Reading 1001 discussion

March BOTM 2020, The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
Host, Amanda Dawn

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Book Summary: Can a weapon be a work of art? Can a work of art be a weapon? Rachel Kusher explores these and other themes in a novel about a young motorcycle enthusiast who moves from Nevada to New York at the end of the Nixon era. Known by her nickname of Reno, Kushner’s heroine has an affair with Sandro Valera, a Manhattan artist and heir to the fortune that his industrialist family in Italy has made by exploiting the poor. Through Sandro, Reno gains access to a downtown art world of dealers, gallery owners and others that is coming alive in the 1970s. But when she and her lover visit his relatives in the Italian Lake District, she becomes swept up in dangerous political currents set in motion by factory strikes and the violence of the Red Brigades.

Questions:
1. The Flamethrowers begins — unusually for a novel — not with its heroine but with a brief chapter on T.P. Valera, the father of her lover, Sandro. How well did the opening work? Why do we shift perspectives to Sandro at the end of the book? And why do we focus on Sandro’s father instead of Sandro for the rest of the book? What do these male perspectives mean for Reno’s story?

2. How does Reno change over the course of The Flamethrowers? (Some critics have called the book a coming-of-age novel, a genre in which a character typically gains hard-won wisdom. What has Reno gained by the end of the novel? What has she lost?)

3. The critic Christian Lorentzen wrote that The Flamethrowers “is about machines (motorcycles and guns, but also cameras) and the way they revolutionized the last century (its politics and violence, but also its art).” To what extent do you agree that this is what the novel is about: what else do you feel it was about? Other have written that it also explores how art is used as a weapon. Do you feel like our culture encourages artists, including musicians and filmmakers, to use art against others? What are examples of this within and outside the book?

4. What is the importance of us not learning Reno’s real name?

5. Reno says that the smell of gasoline on the crowd of people in Rome—and the disconnect between that world and the one she grew up in—made her “sad for Scott and Andy in a way [she] could not explain” (284). If you had to explain it for her, what would you say?

6. Do you think Ronnie is being unfair when he “demonstrates” for Reno “the uselessness of the truth”? Or do you think she had it coming? Is Ronnie a sympathetic character despite being incapable of sincerity?

7. Do you consider Reno a strong female character? Why or why not?

8. As always: what did you think of the book, and did it deserve it’s place on the list in your opinion?
Discuss!

1.The opening is a short section about Sandro's father's experience as an Alpino during the First World War. He is riding a motorcycle, he can hear flamethrowers in the distance and he kills a German. It piques the reader's interest, wondering how the flamethrowers relate to the title. The penultimate section explains Sandro's perspective as he leaves New York to return home to Northern Italy. The final section has the protagonist in the same area of Italy where the first piece is set, so bookends, set some sixty years apart. Although the story returns to Sandro's father, notably in 1941 in Brazil where he is exploiting local rubber workers, I did not think that "the rest of the novel" focuses on Sandro's father. Instead the main focus is the New York art scene of the 70's. The main character, Reno, is much more reactive than the proactive T.P.Valera, but the two characters share a love of motorcycles and speed. Most of the book is concerned with how Reno experiences her first two years post college in New York. The other characters, including the males, are described through her lens.
2. Reno is a passive character who observes those she meets carefully, like the photographer she is, but takes them at face value and only gradually realises that others are not necessarily the people she thought they were, or how they portrayed themselves to her. She becomes much more decisive and autonomous. She gains perspective but loses her naivity and guiltlessness.
3. Yes, the book explores motorcycles, guns and cameras, but it focuses on speed, interactions between artists, and performance art as political statement. I am not sure about "our culture" encouraging artists to use art against others. Which culture? China, Russia and states in revolutionary mode have been obvious examples of using art as propaganda. In my New Zealand culture I cannot think of art being used against others. I am intrigued by the question and await other readers' responses.
4. Not knowing the name of the protagonist is not a new device. Proust? But Reno is nicknamed for her origin. This reminds me of the Spanish Tv series, Money Heist! She is identified by her origin only briefly.
5. Her cousins Scott and Andy were rednecks and hugely significant in her upbringing. It is not explained how she escaped her background to study art and arrive in New York. The assumption is that despite her telling of it there was money there, because she was also a competitive ski racer - and that is not a cheap sport! I think she feels sorry for her cousins because she presumes that their lives have been more circumscribed than hers.
6. Ronnie is complicated, particularly his relationship with Sandro. He is a fantasist, unreliable and thoughtless. Despite his shortcomings he is an interesting character. Part of Kushner's skill is that she skewers her characters with biting clarity but keeps the reader's fascination with them.
7. Reno is a competitive ski racer, a woman who accepts the challenge to take the world land speed record, a woman who is familiar with guns, but also a serious photographer. She is almost an action hero! However she is passive in her relationships with both men and women, even when she is caught up with the Red Brigade.

I read the book yesterday. I will try to think and answer to your questions Amanda, they are not easy ones :)
I will just answer to the final question that I found The Flamethrowers to be very interesting read. It made me put down my book and think many times. What I liked the best are these tiny stories related or completely unrelated to the main story of Reno. For example, I cannot stop thinking of this couple who played their dream while on holiday of a wife being an invalid. And the bottom line of this story is how people have different dreams and goals of whom we are not to judge...

First of all, I really found this book to be very interesting. It is rare that I think about how an author does research for a book but the New York portion of the book took place when the author was less than 10 yrs. old so she did not experience the art scene in New York at that time. And of course she did not experience the Italian riots in Rome in the late 70's or the "Ardito" during WWI but the art scene portrayals seemed so intimate that I was surprised at the level of research for those.

Questions:
1. The Flamethrowers begins — unusually for a novel — not with its heroine but with a brief chapter on T.P. Valera, the father of her lover, Sandro. How well did the opening work? Why do we shift perspectives to Sandro at the end of the book? And why do we focus on Sandro’s father instead of Sandro for the rest of the book? What do these male perspectives mean for Reno’s story?

I thought it worked well. It essentially said that this was a book about stories, many stories, and how they tie in together and how they stand alone. The fact that there were parallels between Reno and T.P. Valera (the love of the line, the thrill of motorcycles, the tendency to spend time watching others) tied it together. The shifting to Sandro at the end of the book gave me, the reader, a different view into the same story. We didn't learn anything new in regards to specific events, but we did learn some of the motivations behind the events. It was a way for the author to say again: "is the truth important, or is the story important". In particular, Sandro's story and his father's story played a tension around knowing what you want, knowing who you are in relation to what you want, knowing how to get what you want. Sandro succumbed to being his father's son regardless of whether it was what he wanted. It was who he was. His father would not have done that. His father wasn't even interested in who he was. His father was interested in what he wanted. Reno, in a strange way was closer to Sandro's father than Sandro. She was interested in the act, in the watching, in the learning, in the listening. She didn't strive to know who she was. She was largely passive throughout the book which was completely different than Sandro's father, but nevertheless, like Sandro's father she could imagine a story for herself that was, in essence, the next thing...on to the next thing.


2. How does Reno change over the course of The Flamethrowers? (Some critics have called the book a coming-of-age novel, a genre in which a character typically gains hard-won wisdom. What has Reno gained by the end of the novel? What has she lost?)

She did slowly come to a realization that in order to truly experience her story, i.e. her life, she had to have some control over that story, that life. She had to become someone that moved on, and that was a more active participant rather than just a passive watcher.

3. The critic Christian Lorentzen wrote that The Flamethrowers “is about machines (motorcycles and guns, but also cameras) and the way they revolutionized the last century (its politics and violence, but also its art).” To what extent do you agree that this is what the novel is about: what else do you feel it was about? Other have written that it also explores how art is used as a weapon. Do you feel like our culture encourages artists, including musicians and filmmakers, to use art against others? What are examples of this within and outside the book?

I think the author referred to machines on a number of levels. The Italian Futurists, a movement that began in 1909 and welcomed in the Fascists later in the century, believed in the beauty and passion of modern life which included a love of machines, in particular moving machines like motorcycles. The US art movements of the 60's and 70's also had a level of the love of the machinery but it tended toward making the mundane or the commonplace, the center of a kind of beauty. All modern art has a bit of a requirement to "kill the father", i.e. to overthrow the previous art rules, to be shocking in some regard. The book refers to Andy Warhol and his demonstrating this in opposition to the Hollywood movies of that time. 8 hours of watching someone sleep was not "just" boring but in a funny way revolutionary. I think there have been many artists in history who have strived to make revolutionary art which isn't exactly a weapon but at least a way of opening people's minds to a different way of thinking. The Motherf.....in the book were doing performance art that slid over into out and out radical acts.

However, I think the book included these contemplations about art but the book was not solely about these contemplations. I felt that the look into the art world was another way of viewing stories, the stories that are important to defining yourself and others, and also defining your culture.

4. What is the importance of us not learning Reno’s real name?

Reno was her real name in that she was fine with being called Reno. It reflected where she was from. It gave her a built in story that reflected a mythical west and it also told us, the reader, that she had no other name that served her as well because she had not yet come to a conclusion about who she was.

5. Reno says that the smell of gasoline on the crowd of people in Rome—and the disconnect between that world and the one she grew up in—made her “sad for Scott and Andy in a way [she] could not explain” (284). If you had to explain it for her, what would you say?

Scott and Andy were comfortable with who they were and where they were. I suspect Reno felt sad that she was not and could not simply go back and be with them and "be herself". There was no "self" back there.

6. Do you think Ronnie is being unfair when he “demonstrates” for Reno “the uselessness of the truth”? Or do you think she had it coming? Is Ronnie a sympathetic character despite being incapable of sincerity?

Ronnie was made to be a character somewhat like Loki, the Norse god, full of myth and mischief and often crossing the line over to evil. You can not help but find him someone wonderful to hang out with but one would not want him as a friend. He was completely untrustworthy. The "truth" is useless to Ronnie, but it is not useless to Reno. Reno actually valued truth and saw it as a foundation rather than a farce.

7. Do you consider Reno a strong female character? Why or why not?

Reno was mostly passive and willing to be someone that attaches herself to others and their stories rather than build her own. However, she didn't completely give up on herself. She had a drive that was reflected in downhill skiing, motorcycle racing, independent filmmaking, and ultimately I was left with the feeling that she was going to be a very strong character in the future, even if in this book she was not quite there yet.

8. As always: what did you think of the book, and did it deserve it’s place on the list in your opinion?
Discuss!

Yes, absolutely it belongs on the list. It was a wonderful combination of multiple contrasting stories covering various times and the characters were believable and interesting. The research, as I mentioned above, was extraordinary in that I felt as if she lived through these times rather than just wrote about them.

1. The opening chapter gave us a brief view of the world Valera had come from and the importance of the motor bike within that world. It also shows the Flamethrowers of the title as well as giving the reader a brief idea of what war was like a theme visited later when Reno is with Gianni at the protest. Throughout the book we have chapters that tell us about the life of Valera's father and how the family made their fortune. Reverting to hear Valera's side of things at the end of the book added a new perspective to what the reader had already read.

2. Reno gains experience and the ability to look back at things and read them in a new light. She loses the innocent girl she was but it looks like she will be more decisive about her own life in the future. This was already beginning to show when she was defying Valera to join the Italian tour.

3. There are lots of mentions of motorcycles within the book. There were a couple of gun instances the gun as foreplay (why??) the mugger incident. There are lots of mentions of art, of speed as art, dance as art, acting as art, photos as art as well as traditional art. Some of the artists seem to be in competition with each other but not to hurt each other.

4. Reno herself is defining who she wants to be and the name Reno suits her. It also shows her passivity in that she lets others choose her name for her.

5. I think Reno believes they are stuck where they have always been while she has managed to go to New York, to do the speed race and to experience a wider life.

6. Harsh maybe but then again she did need the wake up call and it would stop her from wondering what if. I didn't find Ronnie particularly sympathetic I thought all the men came across as dicks really.

7. Yes and no. She was weak in that she let other decide things for her and she was more like a voyeur in her own life and then on the other hand she is strong because she left home and set out to find her own dream, she goes to New York alone, she finds her own crowd, she rides the speed course and she was planning on defying Valera to join the tour.

8. I seem to be alone here but I found the book to be overly long and I found it dragged. I was not really interested in the characters and it was only the final section when we get Valera's view that made me appreciate the book

I am about 75% of the way through this one. I will be back later to answer some questions once I've finished the book. This is the first book that I've read by this author.

I'm enjoying everyone else's answers here: great thoughts everyone! I finished this one earlier this month, but just getting to answering now that I have time (hello quarantine!) Like most here- I ended up quite enraptured with the book and ended up giving it 4 stars, and was able to clear it within 2 days via audio because I found it compelling and easy to keep listening to.

1. I liked the opening, the book kind of comes around to Valera again too, so that was cool. It helps contextualize Sandro, who contextualizes Reno for much of the book, so it’s kind of a framing chain which is neat. The motif of motorcycles weaves through both of their stories, so that connection worked well to make this cohesive. As others have mentioned, Reno is a passive agent in her own story for most of the book, so the men in her life are framing her own narrative.

2. I agree with other that she becomes more autonomous and assertive in herself by the end of the novel, but perhaps has lost this sense of naïve artistic openness that brings her through these adventures in the first place.

3. I agree that the role of machines in both violence and art is a prominent theme in the novel. I really enjoyed the part near the beginning where Reno describes how she came into her motorcycle land art style and how the impressions left from skiing influenced that. It’s also about the value of stories, and finding autonomy. I think art is used positively as a weapon in the book with the example of the radio show for women that pops up during the riot/revolution. Also the whole bit about the “Motherfuckers” and their radical acts against the state. Historically, art has been used by both governments and counterculture to fight their political goals (see agitprop and propaganda). Currently, while I think it is starting to get better, I think many popular forms of American art have been used to demonize other countries politically (I think about shows like Homeland and 24, movies like 300, American Sniper, etc), or other-ise minority groups to their detriment. I think comedy trying to be “edgy” that just parrots updated social values does this a lot, but, I think the most virulent form of negatively weaponized art (at least in my corner of the world/age demographic) right now is YouTube creators: many of whom use sly dog whistles and a veneer of comedy and social commentary to radicalize younger viewers towards the farther right. Fortunately, I’m seeing a lot of people start to catch on to these people too.

4. I like the comment Gail made about how Reno is her “real” name in that that is how she identifies and what she responds to. I think as an artistic choice it does help reflect how she is defined by both her background and what others assign to her.

5. I liked this line a lot in the book- it happens sometimes (at least to me) that something just gives me a jolt of my memories and where I’m from, and it moves me in this both joyful and melancholy way. I think I explain it as –yes- sad for everyone stuck there still, and also for oneself about never being able to truly go back and having longing regardless. Reno’s is gasoline, mine is certain ocean smells, or that smell of clothes on a clothesline in spring.

6. I struggle with this one: I’m someone who has a very strong sense about the usefulness of the truth. I did enjoy Ronnie’s stories within the book though, and while I don’t necessarily think he is sympathetic, he certainly was entertaining. I also liked her friend the actress that was posing as a waitress for a similar reason: she was so insincere but very entertaining. I also like the social commentary there of her philosophy of the ultimate form of acting being living as a working person.

7. Agree with others that she isn’t in the sense that she is a passive observer of her own life for much of the book and is defined by the men in it to a large extent, and I think she’s coming into her own near the end. On the flip side, she has a very daring career that se undertakes in a really high risk unconventional way (the motorcycles). I think there is a strength in a woman from the 70s being a free floating career artist who enrolls in motorcycle races.

8. I wasn’t sure I would like this one going in based on what I read about it when writing the questions: but I thought the execution was great and I was really drawn into it. This is a super young book, so I don’t know where it will fit in in the annals of time/contribution to the novel, but I’m certainly not upset it’s on the list.

I didn't love this book but I can appreciate the writing. I found it to drag a bit and I didn't really care about the characters.

Reno starts out on the naive side but slowly realizes that she needs to take some level of control of her life. The fact that her friends call her Reno and define her by her past shapes how they initially treat her and how she treats herself.

I loved this book. I found I was completely immersed in it. I also 5 starred the other book I had read by Rachel Kushner (The Mars Room) which I think is a more approachable book than this one. The Flamethrowers required much more effort and it was maybe only about halfway through the book that I actually realised that I loved it. I basically agree with most of what other people have said above.

1. In many ways Sandro's father is compared with Reno not his son. They both love bikes and are brave enough to try new things (moving to New York and setting up businesses etc). While they both experience war/civil strife one suspects that Reno comes out of it with more of her humanity intact. It was good to hear from Sandro at the end. I can't help thinking that the Reno who we still see emerging at the end of the book, with more strength and backbone, would have been a fitting partner for him, but because he goes back to Italy, to take his brother's place, in a way he is no longer worthy of her because he has made a compromise too far. It is a compromise his father would never have made.

2. We see her become less passive. She always had a strong spirit (bikes, acting on her dream and moving to New York) but was too passive in her relations with people; women as well as men. But much of the worlds that we see in the novel are misogynistic. The men seem to sleep with anyone who they feel like sleeping with, Ronnie creates art from women hurting themselves; few of the female characters we meet seem to have real power beyond their relationships with men. It is primarily in Italy that we see some evidence of the reverse, with female radio broadcasters, female revolutionaries and a radio broadcast where a man states "Men connect you to the world, but not with your own self."

3. Guns, cameras, art can all be used as weapons. To some extent the need for new, improved versions of all three can lead to radicalisation. A possessor of a gun does not necessarily have the same views as one with a paintbrush, but both can be powerful; and both can hate the other. We see positive and negative views in the book; for example Sandro saves a man from drowning but shoots a robber in the hand. Reno attempts to film things that speak to her, but in Italy, a pregnant woman is mistreated in the name of art. But one idea in the book is that the same capitalist world creates both the gun, the motorbike and the artist. Sandro and Reno, most obviously, straddle the lines between them. And the capitalist world relies on the exploitation of others; in Italy, in New York and in South America.

4. Reno was her persona. It gave her a role in the community in New York. It fits into ideas raised in the book about truth.

6. I found Ronnie fascinating. He uses other people's truths as his own (notably his brother Tim's). Reno says at one point that she does not understand him... neither did I. We are not meant to? If someone has such an odd relationship with truth, who are they? I loved Gail's comparison of him to Loki. The truth was definitely more important to Reno.

7. I agree with Gail again. Reno is going to be a very strong woman in the future. This book is primarily about how she got there.

8. Yes, I loved this book and I feel it deserves its place on the list. I was not expecting it and it just felt so different. It was clearly well researched and I felt immersed in the world Kushner created.

When the libraries reopen I totally want to read Telex from Cuba so that I can have read all of her books.

1. The Flamethrowers begins — unusually for a novel — not with its heroine but with a brief chapter on T.P. Valera, the father of her lover, Sandro. How well did the opening work? Why do we shift perspectives to Sandro at the end of the book? And why do we focus on Sandro’s father instead of Sandro for the rest of the book? What do these male perspectives mean for Reno’s story?
I think this was an effective way to start the book. Sandro's story establishes sets the stage for the rest of the book and the ending with Sandro bring it full circle.

2. How does Reno change over the course of The Flamethrowers? (Some critics have called the book a coming-of-age novel, a genre in which a character typically gains hard-won wisdom. What has Reno gained by the end of the novel? What has she lost?)
She becomes more assertive and a stronger person.

3. The critic Christian Lorentzen wrote that The Flamethrowers “is about machines (motorcycles and guns, but also cameras) and the way they revolutionized the last century (its politics and violence, but also its art).” To what extent do you agree that this is what the novel is about: what else do you feel it was about? Other have written that it also explores how art is used as a weapon. Do you feel like our culture encourages artists, including musicians and filmmakers, to use art against others? What are examples of this within and outside the book?
I love Karen's response to this question.

4. What is the importance of us not learning Reno’s real name?
Part of the idea is to avoid giving her a fixed identity. By knowing little about her or her background, the reader has to make their own assumptions about who she is rather than to let details of her past shape that perception. It keeps her more anaonymous and mysterious, much like the China girl she portrayed.

8. As always: what did you think of the book, and did it deserve it’s place on the list in your opinion?
Discuss!
I actually disliked the book for a number of reasons which I elaborated on in the review. In a nutshell, I was put off by her writing style and I found the book uninteresting overall.

Questions:
1. The Flamethrowers begins — unusually for a novel — not with its heroine but with a brief chapter on T.P. Valera, the father of her lover, Sandro. How well did the opening work? Why do we shift perspectives to Sandro at the end of the book? And why do we focus on Sandro’s father instead of Sandro for the rest of the book? What do these male perspectives mean for Reno’s story?

I don't know why the author chose this structure but it was successful in bringing in historical background to the current story. I always appreciate how one book I've read adds to the book I am currently reading. During the parts about rubber and the Amazon, my thoughts returned to Memory of Fire by Eduardo Galeano. It also works to show the difference between class structure.

2. How does Reno change over the course of The Flamethrowers? (Some critics have called the book a coming-of-age novel, a genre in which a character typically gains hard-won wisdom. What has Reno gained by the end of the novel? What has she lost?)

The 60s and 70s were the years of my own coming of age. Yes, it is a story of a young, naive but brave American girl as she grows up during this time in history. She appears to be quite passive and often just drifts along. But I found her incredible brave or if not brave, she wasn't thinking about consequences. Young people often don't. I think she was as alone in the end as she was in the beginning. Which is sad but I think she did learn a lot about her self and choices she made. She accepted the consequences and didn't blame others. I liked that about her. It certainly also shows that we make choices but sometimes we don't make them with all the facts at our disposal. She did not know that Sandros sent the driver to look for her and that he waited for her to come back.

3. The critic Christian Lorentzen wrote that The Flamethrowers “is about machines (motorcycles and guns, but also cameras) and the way they revolutionized the last century (its politics and violence, but also its art).” To what extent do you agree that this is what the novel is about: what else do you feel it was about? Other have written that it also explores how art is used as a weapon. Do you feel like our culture encourages artists, including musicians and filmmakers, to use art against others? What are examples of this within and outside the book?

There definitely is a theme of art and what art communicates. Some of the art in this book is beyond my appreciation. I do appreciate Karen's response. She puts it into the right words. My thoughts go to, we call guns, motorcycles, brushes weapons but as items they do nothing. The determinator is the person's intent that uses these things. The person is always the source of violence, not the weapon and we can choose to be both good and harmful.

4. What is the importance of us not learning Reno’s real name?

She never is known by others for who she is. I did wonder if she was Asian?

5. Reno says that the smell of gasoline on the crowd of people in Rome—and the disconnect between that world and the one she grew up in—made her “sad for Scott and Andy in a way [she] could not explain” (284). If you had to explain it for her, what would you say?

It is a bit of homesick and nostalgia, triggered by a smell that was not in context but took her back to an earlier and safer time of life.

6. Do you think Ronnie is being unfair when he “demonstrates” for Reno “the uselessness of the truth”? Or do you think she had it coming? Is Ronnie a sympathetic character despite being incapable of sincerity?

I liked Ronnie a bit more than Sandros but only a bit.

7. Do you consider Reno a strong female character? Why or why not?
She was often passive and while she seemed strong, she also was passive. She was a both I guess.

8. As always: what did you think of the book, and did it deserve it’s place on the list in your opinion?
Discuss!
I had great difficulty engaging with the book. I did not like the first part and almost chose to not finish it. But if I followed the Nancy Pearl rule and quit books I am not enjoying there are many that I would miss out on because it takes the author so long to really get to the story. The latter part of the book was much better. I think the author is a skilled author who can write but this book was perhaps to ambitious. It maybe was trying to do too much. A feminist coming of age, an essay on art/weapons, a historical novel of class structure and privilege verses the working class and indigenous people used as slaves. I've read two books by Rachel Kushner, the other being The Mars Room. I think this probably has more literary merit so of the two, I would keep this one on the list.

Additional thoughts. I read through the quotes here at GR for the book and this book also would be a book about love. I think Dogg says is about love except....

Does this book portray love realistically?

1. The Flamethrowers begins — unusually for a novel — not with its heroine but with a brief chapter on T.P. Valera, the father of her lover, Sandro. How well did the opening work? Why do we shift perspectives to Sandro at the end of the book? And why do we focus on Sandro’s father instead of Sandro for the rest of the book? What do these male perspectives mean for Reno’s story?

From a practical perspective, this was required for the author as a more interesting way to weave the past into the main story (rather than writing a sole chapter binging on the past) and, specifically, gradually understand the complexities of Sandro's character. As others have already pointed out, Reno's story is scaffolded on these male perspectives.

2. How does Reno change over the course of The Flamethrowers? (Some critics have called the book a coming-of-age novel, a genre in which a character typically gains hard-won wisdom. What has Reno gained by the end of the novel? What has she lost?)

She has been let down or fooled by people she couldn't really get to know or couldn't read well enough (Sandro, Ronnie, Giddle, Gianni, etc.); so she probably learned not to take "truth" or people's stories at face value and find the guts to scratch below the surface if people aren't really transparent. While we have glimpses of the change in Reno towards the end of the novel (during the blackout), we would only fully witness it if there were a sequel (please, no).

4. What is the importance of us not learning Reno’s real name?

Like for most of the characters, it was a way to conceal or not reveal too much or all about who they really are.

5. Reno says that the smell of gasoline on the crowd of people in Rome—and the disconnect between that world and the one she grew up in—made her “sad for Scott and Andy in a way [she] could not explain” (284). If you had to explain it for her, what would you say?

Reno associates the smell of gasoline with happier childhood memories with Scott and Andy; this contrasts with the chaotic atmosphere of the demonstrations of the Italian movement of 1977, which was more anarchist in nature than communist.

6. Do you think Ronnie is being unfair when he “demonstrates” for Reno “the uselessness of the truth”? Or do you think she had it coming? Is Ronnie a sympathetic character despite being incapable of sincerity?

Ronnie has the gift of the gab and always seems to have it both ways; his life is built on un-truths and borrowed truths (e.g. his brother Tim). While Ronnie can be quite charming for somebody so inexperienced as Reno, she welcomes his "truths" at face value without openly questioning them. She needs a better BS detector.

7. Do you consider Reno a strong female character? Why or why not?

She appears strong as she displays risk-taking which was still uncharacteristic of most women in the 70s (her alpine skiing feats; her bike-riding and speeding exploits; her decision to leave by herself remote Reno for big smoke New York and try to make it in the art world); however, her naivety when it comes to dealing with and trusting people more than counterbalances that strength.

8. As always: what did you think of the book, and did it deserve it’s place on the list in your opinion?
Discuss!

I'm not convinced this novel would pass the test of time and forever deserves a place on the List. There were interesting aspects, like the 70s modern art environment and the anchoring of historical events like the demonstrations of the Italian movement of 1977 as well as the 1977 New York blackout and its ensuing looting and arson. While the author did her best to tie up all the loose ends created by her characters and all the themes explored, it failed to engage me throughout and I often felt like most people who indulge in a bit of reflection about the meaning of a work of modern art, but can't figure out what the fuss was all about.