We're going to read ONE more essay before taking a reading break, and this will be the last essay we read from this book. But KEEP THE BOOK: you'll need it for Paper #2, which I'll assign during Tuesday's class. Be sure, too, you have our second book, Devoured, which we won't start for another few weeks, but get it now while you still have time, if you don't already.
Answer TWO of the following:
Q1: Fortini writes that "Las Vegas is a place about which people have ideas...and one slivery weekend glimpse bestows on them a sense of ownership and authority" (92). Why DO we have so many ideas about a city that few of us live in, and many people have never even visited? Why does she suggest that these ideas give us "ownernship and authority" over it? Why is that annoying to the people who actually live there?
Q2: According to Fortini, who ARE the people of Las Vegas? Why might the answer surprise us? Why do you think tourists don't really see these people when they visit?
Q3: Fortini says that the residents of Las Vegas believe that "honesty is stronger medicine than sympathy, which may console but often conceals" (101). In other words, people might not be super nice here, but they rarely lie to you. Why is one preferrable to the other, in your opinion? What can honesty reveal that sympathy might not?
Q4: One of the most insightful things Fortini says in this essay appears on page 94, when she writes, "when you have very little experience of a subject, a single point can look like a line." What does she mean by this? How does this statement relate to Las Vegas, and to many other subjects as well?
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