Rachel Cantor: A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World

3. What does it say about the world in which the novel is set that the legacies of many of history’s most important mystics, theologians, and thinkers have been appropriated by a “parastatal corporation” (this page) like Neetsa Pizza that uses their ideas as advertising tools? Do you think a statement is being made about the place of spirituality and mysticism in our world? What do you think that statement might be?

4. The Brazen Head (which is based on stories of real automatons capable of answering any question) often seems like a more animated, opinionated version of Wikipedia. And it, like Wikipedia, proves in the end to have real people behind it, capable of making mistakes and having particular agendas. What do you think of sources that appear to be authoritative? Have you ever contributed to Wikipedia, and did that change your perception of it?

5. As the plot progresses, Leonard discovers that Felix, his nephew, has many special powers, including the ability to freeze time and read the writing in the never-before-deciphered Voynich manuscript. How do Felix’s special powers change the nature of the relationship between Leonard and himself? And between himself and Sally?

6. Isaac the Blind’s main aim in the book is to prevent mystical knowledge — such as the kind that Marco Polo and Roger Bacon learn about during their respective journeys — from getting into the wrong hands. Do you think that the circulation of knowledge can or should be restricted? Is there any knowledge that would be dangerous in the wrong hands?

7. One of the most important recurring images from the novel is that of the orchard. The orchard first appears on this page, when Felix describes a dream he has had, where four men go into an orchard. What they see in there kills one, makes the second crazy, and turns the third into “a destabilizing force of chaos.” Only the fourth man, described as the rabbi, is unaffected. When Leonard and Sally encounter him in Rome, the Spanish mystic Abulafia claims to be “the rabbi who saw what was there and went home again” (this page). Do you believe him? What do you think they see in the orchard?

8. How do you feel about the choice Sally makes in the end, passing up the chance to study with Abulafia for love, family, and becoming a leader in her own time? Would you make the same choice?