Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Feed was published in 2002, so we're talking before social networking sites really took off. M.T. Anderson didn't even have Facebook or Twitter as a model when he was writing, but strangely his book seems to predict these sites in a way. What other modern-day social or cultural inventions, practices and/or activities do you see amped up or otherwise elaborated in a futuristic way in the book?
- If you were given the opportunity, would you want to have the feed like Titus and his friends do? What do you think would be some of the benefits? What about negatives?
- Yeah, yeah... we know that news on both national and international events can sometimes be a real snoozefest, but the American culture in Feed turn ignoring the news into an extreme sport. What is the effect of the way the book gradually reveals current events (both American and world-wide) through fragments on the feed?
- And just what's up with those lesions? Would you really want to walk around with a big old gnarly weeping sore (or many) on your face, just because the stars of The Big Bang Theory were sporting them? What do you think is going on with these sores? Can you think of a parallel to these "lesions" in today's culture?
- Titus and his friends attend SchoolTM, a largely connected classroom run by the corporations—think Wal-Mart High. He tells us that he learns important stuff there, like "how to work technology and how to find bargains and what's the best way to get a job and how to decorate our bedroom" (25.4). (Okay, seriously, these sound like pretty useful skills.) What do you think the book is trying to say about education in Titus's world? Our own?
- Violet and her dad are both gung-ho fight-the-power types. While each resists the feed in his or her own way, they also make different sorts of accommodations for it. So, Violet doesn't want to be totally different from the cool kids. She wants to go hang out on the Moon during spring break just like they do. And Violet's dad breaks down and allows his seven-year-old-daughter to have the feed implanted in her head, which later has some pretty severe repercussions. What price do each of these characters pay for their resistance of the feed? Their accommodation of it?
- Fittingly enough, M.T. Anderson dedicates his novel to "all those who resist the feed." Just what do you think he means by that? What might the feed be in today's world? What are some ways of resisting it? (We're not just talking about declining the all-you-can-eat buffet at John's Superlicious House of Ribs). Do you do anything to resist the feed?
- Let's talk structure. The novel is divided up into four parts: Part I: moon, Part II: eden, Part III: utopia, Part IV: slumberland. What do you think the author intends by this division? Think about what major events happen in each section. Do you get a sense of any kind of progression?