Essay Questions

How does the narrator situate riding the subway as an exercise in Freudian psychoanalysis?

In the Preface, the narrator takes a moment to leave behind the central subject of the photography exhibit at the MoMA to was philosophic on the topic of riding the subway. In this one paragraph, the experience encompasses Freudian psychology utilizing terms like persona and superego before comparing the effect to lapsing into psychoanalytic hypnosis. The portrait painted by the narrator is one in which rhythmic motion of the train is likened to the mesmerizing effect of the repetition which lulls one into a state of hypnosis. And, just as with hypnosis, this trancelike state allows the conscious mind to give way to the subconscious.

What, exactly, are the titular rules of civility?

On the occasion of turning fourteen, Tinker Grey is presented by his mother the gift of a book entitled Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Although credited to George Washington, the slim volume's content had been merely transcribed verbatim from an earlier English translation of the original French which has been traced back to a Jesuit brotherhood. It should be noted that Washington never actually tried to take credit for the book himself and its discovery was part of a cache of similar learning aides for his own private use. The book lists 110 rules in total which include advice such as "Show nothing to your friends which might affright them," "In visiting the sick, do not play the physician if you be not knowing therein," and "Take no salt or cut bread with your knife greasy." Clearly, it is a book which no longer governs even the etiquette of high society or politics.

What narrative aspect has risen to become a source of contention between admirers and detractors of the novel?

The story is narrated by a young, twenty-something woman who calls the New York City of the 1930's home. The novel was published in 2011 by a forty-something man calling New York City home after being born and raised in Boston. The divide here has created deep divisions regarding perspective toward narrative voice. There are those--mostly women, it seems--who argue that the book ultimately fails because the author is not successful in inhabiting the persona of his narrator. Within that broader group exists a small contingent that forward the inexplicable notion that the story was doomed from the moment of creation because--for some reason--a male author cannot or should not try to write from a woman's perspective (and vice versa, one assumes). Dismissing that absurd notion as the pure insanity it is, the question comes down to one of execution rather than imagination. Of course, what even those convinced there is a failure of execution should keep in mind is that the book is narrated in the first-person and, ultimately, who is really to say that any character's perspective somehow gets it wrong.