What do you think? Is Oscar (or Pascal) right? Can faith be reduced to a bet-a matter of chance?Ħ. Oscar adheres to Pascal's ideas: belief in God is a gamble. Even if you're wrong, and there is no God, you still win because you've led a good life. Pascal postulates that belief in God is a necessary bet: if you're right about the existence of God, you win.
In relation to Question #2: Peter Carey invokes 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal in this novel. Is he good.or corrupt? Is he endangering his soul by gambling? Or does the fact that he devotes his winnings to charitable causes justify, or make right, his gambling obsession? What does Oscar believe?ĥ. Does God direct where the stone falls.or is it a game of chance? What does Oscar believe? What do you believe?Ĥ. What explains Oscar's conversion from his father's fundamentalist sect to the Anglican Church? Discuss Oscar's hopscotch-like theology.
Does that reading make sense to you? How might that interpreta-tion, the fall and expulsion from paradise, play itself out in the remainder of the story?ģ. In relation to Question #1, many see the pudding scene as a retelling of Adam and the forbidden fruit in Genesis. How does Oscar's delight in this new taste-and the subsequent anger of his father-set the stage for the events of the novel?Ģ. The earliest of the many arresting episodes in this book is the Christmas pudding incident. Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)Īlso consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Oscar and Lucinda:ġ.Generic Discussion Questions-Fiction and Nonfiction.How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips).Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources they can help with discussions for any book:
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