Reflection on Class, February 27

I'll try to conjure up some memories of our book groups two weeks (and one very long spring break) ago.
I suppose what always strikes me about discussing literature is how, when you're listening to a group of people talk, you formulate ideas and thoughts without any real effort. As is evident from my last blog post, I didn't have a lot to say about most of the readings chosen by the rest of my group. I'm not the biggest fan of fairy tales, and this batch of them felt tiresome, expected in the worst way. I didn't want to talk about them at all.
But during the discussion, hearing other people discussing the stories made them more interesting to talk about - not surprising. That's why we have book groups to begin with, right? I'm not sure if it's wanting to participate in the discussion that makes the literature more interesting or if it's hearing other people's ideas and coming to understand a work in a new way as a result. It's probably both. In any case, this class really made me miss being an English major.
Something that surprised me was that there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to which of our questions to the group went over well and which didn't. Some of the questions that seemed creative or insightful were met with total silence, while questions that I had thought of mainly as segues sparked the best discussions. I would be interested to repeat this reading ("The Man Who Built Catan", a nonfiction piece about the creator of the game Settlers of Catan) with a different group to see if they respond in similar ways.
On a professional level, this was one of the few exercises I have done that I feel I can translate easily into my anticipated career. So there's that.