Both the form/style of the novel and its thematic content offer possibilities for discussion. Clearly the crucial issues surrounding America and the American Dream must be explored, as Millhauser's interest in the interrelationships of technology, advertising, capital, and imagination at the turn of the century could not be more clear. Yet the novel's magical qualities, while more difficult to pin down, are equally important.

Millhauser's prose style is most profitably examined through close readings of the various "fantasy sequences" found throughout the text (i.e., the love scenes, the descriptions of Arling's architecture, the descriptions of what goes on beneath the hotels).

1. The "American Dream" is no doubt an idea with which most of us are acquainted, but are we all sure about precisely what it involves? Discuss the various connotations of this phrase. Who says these words, and when? Is it an ideological concept...