Book Club Discussion Questions and Guide for Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan

Book Club Discussion Questions

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Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. Andrew O'Hagan uses this pithy quote by Robert Louis Stevenson as an epigraph to Caledonian Road: "After a certain distance, every step we take in life we find the ice growing thinner below our feet, and all around us and behind us we see our contemporaries going through." Which character, or characters, in Caledonian Road would likely connect with this proposition? Think of a few real-world figures (i.e., business tycoons, politicians, celebrities) for whom this quote could reasonably serve as an epitaph. Why did these individuals come to mind for you?
2. Campbell Flynn's Life of Vermeer seems to "argue that unknowability is an essential feature of the artistic life, and perhaps all lives." What does this mean to you? Do you believe "the self" is knowable? How does Campbell's critical engagement with "unknowability" reflect or foreshadow his fall from grace?
3. Campbell believes that he wrote his Atlantic essay, which inspired his book Why Men Weep in Their Cars, because "[a]t fifty-two, he knew himself to be a traitor to the class of his youth and a freak to his own moral understanding." Why does Campbell feel like a "traitor" and a "freak" at this juncture in his life? Do you think his self-critique is accurate? How does authoring the self-help book Why Men Weep in Their Cars complicate his already complicated sense of self?
4. Campbell argues that Vermeer "is the patron saint of individual merit," proof that "ordinary people" have real power and social mobility. How does Milo Mangasha challenge this view of the world? With whom do you agree more? Would you embrace either Campbell's or Milo's position without qualification? Why or why not?
5. In conversation with Campbell, Milo says, "We are more than our faces. My mum used to say that." What can you infer about Zemi Mangasha between her article in the London Review of Books and Milo's comment to Campbell in this scene? How is Milo an extension of his mother? How and to what extent do you think he breaks away from the values that guided her work?
6. William Byre stands accused of running sweatshops, stealing from his staff, and sexually abusing twenty-three-year-old Vicky Gowans. Does the William Byre that Campbell drinks with in "the Club" (pp. 49–61) seem capable of such crimes and indiscretion? What did you make of William's belief that Vicky "needs" him and "sees me as I really am"? How do you think William sees himself through Vicky's eyes?
7. Milo has a foot in several different worlds: his home with his Irish father; the Ethiopia bequeathed to him by his mother; the university, where he's a rising star; his girlfriend Gosia's poor, Polish-Catholic household; and the gang world along Caledonian Road. Does Milo seem to belong in any one of these worlds more than another? Does he fully belong anywhere? How do his displacement and various allegiances embolden him? How might they be a liability?
8. Jakub Padanowski discovers two Englands, "one warm and hopeful" and one "boiling with hatred," while watching a soccer game in the Leicester pub. How does the idea of two Englands resonate throughout Caledonian Road? Which characters are implicated in this "system"? Which characters are victims? Were you able to sympathize with Jakub's choice to stay the course in England? When, if ever, does it make sense to take illegal risks to overcome despair?
9. Aleksandr Bykov orders Lord Haxby to "deal with" the people—diplomats, officials, "fucking bureaucrats"—who put sanctions on his businesses. Why does Aleksandr believe the sanctions should be removed? Why, from his perspective, do the allegations against him amount to "human rights bullshit that means nothing"? Is Aleksandr an out-and-out villain, or more like a chess piece in a corrupt global economy?
10. In an interview to promote Why Men Weep in Their Cars, actor Jake Hart-Davies alludes to Shakespeare to advocate for "men's rights." "If you look at King Lear," he says, "it's not King Leanne, okay?" What exactly is the crux of Jake's argument here? To what extent is this a bastardization of Campbell's prevailing attitude and moral code? Would you say Mirna Ivoš's assessment of Jake's remarks ("He has decided to turn the whole thing into a celebration of male dominance") is apt or, conversely, overblown?
11. Campbell's sister Moira tells reporter Tara Hastings, "My brother makes his own mistakes, but he's nothing like William Byre." Milo, on the other hand, believes, "We are who we know." What sense can you make of these diverging views? Should Campbell carry shame on account of William's alleged crimes? Should we hold ourselves responsible for overlooking, or excusing, the faults of our friends? Why or why not?
12. Campbell confesses to his colleague Gwen Parry that he's experiencing "a separation anxiety from my true self." To this, Gwen replies, "[Y]ou're thinking too much. Anita Brookner once said the Romantic likes to reason in unbearable situations." Is it fair to call Campbell a Romantic? Does Romanticism help illuminate or obscure Campbell's mental state?
13. Milo scribbles in the back of a book that he leaves in Campbell's office, "The sun shines differently on black skin. We absorb the heat, and you'll never understand that." What do you think Milo is communicating about Blackness through this metaphor? Why might he want Campbell to get this message? Why do you suppose he resorts to scribbling it in a book?
14. Antonia Byre publicly transforms from "right-wing banshee to MeToo panjandrum" in her newspaper column. Do you think she fundamentally changes as a result of her husband's impropriety? Or are "right-wing banshee" and "MeToo panjandrum" two sides of the same coin? Does her newfound "interest in common suffering" signal any kind of political metamorphosis?
15. In his letter to William Byre, Campbell declares, "The game is up and we are free, William, we are young again." How do you think Campbell would define "the game"? What do you think being "free" means to him?
16. After William's death, Elizabeth observes Campbell shouting in his sleep. She tells her analyst that he's "[l]ike Captain Ahab. Every other night. I mean, a howl. A shout from the place where nothing is heard." What do you make of Elizabeth's assessment? Could Campbell, unable to separate Milo's voice from his own, hold something in common with a man whose leg was bitten off by a whale?
17. When Milo spots Campbell at Travis's trial, he turns away from him, believing "he had done enough to show the professor who he was." How do you suppose Milo sees himself through Campbell's eyes? How do you think he would describe the friendship he had with Campbell? Did the friendship change him, too?
18. Truck driver Gerry O'Dade is a cog in the machine that kills forty-one migrants, including Jakub Padanowski, in a shipping container. Is there any reason to believe that Bozydar Krupa, Stefan Popa, Yuri Bykov, and Feng will feel responsible for this tragedy? To what extent does the incident validate Milo's argument that people are "defined by what [they] reject" and need to get "more practical in their politics"?
19. In his review of Campbell's Life of Vermeer, novelist Rory Gunn writes, "The biographers among us might agree that Professor Flynn has encapsulated an emptiness at the centre of modern lives... . His Johannes Vermeer, in fact, has no life, no self, and is unreachable. We have an artist's life in which no one is anything and nothing is everything." How does this review unexpectedly limn (or capture?) Campbell's fate in Caledonian Road? Ultimately, should we trust Campbell's treatment of Vermeer? How might his Life of Vermeer be read as autobiography?
20. In the final chapter of Caledonian Road, Moira tells Elizabeth that she always felt uneasy about Campbell's idealism: "When he was young," Moira recalls, "I worried that anyone who loved art so much might find ordinary life hard, damaged by the constant need for ideal conditions." What is Moira saying here about art vis-à-vis real life? Have you ever known someone whose commitment to art gave rise to a struggle?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of W.W. Norton & Company. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.