Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the nonprofit Consumer Federation of America, puts it this way: “Debt has gone from something long term to the short term,” he says. “It’s the difference between a washer and dryer and my weekly groceries.”

Credit card companies catalyzed the shift about a decade ago. Two men started the trend: Richard Fairbank and Nigel Morris, former consultants who took over the reins at Capital One, a credit card issuer, decided to personalize plastic. Instead of offering one card at a set rate, they experimented with multiple cards and all kinds of offers. Bonus APRs, balance transfers, “lifestyle cards” imprinted with yachts, sports teams and college logos — Capital One pioneered all of those ideas. And whenever someone with, say, a Jeep responded to a gold Visa card imprinted with white-capped mountains — as opposed to a forest scene — it made a note of it, creating an associative database that formed the basis for more mailings. (my emphasis)

And on the other hand, I’ve been bonding with Titus a little: I ordered some pants online yesterday, although not to the extent of emptying my account.  First I got the “thanks for ordering!” e-mail, then the “your order is in process!” e-mail, then the “we shipped your order!” e-mail…and each subsequent e-mail makes me feel like I can feel the pants flying toward me in the dark. 

What I’m saying is, if you read the book like Titus caught a clue from Violet’s death and went on to grow and learn and eventually tell the story that this book contains, then Violet’s death is a plot point serving to get us to a hopeful ending. It gives you hope, as you say, that if one ordinary guy can do it, maybe more can, and will, and their civilization will slowly pull back from the brink. But the way I reacted (NB: emotions engaged!) was, “They’re all stupid and doomed, and they deserve to be.” In their heedless consumerism, they had eaten up their world and trod a fragile Violet underfoot. (I have to think her name was chosen very deliberately.) They didn’t deserve a happy ending.

A hopeful ending cheats the “Warning! Watch out! Don’t let this happen to you!” message by holding out hope of redemption; some things, once lost, are irrecoverable, and in my assessment, that world has gleefully sped right past any point of return. I don’t want the ‘meaning’ in Violet’s death to be Titus’ salvation (and thereby, potentially, the salvation of his world); I want the meaning in her death to be “Cherish the delicate, the vibrant, the beautiful, the bright, the tender all around you—-in people, in nature, in yourself—-or else you will lose it.”

Note, please, that I’m not saying that’s what the author wrote. You’re probably right about what the author intended the book to mean; I’m just telling you what it means to me. The “Violet leads Titus to get in touch with his inner poet, and he’s a better man for it” angle grates, probably because I’m no fan of Beauty and the Beast stories. Why is it always the female who has to look past ugliness and cruelty to reach the inner worth of the male?

As far as sympathy for Titus, well, I’ve already copped to being jealous of him and not properly identifying with him as the hero of the story. Which doesn’t make him an unsympathetic character, so much as it makes me an unsympathetic reader.

Second, in response to the observation about the 1950s as the start of the Feed lifestyle, there is a really fascinating book called “Where The Girls Are” that discusses the role of marketing in helping develop a burgeoning sense of identity in young women starting in, you guessed it, the 1950s. It then goes on to discuss the conflicting messages that on one level conveyed to us that we were something more than wives and mothers, while more overtly telling us what we wanted most was to be wives and mothers. It is obviously a little more complex than that, but I would really like to go back and read that in light of my new feelings about the consumer culture, marketing, etc.

Finally, Kai, back to the language — and the idea that the best character in the book died so some mildly decent character could learn a lesson. Indeed, if that was the case, ick. I went back and reread some of the book this afternoon and I’m pretty sure it was intended to be a first person point of view, and all the impressions and so forth really did come from Titus. So, the deeper thoughts (yes, in comparison to the others, admittedly) and reflections and observations and even the use of language were meant to be his — at least the sections that were written in first person. Obviously, there were news clips and feed items and song lyrics interspersed, but those were meant to give us a greater sense of the constant buzz that Titus was exposed to. In thinking more about Violet’s death, I don’t see that she died so Titus could learn a lesson. I see more that she died because these things happen — because of the culture, because of the way things are. She died because it is a screwed up world with inappropriate priorities. She would have died even if Titus never learned a lesson. But thank goodness for his own sake that he did. Did Quendy have the same capacity to get it? Maybe. How about Link? I’m less optimistic. Even thought Titus is absolutely maddening, I still think he was special. I think he was really quite smart. He just didn’t want to be. I knew guys like that in high school. They weren’t bad guys. But a lot of times, they didn’t want to be good guys. They didn’t want to have to think about things all the time. In a way, I don’t want Titus to be special, because if he is just another one of “them,” it means anyone can “get it” and change. But why did he see Violet was so special right from the start. She was different and he liked it. I think he liked it because he felt different and alone and he thought being with someone else would make that go away. It didn’t. He was so desperate not to be alone. That made me so sad. And that is why I felt some sympathy for him even though he did such awful things. I think at the heart of things here is not that Titus may or may not have been eloquent or in possesion of decent language skills, it is whether or not he is a sympathetic character.

I saw it as the central tragedy of Titus’ character that he has this remnant instinct toward poetry and curiosity about the world around him, but because of the culture he was raised in and what passes for education in it, these have nearly atrophied. He doesn’t have the words to express the things he feels—and even if he had them, he doesn’t have an audience that can appreciate them. I guess I read the book not as something Titus had literally composed, but as coming from a limited-omniscient narrator, who kept us inside Titus’ perspective, but could tell us more about what was going on in his head than Titus himself could.

However, I re-read the ending, and I see what you’re getting at. It does seem that Titus has accepted Violet’s challenge to fight the system, and in beginning to tell stories to her, perhaps he’s finding his voice. Maybe we are supposed to understand that the novel we have just read grew out of Titus’ promise to keep on telling Violet’s story. But you know what? That interpretation pisses me off. So, Violet’s beautiful spirit is silenced, but at least her death has meaning, because it woke this guy up and got him in touch with his own voice? Ick. That makes me hate the book, a little. But, I admit up front that I identified with the wrong character; if I put myself in the shoes of someone who relates to Titus (i.e., the target market of this book, young adults), it does make for a more satisfying read.

The problem with the state of things in the US today, in my not so humble opinion, is that consumer spending accounts for a vast majority of our economy. I don’t see that as being conducive to creating a thoughtful society that behave respectfully to each other, much less other cultures.

It’s not all said and done yet, Ramona. You might find at least one of your “missed the lesson” kids on your doorstep one of these days, looking to re-plant Grandma’s garden, read your old issues of Mother Earth News, and get tips on keeping dairy cows. And pigs, ’cause, mmmmm, bacon! And woolly sheep, of course. The End of the World is certainly no time to stop knitting.