I thought Sally's choice of reading about the culture being consumed only by pleasure and "fashion" set against her mom's new dress and the country club party "costumes" was a good directorial choice. Add in Sally's licentious portion and what the latter half of the 1960s and early 1970s hold ....

Since many people today hold to the view that America is now experiencing its own Fall, that western culture is slipping into its twilight years, and MadMen seems to be determined to highlight that there is nothing new under the sun, that all of this (our ideas that we, in 2009, are unique and so is our time) is just a repeat of an earlier pattern. Or to quote another show: "All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again."

Apt point, Pink! I think you're right that what Sally is reading really echos what's happening at the country club party. The club and its party tries to glorify and live in past Empires like the old South (Roger in blackface singing the titular song) and the roaring 20's (the Charleston performed by Pete and Trudy), both of which came crashing down. That particular party is very much locked in nostalgia for some great and wonderful empire, very like the "Decline and Fall" book which seems to say that the Roman Empire was wonderful and isn't it sad it fell.

Yet as they wallow in nostalgia for bygone Empires, they can't see that their own Empire, this sort of country club party, is coming across as in decline, as being, as you say, consumed by pleasure and fashion, etc.

I think Don chat in the bar about wanting to see the inside of such clubs is telling. There is a disappointment with the inside which seems decadent and all the other things that bring down an Empire--and Don almost seems to feel a nostalgia for those humble beginnings in contrast with the blue-bloods' nostalgia for fantasy Empires rules by the idol rich.

Great posts. I love coming to this site after watching the show and reading such intelligent comments. I can sense some of this as I watch, but just can't put it into words the way my fellow Maddicts can. Thank you.

I found it strange that Grandpa Gene would be having Sally read such an inappropriate book to him. And I believe it was his choice, not hers. I got a creepy shiver when she couldn't repeat the word "licentious".

Luckily, I don't think the poor child had a clue as to the meaning of all those words she was pronouncing so well.

Fifty-Two wrote: I found it strange that Grandpa Gene would be having Sally read such an inappropriate book
We forget how much the word changed in the 20th century. Granddad there was born into a world of horse and buggies, no airplanes, etc. And in that world, kids who got an education did so with adult books. It's altogether possible that granddad himself read that book in history class when he was not much older than Sally, there being almost no such thing as children's literature or young adult fiction at the time. In fact, a lot of books that we now think of as children/young adult fiction, like Huck Finn and Treasure Island and Little Women, were written to be read by all ages, including aloud to the family.

It's really not so surprising if, with his eyes failing, he hands a book he wants read to him to Sally without a second thought as to whether it's appropriate or not. Even if he thinks she'll understand, he probably feels that she'll be getting the same education he got as a child.

I wouldn't have been surprised to see her reading Greek mythology, but that history is way too advanced for her. How about Bible stories, or children's poems? And there's always Lewis Carroll, Robert Louis Stevenson and yes-- Mark Twain and Louisa May Alcott, to name a few that Gramps was likely familiar with.

I hate it when children are expected to act like adults. Nobody in the Draper household seems to know how to play with those poor kids. Sigh...

Oh, I don't know. I don't think reading that book would hurt her at all. I read "Forever Amber" when I was 11 years old. Totally not age appropriate, though tame by today's standards. Now, granted, my mother was not pleased, but that book started my lifelong love of English history. It taught me early to approach all books with an open mind. To this day, even if I am hating a book, I will read to the end in case there is something I might enjoy and would hate to miss. Not that I hated "Forever Amber" - that was a darn good read.

fifty-two said that the book choice "is way too advanced for her,"

and by today's standards it is, but I think that part of the appeal of the show is to highlight just how hard it is to pin down "the way things should be" because in another 50 years, people will be watching a show about 2009 and finding OUR current standards inappropriate. We all look at OUR time, OUR lives, OUR choices as correct, but history has a way of pulling the rug out from under us--that's also the point of the book choice. The Roman Empire didn't know that it was falling down. The people went about their lives and only by looking back at the time period can someone see the growing decay that led to the fall.

As a side note about age appropriate things, historically children have often been thought of as small adults once they reached the teen years. Thirteen-year-old girls were married and having babies in many older cultures, and they certainly weren't thought of as children past the age of 17 or 18. But our culture has established an extended childhood idea that now allows us to routinely think of people as still being children after they turn twenty. We don't think of this as a bad thing, but future generations may not agree.

It's why this website is so interesting--MadMen brings about discussion among various groups. There are people who remember firsthand the 1960s sharing comments alongside people who are sharing their reaction to the various aspects of the 1960s. Those who lived during the period see some things as "facts" knowing that certain attitudes and judgments didn't exist or at least openly exist. Younger viewers may express "opinions" about how things should or shouldn't be. My own mother watches this show, and she worked in a Manhatten office during the 1950s. Her take on various things that are portrayed on the show is quite interesting. She remembers the smoking and that no one thought anything was wrong about it. She remembers the smoking and drinking during pregnancy and no one thinking anything about it. Those things were simply "normal" during that time period. As the 1960s shifted, people did begin to think about things, but not in some sort of a V-8 moment way where they realized how bad things were all at once. It was a much slower process.

Again, I think this is very much part of the appeal of the show--it highlights who we are and how we think and how much culture shapes us. No one is immune to this. And when we are examined by future generations, we will also be exposed and subjected to their viewpoints. We don't know what things future generations will take issue with us about because we think everything is "normal." :-)

Pink Human wrote: "As the 1960s shifted, people did begin to think about things, but not in some sort of a V-8 moment way where they realized how bad things were all at once. It was a much slower process."

I think you've hit on one of the important things that MadMen is presenting this season. Our desire to package history like we package products and make them neat and tidy; we forget that there is rarely, as you say, V-8 moments when things come to a sudden end--or a sudden start. So we may party on December 31, 1999 and think that January 1, 2000 is going to be utterly different, but that's just not the case.

I think the Decline and Fall book, and this episode, point out that people looking back at a time have skewed ideas. They glorify it, remember the good not the bad, simplify it, etc. But perhaps our most skewed idea is that things suddenly change. That one day, they just come to an end--which is rarely the case. Things "decline and fall" over a long period. Which makes me think about Roger, who thinks he's made a sudden and complete change from old to new with his divorce and re-marriage, but is finding that he really hasn't. At best, he's moved into a slow decline, with his old life (wife and daughter and job) still around him but crumbling to ruins, and his new one doing nothing to build him up again. There's love among the ruins, but the empire is still in ruins.

That's the microcosm. The macrocosm is that Kennedy is going to be assassinated. And we here in the future tend to look at that as the "death of Camelot." Do these characters know they're living in Camelot? And will they know that it's over and gone when Kennedy Dies? Is that the way it was, or just our construct? Was this period really a golden age and did that one event end it? How skewed is our own nostalgic view of this time in history?

was I only one that noticed Don looked in on them and said " how are thing's in Babylon " the title of a season one episode when Don hung out with beatniks in Midge's apartment and also visited a cafe of poetry readers and sort of like a talent night for greenhich village types attending, remember the topless girl and her reading about Castro and how great that was?

I'm a social history buff. I try to comment on issues in Mad Men which my sixties childhood give me insight into and which I have questions about.

My objection to the book Sally reads to Gene is based on what the people I knew back then read to kids. A small sphere, I realize. But I have a degree in children's lit, so it's of interest to me. I certainly don't advocate censoring or banning books. I just didn't like the way Gene had her read something she clearly wasn't understanding. To what purpose?

I thought it was Gene who made the Babylon remark to Don?

You're absolutely right, zerelda, it was Gene who made the Babylon comment, insinuating that, like Babylon, NYC was a city which would one day fall. He said this just after Sally was reading the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," so the thought would have been on his mind.

It also brings to mind the book, "Alas, Babylon," published in 1959, about destruction and recovery after a nuclear war. A best-selling book, Grandpa Gene may have read it. Or at least, heard about it.

Good for you, Ritt. That explains a lot regarding Gene's interest in Gibbon's works. I guess maybe he's just putting Sally to work. High time she did some chores, and reading to Grandpa might be her new responsibility. I have no objection to that.

Fifty-Two, that's exactly what Gene is doing with Sally. He's not making her read that book for her good, but for his. I'm guessing his eyes are going and he wants to be read to. And that's what he wants read to him. So Sally's been drafted for the job.

This is not like Carla or a school teacher having Sally read one of her own books to them. It's not for Sally's enjoyment, it's a chore. And it's one that kids have been doing for the elderly for a long time. Maybe grandpa Gene read something like that to some elderly aunt or grandparent himself when he was a boy.

Yes, I can see that now, Thirteen. But I'm still glad he didn't explain the meaning of "licentiousness" to a little girl of eight or nine. I know that makes me sound over-protective and censorial, but I'm really not. I just don't think it would be appropriate for an elderly man to be discussing such things with his young granddaughter. They don't even know each other very well, since Gene lived in Philly until very recently.

Whew! It's a relief to be fairly certain that the writers aren't foreshadowing a gut-wrenching molestation scene.