Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

Burning Bright

In case you might miss it the moral of the story is laid out for us in painstaking detail. I remember now why I felt this was a long book. It was not a page-turner for me. I suppose having the hobos at the end recap the lesson was just a bit too much for me. I finished the book, but only because I challenged myself to. Ouch. That is really critical of “one of the most important books of our time” as the caption on the cover tells me. I’m not sure what it was about the book that made me so disinterested. I like reading in general. I like sci-fi/futuristic settings. I don’t like censorship. But ugh. I can’t even bring myself to write about anything other than how much I disliked it. My favorite part of the book was the afterword, which while still being preachy was at least mildly entertaining. I am sorry that I wasn’t able to make any of the “official” events surrounding the big read. I enjoy lively debates, and if one was held I would have liked to attend/participate. Maybe next time.

The Sieve and the Sand

I don’t know what it is about act two, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been completely disinterested in what was going on in a second act. I just couldn’t find anything that really jumped out at me, but I’ll try. Comments are open, so please share your thoughts (on any section, not just this one).

Faber is fairly ineffectual in his role as a moderate mentor. He did not prepare Montag well enough, and Montag took his newfound thirst for revolution too far when he interrupted his wife’s gathering. While fiery energy is good you need to recognize which people you can challenge and which people need to be slowly introduced to new ideas. I imagine Montag’s outburst will be his downfall, but I wonder if it will be one of the friends or Millie herself that will turn Montag in. By the end of part two it didn’t come as a surprise that the house they received a call about was indeed Montag’s.

I originally started to write this post over a month ago. But then Erin was born and for some reason I was a little too busy to read or think about writing about reading. Then I started blogging again as we settled into a sort of routine, but neglected to finish (or even start it really) this little project. However I was just linked to as a Big Read blogger, and there is nothing more motivating than having someone else remind you of things you said you were going to do. I suppose the only other thing I should mention before I get started is that I am writing my reactions to certain situations/thoughts raised by this book and do not intend to get into plot summaries and such. So without further ado…

The Hearth and the Salamander

Many of the concepts of this novel are frightfully accurate portrayals, not of a far away future, but of the world we are living in today. Mildred lives entirely in a world of entertainment. Her ‘family’ is the cast of some vaguely interactive soap-opera that she views on giant wall sized televisions. When she isn’t in front of the Walls she is listening to her SeaShells. A 50″ flat screen and the iPod aren’t too far off the mark. We are slaves to entertainment and like Mildred we live within our own little worlds. My family gave up on broadcast television quite a while ago and I found out two big things: I don’t miss it at all, however I do feel left out of many conversations with other people. I am sometimes surprised when the big thing to talk about is something that happened last night on some show.

The biggest theme of course is that books are illegal. While that may not be the case, I know many people who do not read and if they do it certainly isn’t for leisure. Why is that, I wonder? The issue of censorship in a broader sense is even more real. Our news is brought to us by a few very large corporations, the same ones that provide us with our entertainment. Everything we are fed is very sanitized and bland. There are no real opposing views presented. We are easily distracted by a pop singers seemingly drunk performance or some other drivel and yet the really thought-provoking issues are left unsaid or under-reported. It is in these corporations best interest to keep us happy consumers whose biggest thought is about a failed dance routine and not the suffering of people in this and other countries. Like Mildred, we dare not delve to deep into the meaning of what is going on around us, for that would detract from our entertainment.

I was interested by Guy’s plea that a new Wall would cost him one-third of his yearly salary at $2,000. I thought, $6,000 a year? And I thought I had trouble making ends meet. But then I poked around a bit and my un-scientific research leads me to believe that was a very decent salary if we remember the book was written in 1950. So being a fireman would seem to be a good job, which is how Mildred has three Walls already, but she still wants the fourth. It made me think how much of my budget goes towards entertainment? My estimate is around 10%, but I know people who routinely spend at least 30% which would put them in league with the Montag’s.

I wonder if Clarisse’s death is an accident?

Beatty makes an interesting explanation for the ways things are in that world. His explanation is 20 pages long, which is just about one-third of Part One. An interesting thing about it to me is how relevant his story is. It is too easy to self-censor oneself so as to not offend anyone. But what happens when the censorship is all encompassing?

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture.

This year the Big Read book being read by Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I heard about this program through SUNY Fredonia and decided I would participate by reading and blogging about the book.

Since the book is separated into three parts I expect this series of posts to have four to five posts: this introduction, a post for each of the three parts, and possibly a conclusion.

I dug out my old copy of Fahrenheit 451 last night so I could start reading it. Out of curiosity I checked the date and that copy was produced in 1986. Which means when I read it for the first time I was around 11 years old. I know I read it again in high school, but then have not read it since. It is funny how I remember it being a long book, but looking at it now I figure I will read a part a night and be done by the end of the week, barring any life events such as the arrival of a baby that might delay my reading . I am trying to figure out why I remember it being a long book, since it is not. I read a lot as a child and a book that is less than 200 pages is not one I would normally consider long. So why does my memory tell me otherwise? I suppose it might be because of the social commentary in the book, which is more than I would have been used to as a youngster. Or perhaps it is because it is not broken up into chapters, simply three parts of about 60 pages each, and I do not like stopping a book mid-stream; I much prefer to stop at a chapter or section break, and since there are only three breaks in the book perhaps that is why I remember it as long. At any rate, as perplexing as that memory may be I only remember the basic story line so am looking forward to re-reading this book as an adult an perhaps catching more than I did the last time I read it.