I appreciated the descriptions for a few reasons. For one thing, it gave me the sense that Millhauser understood the world he was creating.

My copy of "Martin Dressler" definitely feels that its vision has been ignored and misunderstood. It's going back to the library to start over.

I'm going to sleep on my mother's sofa. Wake me up when it's time to shoot you.

I've seen more von Sternberg silent movies than sound movies. So I can't tell you anything about Marlene Dietrich or her work with von Sternberg. I hear she kind of sounds like Madeleine Kahn, though, if that helps.

Roger Vadim?

The best way to learn German is to already know it
I wish I could participate in these discussions more. Too little time, too many scramble suits.

Interesting question — is Arctor self-directed or other-directed at the end?

Now you got me wondering if what we call a personality is partly just the tension between different identities. Or, at least, the part of me that isn't thinking about work is wondering about that.

In a way, Arctor's identity was paranoia. Then, once he went over the edge — no paranoia, no identity. Nothing to relate to from the inside.

helicooter, I like that idea of a circular surveillance. Could Arctor be a circle of one? Or two, counting Fred?

One of the sadder moments I had reading "A Scanner Darkly" is realizing that one of the few times any character is happy is when Charles Freck realizes he has a new source, Donna, to buy drugs from. The drugs themselves don't seem to matter — only the knowledge that there'll be more.

I wondered if I missed something too. But the book does focus on Connie the needle freak turning into Donna and back again while in Arctor's bed. That made me wonder if the scramble suit could be used to look like a specific person instead of nobody, and if Donna was using a Hank suit to try and be intimate with Bob…

I wonder if the burnouts who go to New Path are the new migrant workers. To paraphrase a recent president, burnouts do the jobs Americans don't want to.

Cool, I didn't think of any of this. I did wonder, though, if this novel is what would happen if you mixed controlled substances with "Seinfeld".

That's sad news about the end of Technicolor. I guess I knew it was dead, but I hoped it was just trapped behind enemy lines.

In which I repeat many things that you have said better
One post and then off to sleep. Too bad, I'd love to interact more.

At least in Riddley's world, people only write things down if they are worth reading.

pico, you mentioned trying to render a fugue in words instead of music. I didn't have big trouble with the language in Riddley Walker, but in school my Shakespeare assignments were punishing. I wonder if that's because trying to read Shakespeare is like trying to hear music by reading the notes on the page? (for…

JaNtLT, I'm a Jared Diamond fan, and I'm glad you found a reason to bring him into the discussion. You're right, "Guns Germs & Steel" can provide some insight into the backstory of "Riddley Walker". Which is part of the frontstory I guess, since the plot is driven by disgruntled ex-gatherers.

I was kidding about the dogs. Maybe not though…they always know what to do…