Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Jason feels like a slime ball when he shares things about Shin with Henry he knows he shouldn't, and also when he lies to Shin. But Jason doesn't believe in god and has rejected Catholicism. So how is it that he feels guilt? What moral code does he operate under? If not from religion, where does morality come from?
- How do the quotations from the Chutengodian scripture at the beginning of each chapter parallel the story events contained in each corresponding chapter?
- Henry Stagg whacks Jason both at the very beginning and very end of the book. How are those encounters similar, and how are they different? How does Jason's relationship with Henry and feelings about Henry change between the two encounters?
- Jason muses that maybe someday he'll give Magda his drawing of her swimming in the water tower. Do you think he ever will? Why or why not?
- Jason's dad is boggled and incensed that Jason would compare "worshiping a water tower to a two-thousand-year-old religion" (23.41). Jason says he "could be like the guy that started the Mormon religion, or Scientology" (8.8). Does the age of a religion give it more credibility? How about the way it is founded or the number of followers it has?
- Henry gets Jason thinking about how even though the Midnight Mass experience had some gonzo negative fallout, Jason will still remember it when he's a hundred years old. After Henry whacks Jason with a crutch, Jason's got a whopper of a headache, but reasons that he'll still remember the event when he's a hundred. What kinds of things do we remember in detail? What might be the outcome if Henry goes on to make choices and evaluate risk in light of this mantra?
- Jason wonders if maybe he is the Antichrist or a pawn of Satan. But he says he doesn't feel evil. It's Henry who says, "you can't have a religion without a devil" (10.69). Jason says you can. Can you have evil with out a devil—the personification or originator of evil? Can you have a devil without a god, or a god without a devil?
- Jason is surprised when his dad tells him his friends listen to what he says. Do you think he bears more responsibility for the choices the Chutengodians make or the aftermath that follows?
- What's up with Shin? Is he broken, crazy? Or like Jason muses at the very end, will he "get rid of the water tower obsession just as he got rid of his snails, and move on to something new" (31.50)?
- Jason and Shin anthropomorphize the tower, which basically means they give the tower human physical attributes. It's legs are, um, legs, and the tank the "Godhead" (22.36), as in "I was standing on God's head" (12.12). Why do you think they talk about a lifeless inanimate structure like this?