About Schmidt - Louis Begley [108]
Do you think Schmidt and Charlotte truly love each other? If so, then why can’t they understand and accept each other’s viewpoints? Is it a generational divide, a difference in values, or something else? Describe Schmidt’s reaction to her requests for the family furniture and silver? Why does he object to her work on the tobacco campaign?
What do you think Carrie represents to Schmidt? How does he manage to develop such deep feelings for her if he is anti-Semitic? How can Charlotte accuse her father of being anti-Semitic yet object to his having “that Hispanic girl” in the house? What contradictions do you see in Charlotte?
Mr. Wilson taunts and frightens Schmidt, but doesn’t hurt him. What is Schmidt’s reaction when he discovers he has killed him? Why was Mr. Wilson stalking him?
How does Schmidt feel about getting older? In what way does his friend Gil mirror the changes in himself? What conflicts of values might exist between the younger and older generations? How may those generational divides contribute to the tension, anger, and frustration that fester in so many families? Are these conflicts any different from previous generations? What pressures exists today that may not have existed in earlier generations? Have you or your family had similar experiences?
Schmidt understands Carrie, who is younger than his own daughter, far better than he understands Charlotte. How are the two women different from each other?
In spite of Schmidt’s many infidelities, including an affair with Charlotte’s nanny, he still considers himself to have been a good husband and father. How does he explain this to himself? Do you agree with Schmidt?
Why do you think Schmidt decides to hire Bryan to take care of his inherited house in Palm Beach? What would it mean to have Bryan live with him and Carrie? Does Schmidt want that to happen? How has Schmidt’s view of people changed after he meets Carrie and Bryan? What do these changes signify? How does Schmidt change?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LOUIS BEGLEY is the author of four novels. Wartime Lies, which was written when he was in his mid-fifties, was followed by The Man Who Was Late, As Max Saw It, and About Schmidt. He is currently finishing a fifth novel.
Begley has another life, that of a lawyer. He is a senior partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, one of America’s most prestigious firms, and is the head of its international practice.
Wartime Lies was the winner of the PEN Hemingway Award, The Irish Times-Aer Lingus International Prize, and the Prix Medicis Etranger, France’s most coveted prize for fiction in translation. It was a National Book Award, Los Angeles Times Book Award, and National Book Critics’ Circle Award finalist. About Schmidt was likewise a National Book Critics’ Circle Award and Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist. Begley has received the American Academy of Letters prize for literature and numerous other awards.
Begley was born in Stryj, a town that was Polish and is now part of Ukraine, in 1933. Being Jewish, he survived the German occupation by pretending, with the help of false identification papers, to be a Catholic Pole.
Begley and his parents left Poland in 1946 and settled in New York in 1947. Begley graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and after having served in the U.S. army, from Harvard Law School in 1959.
Since 1974, Begley has been married to Anka Muhlstein, a prize-winning French author of biographies and other historical works. The combined family includes five grown children. His are a painter and sculptor, a book critic, and an art historian. Hers are a foreign relations specialist and a television journalist.
Excerpts of reviews of Louis Begley’s About Schmidt
“Novels are supposed to tell something about the real world, but in most novels about the upper classes money figures only