The Graveyard Book - Discuss Chapters 3 and 4

[Prof. Sky Alton]

Here we’ll be sharing our thoughts on chapters 3 and 4 of The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I’ve provided some discussion questions below to give you a place to start but please feel free to do your own thing.

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Chapter 3:
Have you ever been made to learn something that you thought was utterly pointless at the time but ended up coming in useful later?
Did you sympathise with Bod and why he acted how he did in this chapter?
What did you think of the Ghouls homeland? Was it genuinely scary or too cartoonish to be creepy?

Chapter 4:
Have you ever gotten yourself into trouble trying to do something nice for someone else?
Do you think everything went wrong for Bod because of how he acquired the broach or was it just a coincidence?
Did you find the villains in this chapter more or less scary because they were ordinary people?

[Louis Walles]

Chapter 3

Hm...not really, no. I always was told maths is going to help me a lot in life but really...it didn't. I haven't used half of the things I've learnt at school since my graduation!

I think at the beginning Bod was a bit over the top but then I started liking him as the story progressed.

I think that the Ghoul world was very scary and I would definitely not want to be in there!

Chapter 4

Yes, I once was asked by my childhood friend to cover for her in front of her mum. I agreed and did as she asked. Then later, she told her mum the truth and her mother blamed me for lying.

I think the fact that he stole the broach led to what happened afterwards due to karma and the fact of how old the broach was.

I often find villains who are ordinary people way scarier than monsters, so yes.

[Harry Walles]

• Chapter 3

I have always believed I won't need Paint or any other editing apps but then I joined HOL and I can't imagine my life without them. I do sympathise with Bod because he is so young and the whole thing had to be very confusing to him. I think that the Ghouls homeland was somewhere in the middle of really scary and cartoonish.

• Chapter 4

I have not gotten myself into trouble by being nice to someone (luckily). I think it was a total coincidence and there was no connection between how Bod acquired the broach and what happened later. I also found the villains to be a bit creepier than monsters from this book.

[Emily Spencer]

Chapter 3
Ironically, although I was always interested in science, I was quite certain that I would never need the information I learned in biology. It was fascinating, but hardly relevant to my life at the time. I couldn’t, quite honestly, see much use for it in my future either. I had no way of knowing how very wrong I would turn out to be.

Fast-forward to the present. My chosen career (when not lurking on HOL) is in the medical field. I am employed as a full-time paramedic, and the knowledge that I dismissed as irrelevant has come in quite useful indeed!

It may be the ‘Mom’ in me, but quite frankly, I found Bod to be a bit of a brat in this chapter. He was whiny and petulant, two quite unattractive traits in any child. On the other hand, I could sympathize (at least a little) with his reasons for acting so.

As has been mentioned, I found it a mixture of truly frightening and over-the-top cartoonish. Gaiman did a wonderful job of making it sufficiently foreboding without making it too scary for younger readers.

Chapter 4
I have never actually gotten in trouble for doing something nice for someone.

Although it appears, at first glance, to be a series of coincidences, I think that Bod’s misfortunes are, in part at least, related to how he acquired the broach. Curses are tricky things, and if the Master of the Crypt had gone so far as to hire guards to protect it, you can be sure he was quite possessive of his things.

I have always found evil people infinitely scarier than traditional ‘monsters’. This time was no exception.

[Prof. Tarma Amelia Black]

Chapter 3:
I don't remember ever having to learn something and finding it utterly useless later on, if only as a little thing seldom used. I remember taking shorthand as a class and wondering why I was doing it, and find myself sometimes making notes using some of the symbols and language.
Oh, Bod, Bod, Bod. Why did you do that? As Emily says, Bod is being whiny and petulant. Very unattractive traits. At the same time, though, I find that the ghosts are not being helpful in their nonspecific warnings. He's a kid! He's smart! Give him reasons that he can, at least, make his own choices based on facts rather than 'I said so, so you have to do it' stuff.
The Ghouls were scary. That section starts out sort of cartoonish, yes, but escalates somehow into terrifying and totally non-cartoonish.

Chapter 4:
I might have gotten in trouble by doing something nice for someone else. Maybe a few times. However, considering the source of the trouble -- tough. I am responsible for my own honour and integrity. If someone who is in in a position of 'power' wants me to not do something nice, in fact wants me to do a bad thing, nope.
As for the taking of the broach, I think that the consequences suffered by different people were greatly dependent upon the reason for their choices.
"... And no practical definition of freedom would be completely without the freedom to take the consequences. Indeed, it is the freedom upon which all the others are based. ..." Lord Vetinari to Moist von Lipwig in Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
As for what and who is 'scary' .... Again, as Emily wrote "I have always found evil people infinitely scarier than traditional ‘monsters’. This time was no exception."

I'm enjoying the book more, now that I'm continuing on in the reading of it. The first chapters sort of introduced the setting and the characters of the story. Now it's getting 'oh, what happens next?'.