David Johnston
2018-04-28 19:01:56 UTC
Bradbury used to complain that people took Fahrenheit 451 as being about
censorship when really it was about people abandoning reading for
television. The government can only start destroying the written word
because the the public at large has already abandoned recreational
reading. The minority who still hang on to their love of reading are
too small to stop it.
There were two other Bradbury stories I can recall which had the same
thing of the government trying to limit the human mind by limiting the
written word. In Pillar of Fire in a bright shiny (ie. cold and
soulless) science fiction future for reasons of "mental health" horror
stories have all been banned and burned and cemeteries are being given
the same treatment. A reanimated corpse tries and fails to save his
resting place and is burned while quoting Poe. Note that the pillar of
fire is both book and corpse burning and spaceflight.
Then there's The Exiles, where the characters of fantastic fiction who
now exist on Mars because their books have once again been destroyed by
a future culture that thinks that fantasy even as fiction can't co-exist
with spaceships. They vainly try to resist the arrival of the first
astronauts who merely by setting foot on Mars will dispel the mystery of
the planet and eradicate the fantasy entities living there.
Then there was the Ghostly Passenger where a "ghost" is dying because
people don't believe in ghosts now.
And then there was The Murderer which was about addiction to
communications technology...an update to F 451's "television is evil"
them.
censorship when really it was about people abandoning reading for
television. The government can only start destroying the written word
because the the public at large has already abandoned recreational
reading. The minority who still hang on to their love of reading are
too small to stop it.
There were two other Bradbury stories I can recall which had the same
thing of the government trying to limit the human mind by limiting the
written word. In Pillar of Fire in a bright shiny (ie. cold and
soulless) science fiction future for reasons of "mental health" horror
stories have all been banned and burned and cemeteries are being given
the same treatment. A reanimated corpse tries and fails to save his
resting place and is burned while quoting Poe. Note that the pillar of
fire is both book and corpse burning and spaceflight.
Then there's The Exiles, where the characters of fantastic fiction who
now exist on Mars because their books have once again been destroyed by
a future culture that thinks that fantasy even as fiction can't co-exist
with spaceships. They vainly try to resist the arrival of the first
astronauts who merely by setting foot on Mars will dispel the mystery of
the planet and eradicate the fantasy entities living there.
Then there was the Ghostly Passenger where a "ghost" is dying because
people don't believe in ghosts now.
And then there was The Murderer which was about addiction to
communications technology...an update to F 451's "television is evil"
them.