12.95

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
AND REFLECTION

Things As They Are
By Paul Horgan

[Open a pdf version]

Use the following questions as guides to deeper individual understanding of the novel or for group discussion.

1. How do you understand the title of this novel, Things As They Are? What moments or stories could you particularly identify with, remembering your own journey to maturity?

2. What did Richard’s experience with the kitten reveal to him? How do you understand the narrator’s phrase, “guilt is the first knowledge?” What do your own sins reveal to you about yourself?

3. What do you make of Richard and his friend’s violent outburst in the wake of Richard’s encounter with the “crazy drunk”? What is the narrator’s interpretation of their violence? What was unleashed and why?

4. “[W]e are subject to what we are taught to hate.” (p. 60) What do you think this means? Can you give examples from your own experience?

5. What is your response to the story of John Burley? What did he represent to his parents, particularly to his mother?

6. In chapter 4, “Far Kingdoms,” what did Richard learn about the power of language and imagination? What role did fantasy play in the life of Uncle Fritz?

7. We often think of “reality” as something very practical and obvious, but in this novel, Richard relies on imagination and role-­playing to learn to see “things as they are.” For example, what did Bayard’s mask enable him to do? How have you experienced this to be true in your own life? When has pretending actually helped you be more authentic?

8. What was the relationship between “black snowflakes” and Richard’s perception and experience of death?

9. What greater question do you think the Infant of Prague’s statue was answering when it said to Richard, in the midst of his vocational crisis, “Never fear, Richard. They will stay dead.”? What is the monsignor’s response to Richard’s experience?

10. What experiences have revealed to you the truth that Richard’s mother tries to teach him in the storm—that beauty and danger are intricately intertwined?

11. In the beginning of the novel, Richard reflects on his childhood perception that he was the center of reality. How is that perception shattered at the end of the novel?

12. What are the greatest challenges you experience in seeing things “as they are”? How does your religious faith help you in overcoming these challenges?

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