by Jean McNeil
Questions for Discussion
1. What might the two women narrators, Nara and Helen, have in common? How does Helen identify with Nara?
2. How would you describe each character’s relationship with the Antarctic? What might they find in the landscape that tells them something about themselves?
3. How would you describe Helen’s relationship with fate, chance, and destiny. How does she distinguish between them? How does the narrative suggest that fate, chance, and destiny might converge or differ? Does looking into the future help Helen to better understand what happens to her?
4. What reasons does the novel give for the Antarctic’s association with ordeal and death?
5. Discuss what happens between Luke and Nara at Bluefields.
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Jean McNeil is originally from Nova Scotia but has lived in London, England since 1991. Her novel Private View was nominated for the Governor General’s Award in 2003. She spent the austral summer of 2005–06 in Antarctica as the British Antarctic Survey/Arts Council of England International Fellow to Antarctica, and has since been writer-in-residence in the Falkland Islands, Svalbard and on a scientific expedition to Greenland. She is a Fellow at Cambridge University and teaches Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.
