Steps Through The Mist

Hi, everyone. I'm sorry to start posting so late here. Hope you enjoyed your holidays, if you've had them yet.

First impressions on "Steps": What did you think? Did it meet, exceed, fall below your expectations? Did it read like a fantasy? (I think I harbor back to days when fantasies included dragons or hobbits or whatnot. This was more like quality literature to me.)

I found myself eager to jump into each "dream" sequence and was surprised by how quickly the stories unfolded.

How did the dream premise work for you as a paranormal element?

Next pick

"Let the Great World Spin" by Colum McCann

Here's an excerpt from the Amazon review:

Colum McCann has worked some exquisite magic with Let the Great World Spin, conjuring a novel of electromagnetic force that defies gravity. It's August of 1974, a summer "hot and serious and full of death and betrayal," and Watergate and the Vietnam War make the world feel precarious. A stunned hush pauses the cacophonous universe of New York City as a man on a cable walks (repeatedly) between World Trade Center towers. This extraordinary, real-life feat by French funambulist Philippe Petit becomes the touchstone for stories that briefly submerge you in ten varied and intense lives--a street priest, heroin-addicted hookers, mothers mourning sons lost in war, young artists, a Park Avenue judge. All their lives are ordinary and unforgettable, overlapping at the edges, occasionally converging. And when they coalesce in the final pages, the moment hums with such grace that its memory might tighten your throat weeks later.

'Soldiers are dreamers'

And not to bore with you passages from other books, but I also found this passage at the beginning of O'Brien's war memoir very moving.

Now, war ended, all I am left with are simple, unprofound scraps of truth. Men die. Fear hurts and humiliates. It is hard to be brave. It is hard to know what bravery is. Dead human beings are heavy and awkward to carry, things smell different in Vietnam, soldiers are dreamers, drill sergeants are boors, some men thought the war was proper and others didn't and most didn't care. Is that the stuff for a morality lesson, even for a theme?

Do dreams offer lessons? Do nightmares have themes, do we awaken and analyze them and live our lives and advise others as a result? Can the foot soldier teach anything important about war, merely for having been there? I think not. He can tell war stories.

The first paragraph as a summary of the war experience is just amazing ("most didn't care"). But the question in the second, "Do dreams offer lessons?", seems to foreshadow the format of "Cacciato," how it's one big daydream in a way. So, do you have any thoughts on how Paul Berlin's dream offers a lesson?

Courage

I really loved this passage from "If I die in a Combat Zone." It's about how true courage can't exist without other qualities. I think it informs some of the scenes in "Cacciato," scenes where apparent cowardice might more properly be interpreted as courage.

For courage, according to Plato, is one of the four parts of virtue. It is there with temperance, justice and wisdom, and all parts are necessary to make a sublime human being. In fact, Plato says, men without courage are men without temperance, justice or wisdom, just as without wisdom men are not truly courageous. Men must know what they do is courageous, they must know it is right, and that kind of knowledge is wisdom and nothing else. Which is why I know few brave men. Either they are stupid and do not know what is right. Or they know what is right and cannot bring themselves to do it. Or they know what is right and do it, but do not feel and understand the fear that must be overcome.

The girl

Any thoughts on Sarkin Aung Wan and her determination to play house in Paris with Paul Berlin?

Best and worst

What was your favorite aspect of the book? And least favorite?

My favorite: I loved the notion of traveling overland from Vietnam to Paris and the descriptions of the places they saw: Mandalay, India, Tehran, Greece, etc. And I admired the depiction of the war-without-a-front as a psychological battle that occurred in each man's head. I also found the events leading up to Lt. Martin's murder eerie and awe-inspiring.

My least favorite: Maybe this is a comment on my own comprehension rather than the author's skill, but I found many of the characters hard to picture and hard to distinguish one from the other. Even Paul Berlin. I didn't feel I had a great grasp on who he actually was. (I did like the portraits of the two lieutenants: the strict, by the book Lt. Martin and the more realistic, more humane Lt. Corson, who fell in love in India and wanted to stay).

Vietnam

One of the things I really like about Tim O'Brien's books about Vietnam is how they give you a visceral sense of being there — feeling what the physical landscape is like, the terrible heat, the dampness, the insects, the rice paddies, the mountains and villages and land-mined trails; and the psychological landscape, the constant fear and exhaustion and homesickness.

Do you think he did a good job with this? (I actually have a stronger sense of these things in his other books, but I'm curious what you think having just read "Cacciato").

What did you think?

I found this book challenging at first because the characters seemed kind of a blur to me and trying to sort out what was real and what was imagined was rather tiring. But I enjoyed the book more as it went on, maybe because at some point I was able to conclude that it's ALL fiction or, conversely, that it's ALL truth, and I was more comfortable just being carried along by the narrative.

Kim's pick

For early November?

WTF?

What was the deal with Madam and Miss Emily, shacking up together in that weird house with some big Nigerian servant dude and who knows who else? I feel like there's some code to understanding and appreciating this book that has completely eluded me.

If I were some British writer wanting to explore how the government has taken charge of an individual's body to make it conform to its plan, I'd write about this amazing man.

Emotion

The narration of "Never Let Me Go" seemed almost void of emotion, even when describing the deaths of close friends and her own impending death. Did that lessen the emotional weight for you as a reader?

Ruth

Why do you think Kathy was friends with Ruth?

Science fiction

I've seen this book compared to "1984" and "Brave New World." Do you think the book is successful in its portrayal of a dystopia that clones individuals to be organ factories? Does it seem horrifying, or does it seem too unlikely to be taken seriously?

"Never Let Me Go"

Did you like it? Any general impressions? Do you think it deserves to be on TIME's list of top 100 novels?

Erin's pick

"Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro

Related reading

Just read an interesting post on Salon ("History is bunk after all") about Margaret MacMillan's "Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History," which is quite relevant to our discussions on Horwitz. An excerpt:

"Dangerous Games" calls for "professional historians" (by which I think MacMillan means "academics") to "contest the one-sided, even false, histories that are out there in the public domain. If we do not, we allow our leaders and opinion makers to use history to bolster false claims and justify bad and foolish policies." In recent years, she complains, academic historians have become either unduly "self-referential" or preoccupied with "fun" but ultimately insignificant fluff like culture studies.

The whole post is here.

Your past

One of the things that really fascinates me is how people differ so much in their relationship to their past. Some people are completely uninterested in their ancestors and whatnot. But others — and not just disenfranchised minorities — are really drawn to what they consider their ethnic/racial/cultural/religious roots. And it ranges from simple historical curiosity to stringent identity politics to obsessive, off-the-wall kookiness. Horwitz encounters all types in his book, which underlines his point that history "lives" in both expected and unexpected ways.

Where do you think you fall on that spectrum of interest in your deep past?

Also, people's pride in their ancestry takes different forms. For some, it's about dignity and careful preservation and respect. But others seem to prefer showing their pride through festivals and marketing to tourists, etc. It's almost like a kind of cynical commercialism is always pawing at the door of authenticity.

Why are we so stubbornly stupid?

Did you think there was sufficient explanation in the book for WHY people are so tenaciously attached to false history? Or did Horwitz just treat it as a given that people cling to their myths — religious, historic and otherwise — even when they are demonstrated absurdities? Like it's just human nature to hold on to the first thing you were told?

I sometimes wished he would explore this phenomenon more. He touches on it when he makes comments to the effect that history is written by the winners, which in this case was white, Anglo Protestants, but I sometimes wished he would talk to a psychologist (vs. a local historian, say) to delve into this weird mental hurdle people have with perpetuating bad history.

Good and bad history

Were there incidents of "fake history" that especially stood out as something you remember learning as a kid? And did any aspects of the real history surprise you?

Horwitz's method

Did you enjoy the book?

What did you think of Horwitz's method of interspersing historic accounts with present-day treks to the sites?

Tales of the Black Freighter

What do you think is the purpose of the pirate comic that is interspersed throughout the story? How does it relate to the main narrative?

And in a related question, did you like all the extra materials between each chapter? Or did it get in the way?

God

I read a piece of a review of "Watchmen" that argued that the theme of the book was what it means to be God.

There's a quote in the book from some military guy or something after Jon's accident that says, "There is a God, and he's American." And Jon does have some godlike powers, including the ability to see and travel through time and space, survive on Mars, give Laurie some kind of force field, get disintegrated and still survive, etc.

And then we have Veidt, who is certainly playing God in his attempt to manipulate world politics by sacrificing millions of lives.

Thoughts?

Rorschach

What did you think of Rorschach? I found him really likable, despite his being a total sociopath. Why do you think that is?

Dr. Manhattan

What was your reaction to Jon? Why do you think Laurie lived with the guy for 20 years?

Cold War

Do you think all the 1980s stuff about the Soviets and nuclear war makes the book too dated?

The Comedian

My God, what an asshole.

What was up with his relationship with Silk Spectre? He brutally attacks her, but then she "can't stay mad" for some reason and has sex with him. But 16 years later, she's mad again and yells at him for talking to her daughter. And then at the end, we see her tearfully kissing his photo. WTF? Do you buy this love-hate relationship?

The ending

What did you think? Did you find it "chilling"?

I did enjoy the very last part, the part where the news clerk stumbles upon Rorschach's diary, and we can assume that Veidt's plot will eventually be revealed.

But Veidt's plot itself -- creating a giant octopus-looking monster with the cloned brain of a psychic and using it to distract world leaders from fighting each other -- struck me as a bit ... stupid. Not to mention contrived and overly complicated.

The whole thing depends on the existence of psychics? And "sensitives"? To use an old joke, didn't the psychics see this coming?

But then again, it is a comic. Am I being too picky?

Kim's pick: A Voyage Long and Strange

I thought this book looked fun. I've read and enjoyed a few other books by Tony Horwitz, the husband of Geraldine Brooks (the Pulitzer power couple) — including "Blue Latitudes," where he retraces the voyages of Captain Cook, and "Baghdad Without a Map," about his travels through the Mideast. He's a great historian, journalist and adventure traveler.

The hardback has a different subtitle ("Rediscovering the New World") than the paperback ("On the Trail of Vikings, Conquistadors, Lost Colonists, and Other Adventurers in Early America," which I suppose is sexier in its specificity), but it appears to be the same book — although there's a fun 15th century woodcut in the intro to the hardcover that I don't see in the "Look Inside" feature on Amazon with the paperback. I would hate to miss an illustration!

Erin's pick

Prejudice

I found this scene puzzling — the one where the young people are in the bar and the bartender won't serve the Jew. Any theories on why McDermott included this?

Sex on the beach

What was your take on why Billy and Eva didn't have sex while Dennis and his Irish girl were doing it right and left? Was this more of Billy idealizing Eva, his foolish propensity to let the lovely Present give way to the dreamed-of Future?

(I think if Sebastian Barry had written this book, his hopeless-romantic Irishman at least would have gotten some insane glory out of the deal before the cold reality set in!)

Mama knows best?

(I'm home with my book, and I'm giddy looking through it).

Here's something I have to ask, especially based on Erin's just-get-over-it remarks about romantics (hehe). Look at this description of Dennis' mother. What do you think McDermott intended by including a character like this (someone who is regarded as a "sage" in the family and who is seemingly at the other end of the spectrum from Billy)?

She was a Geiger counter for insincerity, phoniness, half-truths. She could dismantle a pose with a glance and deflate the most romantic notion with a single word. She had no patience for poetry, Broadway musicals, presidential politics, or the pomp of her religion — although my father, his father's son, loved these things in direct proportion to her disdain — and she sought truth so single-mindedly that under her steady gaze exaggeration, self-delusion, bravado simply dried up and blew away, as did hope, nonsense, and any ungrounded giddiness.

Her philosophy of life seemed to be to get to the bottom of things, the plain, unadorned, mostly concrete and and colorless bottom of things, and from there to seek to swat away any passing fancy that might cloud the hard-won clarity of her vision.

And is Dennis intended as a sort of happy medium between his mother's no-nonsense view and Billy's romanticized one?

Chicken or egg?

I felt that Billy's alcoholism was intimately related to his ordeal with Eva, but then there's also the feeling that alcoholism was common in that community/family, that it was almost fate. Did you think Eva merely exacerbated a strong predisposition or did the sadness really drive him to drink?

Favorite scene

Did you have a favorite scene?

(I really liked the scene near the end where the narrator and her dad took the relative — was it Dan Lynch? I don't have my book with me — back to his apartment and stayed to have a drink with him and talk about Billy. I thought it was kind of a nice bookend to the funeral lunch at the beginning.)

Eva

Did you have any anger toward Eva at any point, or were you able to easily accept that her actions were just the folly of youth?

The lie

How did you feel about Dennis' lie to Billy? If he had just told him the truth from the beginning, do you think there would have been a different outcome for Billy?

What is love?

Why do you think Dennis married Maeve in the end?

Billy

Did you like Billy? Did you find him more heroic or pathetic?

The narrator

I thought the choice of narrator was really interesting in this book — someone who was at some distance from the heart of the story but near enough to have it told to her from someone closely involved and then to retell it. What did you think of this?

Here's what McDermott herself said about her narrative choice in an interview she did after the novel won the National Book Award in 1998.

INTERVIEWER: And the book is almost an elegy, the voice that one of the judges referred to that tells the story, which is a young woman, actually, has a kind of delicate elegiac tone. How did you decide to do that, to make her the storyteller?

ALICE McDERMOTT: Do you know I resisted that voice, that first person narrative, but it seemed to me if you're telling a story about faith, you're also telling a story about telling stories, the things that we believe in — our stories that we hear and are told. And so it seemed to me that the entire novel needed to be told to someone, and that was where - the inevitability of that first person voice telling a story that's not necessarily her own, but putting together, as women do, the various stories in her family and making something of it.

Here's the whole interview.

"Charming Billy"

To begin with, what was your initial impression of this novel? Did you like it?

Bump

Sorry it's been a while -- hopefully you'll still remember this story!

What did you think of this story? Is this the ending you might have envisioned for Ms. Hempel?

And what's the deal with Jonathan Hamish again? There seemed to be an almost romantic interest going on, didn't there?

Satellite

This story was slightly sad to me, maybe just because I think mother-daughter relations so often seem so fraught with disappointment and misunderstandings. It's interesting to see how the dynamics have changed in Ms. Hempel's childhood home, since the strong presence of her father is gone and her young sister and mother are by themselves. Ms. Hempel seems sort of detached from the whole situation, like a satellite, I guess: still connected to the place but kept at a distance. Any thoughts on this story?

Tattered romance

And how does Ms. Hempel's emerging understanding of all the affairs at her school and her own breakup with Amit affect her point of view regarding Ms. Duffy's experience?

And this perplexing ending: "... still she returned to the bathroom at Mooney’s, to its perfect mystery, to the moment when Mr. Polidori had wrapped his arms around her like a bear. That moment in which someone had made a decision. She wanted to remember how it felt."

(I really loved the description of how Ms. Duffy danced at the bar, how they were all there in the harsh light of afternoon but hidden in the freeing darkness of the bar ... I like how Ms. Hempel always seems rather amazed that anyone can get over anything that was once important).

Disillusioned

What do you make of Ms. Hempel's reaction when she finds out that "the father of Ms. Duffy’s baby was an American, whom she’d met in the courtyard of an ugly condominium" rather than an exotic Mideasterner, and that Ms. Duffy's sudden quietness was explained not by a romantic adventure abroad but by being in upstate New York with food sickness?

The title

Any theories on why the story is called "Yurt"?

Yurt

This story offers us more about Ms. Hempel's fellow teachers and their social interactions than we've seen before.

I'm sort of coming up empty on this story. Does anybody have any thoughts on it?

Crossing

This story explores origins, and Ms. Hempel's Chinese-American heritage is revealed. Ms. Hempel seems somewhat conflicted about that heritage. She seems to want to downplay that part of her identity. But she also feels guilty about passing up the opportunity to interview her grandmother about her immigration and failing to learn Mandarin as she had planned.

What do you think captivated her so much about the colonist re-enactors?

Creep

What did you make of this story? Who was this guy calling young Ms. Hempel's house every night? What was going on with her parents?

It was kind of interesting to see Ms. Hempel at the age of her current students and think about how her experiences at that age probably affect how she relates to them now.

Sandman

This was an interesting one. There seemed to be a lot going on here, from the assembly warning the kids about stranger danger to Ms. Hempel's two girlfriends to her fiance and their sexual incompatibility to the field trip and Jonathan Hamish's sand burial. What do you think was the connection between these things?

Kim's pick

I recently read a novella by Alice McDermott called "That Night" and thought it was one of the best things I had ever read about adolescence and summertime in America. The sense of nostalgia was completely sugar-free. I have high hopes for this.

Accomplice

I thought this story was really interesting in its themes about how we view ourselves, how we hope others will view us, how difficult it is to sum up a person in words.

What did you think of Ms. Hempel's idea of having the students write their own anecdotals? I thought it was sort of touching how disappointed the parents were to find out the reports weren't authentic. How eager they had been to believe that someone had finally seen in their children the same potential for greatness that they did.

Ms. Hempel

What do you think of Ms. Hempel? She thinks she's not a very good teacher -- do you agree? Do you think she likes teaching?

Talent

What were your impressions after the first story?

I really enjoyed it. The picture of middle school was so vivid, with the various kids and their awkward, emotional existence. I especially liked the miniature portraits of the different kids -- Harriet and her magic show, Edward and his boa constrictor, and especially Jonathan Hamish, whom I found really touching. I could understand why Ms. Hempel felt tender toward him.

Writing

What did you think about the Queen's decision to become a writer as well as a reader? What do you think she might write about? Did you feel she would actually produce something or would it turn out like the old servant who had been "working" fruitlessly on his memoirs for decades?

Above and below

What do you think makes tales of the high-and-mighty mingling with everyday people so irresistible?

(I loved how the Queen didn't really get Jane Austen at first because she was so removed from and above the social struggles Austen wrote about, but she eventually was in a position to understand it and to enjoy Austen).

Luxury of access

The Queen had the luxury of meeting any author or literary scholar she wanted and quizzing them on their work. If you could meet a few writers for this purpose, whom would you pick?

And if you had access to any historic manuscript, what would it be?

Fact and fiction

What did you think of Bennett's mingling of fact and fiction — putting real people in made-up situations? Did you think the effectiveness of the novella depended on just that?

Hostility

Why do you think the people around the Queen were hostile to her reading? And why did people feel so uncomfortable in the presence of literary matters (like they had to be prepped that the Queen might ask what they were reading)?

Reading and writing

I was amused when the Queen had all the writers gathered and found that she had little to say to them and vice versa. It was like being in their physical presence didn't hold a candle to being in their mental presence as she was when she communed with them in her solitary reading.

Related: I found it intensely intriguing that she had so much access to the world of literature — to authors, literary scholars, historic first editions, estates, private letters, all the priceless manuscripts in the British Museum and everywhere in the world — and yet none of that could really trump the simple pleasure of carrying a cheap paperback in her purse, like all of us commoners might do, and marking it up with her pencil and her private insights. The contents of the book — mere ink on paper — were ultimately more valuable than anything else.

And also all the notions about how reading and writing are highly solitary activities, but also have the effect of humanizing a person, of fostering empathy and passion and all the best feelings. The reading of literature takes us out of society (as we see when the Queen starts evading her duties to have more time to read) but the understanding of it puts us back in and makes us emotionally richer members (as we see in her changed reactions, like taking more notice, to people and situations around her).

The world of literature seemed like the real world. And the real world seemed like the contrived one.

I like how the Queen would suggest books for people and seriously expect them to read them and talk about them. Reading wasn't just a thing one did for a pleasant diversion; it was essential to understanding the human condition. Everyone was "too busy" to read, but the Queen dismissively and endearingly concludes: "one must make the time."

There's not a question in there, but just some stuff that grabbed me about the book. What grabbed you?

Uncommonly fond

What, exactly, was it about Norman that drew the Queen to him? And what was the significance, if any, of his preference for gay writers?

Erin's pick

Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

So, the book was about death?

When I first read about Jack and Babette's fears about who would die first, I thought it was sort of charming and incidental -- just another layer of proof about how much they loved each other. I missed the boat that the fear of death could be called the theme of the book. (Would you agree?)

The Murray-Jack exchange on death made up all of chapter 37. To sum up, here were Murray's suggestions to "beat the system" as I understood them:

1. Put your faith in technology ("lust removed from nature"). It can prolong life and the quality of it.

2. Concentrate on the life beyond (or faith?). Reincarnation, heaven, etc.

3. Have a near-death experience

4. Become a killer, not a dier. "Think how exciting it is, in theory, to kill a person in direct confrontation. If he dies, you cannot. To kill him is to gain life credit."

Anyone have any thought about this? I think this was the summary of the book -- that Jack would try all of these options to overcome his fears. I have been thinking since whether it's human nature to embrace some or all four of these ideas with different label. Yes, even number four ... maybe people aren't taking actual lives, but if materialism or one-upping their neighbors is buying them the life credits in a way that society deems more acceptable.

Murray

What did you make of Murray? He was my favorite character -- or in any case, the most pithy -- through most of the story, maybe until his final treatise on dealing with death, when he took such a cheerfully academic approach to how people can avoid death (or fear of it) that his lack of a conscience took sort of a menacing turn. Or that could have been my reservations about his audience's (Jack's) state of mind. A separate question -- is he culpable at all for the lack of ethics he espouses?

Toxic buildup

I thought there were indications, from Wilder's delayed speech development to Heinrich's receding hairline, to the school evacuation and the description of the unnaturally bright/attractive supermarket produce (making me think of preservatives, hormones), that toxic buildup had been long in the making. Was the author making a case on an environmental level that we live in an unhealthy world?

(By the way, despite his many observations, I didn't find DeLillo to be preachy. If I'm getting preachy, let's move on.)

Point of crisis

I am chewing on whether Jack's world was turned upside down by the airborne toxic event or Babette's Dylar confession. I'm inclined to think it was the second crisis. The toxic event seemed to be a modern threat the family unit was able to manage, not without casualties but that sort of worked within the grid of fears they'd already set up for themselves.

Or perhaps he already was in crisis mode when the story began?

Ben's pick

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett. I hope it isn't too short.

What the 20th century is all about

Why do you think a character like the awkward, elusive Winnie Richards was included in the novel? She's the chemist at Jack's university.

They have this conversation:

"Have you been hiding from me? I've left notes, phone messages."

"Not from you, Jack, or anyone in particular."

"Then why have you been so hard to find?"

"Isn't this what the twentieth century is all about?"

"What?"

"People going into hiding even when no one is looking for them."

The mystique of Wilder

I never resolved the mystery of Wilder, a small, vulnerable and lovable little boy in a wild and dangerous fictional landscape. The scene where he inexplicably cries for hours and hours resonated deeply with me. It reminded me of my youngest nephew and the frightening two years he spent adamantly crying, but not talking, like children his age should do. For that reason this storyline touched me, but I think it has broader significance: In a world that is a communicative and sensory blitz, Wilder grabbed attention for what he didn't say.

"I Want a New Drug"

Would you rather try Dylar or the Stanford Linear Accelerator 3-Day Particle Smashing Diet?

Really, if we could be fed a pill, what would it do?

Toxic denial

In the creepy and somewhat slow-paced passages about the actual toxic airborne event, I was struck by how Jack was slow to respond because of his certainty that no major catastrophe could touch his town's well-bred and white-bread existence. That disaster only struck in other places; that's what TV was for. I thought that was a fair critique. I haven't read up on how much of the Katrina mess was terrible emergency planning versus the accusations by some (like Kanye West) that the poor minorities barricaded at the stadium didn't get the same treatment as other Americans would. (I have seen some VH1 special that quoted Kanye and then brought in a comedian speculating what the Bush administration would have done if a natural disaster touched down in an investment banking neighborhood in Connecticut.) And Jack lives in a variation of that Connecticut neighborhood.

This post is signed by CL. Of course, the relevant tagline would be: "The wire editor who missed an urgent late-night advisory in December 2005 that a tsunami's death toll had just moved into the thousands ..."

Hitler?

What do you make of Gladney being a Hitler scholar — and one who doesn't know German? (cl, this may be somewhat related to your observations on pop culture in academia — and the superficial nature of some "studies").

Rebel flags

"White Noise" has plenty to say about academia, but my favorite exchange was the pop culture throwdown about what faculty could remember about the day James Dean died. But how often have I been asked what I remember about Princess Di's death? What makes this kind of crap the moral zenith of pop culture? I don't know, myself ... what are the highlights in our time of cultural significance? What makes them special? Would DeLillo agree?

A bite of Apple

"White Noise" is valued in part for the nature of its prophetic story-telling, visualizing a world where we're wrapped into a multimedia orgy of television, talk radio and other colorful messages. I thought it was interesting that the author obtained a copyright for "White Noise" in the same year that Apple aired its commercial for the first mainstream PC, the Apple:

"On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."

But "White Noise" offers little foray into computers; they don't even make an appearance until Jack has his survival stats analyzed at the toxic airborne event shelter. Did DeLillo write an already dated novel by making TV the chief enemy? (It being my opinion -- which is debatable -- that computers, or the Internet, have superceded TV.) Or is this relatable in a world now dominated with IM, e-mail, Facebook, PDAs? What a multimedia orgy we live in today.

Family values

I don't want to give this particular element of the story more importance than some of the broader issues of "White Noise," but what would you describe as values in the Gladney household? The parents might borrow porn from their son for a little bedtime foreplay (and for some reason their well-stocked erotica collection from various times, genres and proclivities amused me), but judgment rains down upon Babette over the brand of her chewing gum. Maybe self-worship, self-preservation, self-gratification are the key values of the white noise family life.

If so, does it extend beyond the Gladneys?

First impressions

Did you like the book? Was it what you expected?

I thought it was funny, incisive and oddly touching at times. I thought the characterization was particularly strong, maybe the best part of the book. "Babette talks to dogs and cats. ... She plans ski trips that we never take, her face bright with excitement." Or, "Steffie became upset every time something shameful or humiliating seemed about to happen to someone on the screen. She had a vast capacity for being embarrassed on other people's behalf."

And, I'm sure worth a few separate discussion threads, there's DeLillo's oddly prophetic multimedia blitz. He's like a Nostradamus of pop culture.

While I found it to be an entertaining and absorbing read, I sometimes found the writing to be a little oversaturated, like the author was working in every witty observation in the course of his life into one story. Sometimes a novel lets you breathe a little bit in the course of the plot, and this one seemed to pack in facts, witticisms, philosophy into each page. It made it a slow read for me as I tried to pick through all of the codes to decipher a message ... of course, that would make this one of the cleverest facets of the novel -- to drown out the reader with its own white noise.

What did you think?