October 2027 Modules

This eight-session discussion course reads the sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea closely and sequentially, tracking how the novel shifts its central question from one man's individual conscience to institutional accountability staged in public.

Each session pairs a short close reading with questions tracing the book's key throughlines: the political hearing over David's status and the fight over language such as "occupying" versus "living," the household's use of comedy and domestic normalcy as forms of resistance under sustained institutional scrutiny, and the escalating confrontation with Miss Marblemaw as DICOMY's new inspector.

The course follows the novel's own structure, from the deceptively calm domestic opening through the hearing sessions and surveillance, to the household's direct confrontation with Miss Marblemaw and the whole-book synthesis of the wedding and epilogue. For readers returning to Arthur, Linus, and the children after the first book's happy ending, this course offers a chance to sit with what "happily ever after" actually has to keep fighting for.

Across eight sessions, we will trace Arthur's transformation from rescued outsider to public advocate testifying before a hostile tribunal, while considering how the household's joy, humour, and ordinary domestic rituals function as a form of political resistance in their own right. Discussion also returns throughout to the novel's dedication to the trans community, inviting participants to weigh where that resonance lands most clearly without settling on a single fixed reading. No prior background beyond the first novel is needed, and the final session again opens the floor for participants to revisit whatever passage or character has stayed with them.