HPL Great Books Reading and Discussion Group: Tillie Olsen's "Tell Me a Riddle: These Things Shall Be"

Friday, May 17, 2013

Tillie Olsen's "Tell Me a Riddle: These Things Shall Be"

On Monday night, May 20th, the selection under consideration will be "Tell Me a Riddle: These Things Shall Be," by Tillie Olsen. This novella tells the story of Eva and David, a long-married couple. It is both a retrospective of their marriage and a meditation on an important pending life decision they must make together. It raises many questions about living with modest means, the raising of children, retirement options, extended family's role in eldercare, political activism, and the relations between the sexes.

Next Meeting

Our next meeting takes place on Monday, January 27th 2025 at 7 pm at the Main Library Meeting Room or via Zoom. The selection is the the dramatic tragedy "Hekabe" by Euripides (480-406 B.C.E.), which can be found in Great Conversations 5. The anthology can be purchased at the Main Library front desk at 338 Main Street, Huntington, N.Y. at the subsidized price of $10 (thanks to a generous donation from the Friends of the Huntington Public Library). The 2025 February meeting will be on Monday, February 24th, when the selection will be three poems by John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and "Ode on Melancholy."

About Shared Inquiry

Also known as the "Socratic Method," the Shared Inquiry discussion technique championed by the Great Books Foundation is a nonauthoritarian approach to book discussion that values life experience as a important element of learning. Discussion leaders ask questions and do not give opinions.

Five rules of Shared Inquiry are:

1. Concentrate on the selection.
2. Address the question at hand.
3. Speak up (but one person at a time, please!)
4. Listen carefully.
5. Discuss the author's ideas, not the author's life and times.