THE GREAT
RECLAMATION READING GROUP GUIDE
1. The Great Reclamation is a sweeping novel made up of many different elements. It’s a love story, a historical drama,a coming-of-age novel, and the tale of a “chosen one.” It explores tensions between loyalty and morality, love and ambition, and the ways that our past experiences play a psychological role in influencing our futures. Which elements spoke to you most? Can you identify with any of those tensions? 2. Ah Boon is a person who wants to be good, and wants to do good, but isn’t always sure what that means. Consider all the different ways he tries to “be good” to his family, to Siok Mei, to his community, and to himself, and how those impulses are sometimes at odds. What is the book ultimately showing about these kinds of good intentions? 3. Ah Boon and Siok Mei meet when they are schoolchildren in the kampong, and their lives intertwine across decades. What is special about their bond? Do you see it as mutual? What are the complicating factors? When they are apart, is their separation because of their feelings for each other, or their obligations to others? Are they making choices based on their own needs or the needs of others? 4. The love story between Ah Boon and Siok Mei is full of longing, but it also offers a lens through which to view politics and nationalism and history. Why does Siok Mei believe she has to choose between her political beliefs and Ah Boon? What does Eng Soon offer her that Ah Boon cannot? Why does she think choosing a life with Ah Boon would weaken her dedication to her political causes? Do different political beliefs make people fundamentally incompatible? 5. There is a tradition of books about a “chosen one,” from beloved young adult novels like the Harry Potter books or The Golden Compass to classic fiction like War and Peace. In what ways is Ah Boon a kind of “chosen one,” and how does that role complicate the choices he faces and the sacrifices he must make? How does this role shape how he thinks about his own responsibilities to his family on one hand, and the community or the country on the other? 6. What influence does Ah Boon’s father have on his choices later in life, and how does it compare with the ways that Siok Mei is influenced by the choices and fates of her parents? What is the novel saying more broadly about how historical events and trauma move through generations?