Reply All | Letters: The 9.30.12 Issue

There's something very poignant about Chabon's pining for a lost utopia. He punctures the myth of postracial America but also infuses the public discourse on race with a sense of hope and meaning. However minute our experiences with other cultures may be, there is a familiarity that belies any momentary discomfiture. Humanity is really just one teeming mass. To sojourn for a while in some ethnic enclave needn't be seen as exoticizing the other in some sinister way. When we allow humility to replace assumptions, we go a long way toward building a more open society. DANIELLE FORD, Rahway, N.J., posted on nytimes.com

It is a sad commentary on America that a now-defunct vinyl-record store is the closest thing Chabon has found to a vibrant, integrated American culture. His story of being raised in a quasi-utopian community, to becoming a passive racist after college, to looking for the lost ideals of youth in an obscure enclave of American consumer culture is the arc that many disillusioned liberals have followed. We need to look elsewhere than the insides of hipster-culture hangouts for the answers, perhaps to our own attitudes of persistent segregation. Doing so is much more difficult than browsing for old Motown records. ROBL777, Conway, S.C., posted on nytimes.com

I grew up in the same town as Chabon. Many of us moved away and found that the expectations of fairness, acceptance and justice that we had formed as children were not replicated in the outside world. It's easy to pass off Chabon's soul-searching as disingenuous, but the ugliness of racism beats white people down as well. What was part of our fabric as children has been pulled out, twisted and redefined so that we are left wondering if what we experienced as children really happened. For a brief moment in the '70s, Columbia, Md., was proof that color and class were just backdrops on which to form incredibly deep, real and lasting relationships. I appreciate Chabon's willingness to dig deep and ask himself hard and painful questions. KATE BARKER SWINDELL, Portland, Ore., posted on nytimes.com

JUNOT DÍAZ HATES WRITING SHORT STORIES

I love this interview because of the way Díaz lets his hair down, admitting the difficulty of writing. I would rather read something by him that has been labored over for years than the glib stuff of those "quick" writers any day, anytime, anywhere. NYCMOM, New York, posted on nytimes.com

My wife was on a graduate student committee with Díaz at Cornell. We had him over to our house for a potluck dinner one evening, and he told a hilarious story about how he'd been working on a short story the previous evening, and how the story had a "hole" in it that he'd been trying to "fill." The more he tried to fill this hole, the bigger it got, until the hole "ate the story up." I feel privileged to have met Díaz and to have heard this story. ED ECKEL, Kalamazoo, Mich., posted on nytimes.com

HOW DO CREATIVE IDEAS START?

Fine examples all, but what a thin slice of the total inspiration landscape. Nothing on technology, the many branches of science, philosophy or mathematics? All these provide beautiful examples on the birth of creative ideas and some memorable quotes, including Albert Einstein's: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." JULIO M. OTTINO, Dean of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Chicago

Apropos of nothing: Chinua Achebe refers to his friend Chrisopther Okigbo as "Africa's greatest modern poet." Amen. @AfricasaCountry, via Twitter

HEY, BIG SAVER!

You've described exactly how my husband and I feel. We have no kids, haven't owned cars for nearly nine years and have no debt. We rent a tiny apartment. We have a lot of cash in the bank, enough to put 50 percent down on a house and still have enough to live on for years without working. And we're terrified to spend it. We have what we call P.T.S.D.: post-traumatic saving disorder. ZOE FITZ, San Francisco, posted on nytimes.com

Am I the only person better off than I was four years ago? Three years ago I bought rental properties in San Antonio after paying off my co-op in Manhattan. After a year of money-pit expenses, the properties started to pay for themselves. I am buying more properties this year; are you kidding with these low interest rates? You don't need a magic number, nor should you be afraid to spend your money. LINDA MUNGUIA NEASE, New York, posted on nytimes.com

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