Fahrenheit 451


Dr T
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When I realised the book was about technology ruining our lives and making us not want to read books and not about censorship, it sort of ruined it for me. It's still a good book, but every time I read it, I think to myself "Ray Bradbury is a Luddite, Ray Bradbury is a Luddite" and that sort of kills the mood.

I haven't read Brave New World yet, but 1984 was a fascinating read.

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Do we realize how technology has dumbed down a lot of people? Many kids cannot spell because of texting. Many don't do math, because technology does it for them. There are even "scholars" out there that say we don't need to teach these things, because technology can do it for them.

Rather than spending time learning, developing skills and talents, many kids (and adults) waste away their time in playing video games. Marriages have been ruined by technology as men and women get hooked on everything from porn to Farmville.

Fahrenheit 451 suggests this same thing. People no longer read, and in fact, are not supposed to read, because then they may start thinking as individuals. Instead, they are to live immersed in entertainment, a by-product of technology. Books are burned, because books cause people to think independently of society. The same concepts come out in 1984 and Brave New World - a global thinkspeak, if you will.

Doesn't it seem strange that Iraq was once our ally, then became our enemy, and is now our ally again? And is China our enemy or our friend? Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner for economics, insists we can get out of this recession by spending trillions of more monopoly dollars. He obviously never read up on the Weimar Republic or the former Soviet Union, both of which printed up vast amounts of money to get out of economic slumps and failed.

So is the society we now live in. Few read, and of those who do, it is J.K Rowling or Harold Robbins novels; and not science, art, philosophy, math, history, etc. No wonder we're quickly becoming a third world nation while China is on the rise....

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  • 2 months later...

I just finished this one today (on CD). The basic story I remembered from when I read it years ago. The part that really stuck in my head was how the "hobos" kept the books alive by "remembering them" so that they could be republished again someday.

One interesting thing that was a part of the CD I listened to was an afterword apparently by Bradbury describing the process and evolution of how the story was written. Kind of interesting to see how the creative process unfolds. Another thing was a tirade against "censorship" which reminded me of the discussion a month or so ago about censoring Mark Twain's Hucklebury Finn. Bradbury seemed to be absolutely against any kind of "softening" of the language chosen by an author for "politically correct" reasons.

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These titles are good dystopian novels as well.

Iron Heel by: Jack London Novel by Jack London, published in 1908, describing the fall of the United States to the cruel fascist dictatorship of the Iron Heel, a group of monopoly capitalists. Fearing the popularity of socialism, the plutocrats of the Iron Heel conspire to eliminate democracy and, with their secret police and military, terrorize the citizenry. They instigate a German attack on Hawaii on Dec. 4, 1912; as socialist revolutions topple capitalist governments around the world, the Iron Heel has 52 socialist members of the U.S. Congress imprisoned for treason. Elements of London's vision of fascism, civil war, and governmental oppression proved to be prophetic in the first half of the 20th century. Amazon.com: The Iron Heel (Penguin Classics) (9780143039716): Jack London, Jonathan Auerbach: Books

It Can't Happen Here by: Sinclair Lewis The only one of Sinclair Lewis's later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith, It Can't Happen Here is a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression when America was largely oblivious to Hitler's aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a President who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, rampant promiscuity, crime, and a liberal press. Now finally back in print, It Can't Happen Here remains uniquely important, a shockingly prescient novel that's as fresh and contemporary as today's news. Amazon.com: It Can't Happen Here (9780451216588): Sinclair Lewis, Michael Meyer: Books

We by: Yevgeny Zamyatin First published in the Soviet 1920s, Zamyatin's dystopic novel left an indelible watermark on 20th-century culture, from Orwell's 1984 to Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil. Randall's exciting new translation strips away the Cold War connotations and makes us conscious of Zamyatin's other influences, from Dostoyevski to German expressionism. D-503 is a loyal "cipher" of the totalitarian One State, literally walled in by glass; he is a mathematician happily building the world's first rocket, but his life is changed by meeting I-330, a woman with "sharp teeth" who keeps emerging out of a sudden vampirish dusk to smile wickedly on the poor narrator and drive him wild with desire. (When she first forces him to drink alcohol, the mind leaps to Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel.) In becoming a slave to love, D-503 becomes, briefly, a free man. In Randall's hands, Zamyatin's modernist idiom crackles ("I only remember his fingers: they flew out of his sleeve, like bundles of beams"), though the novel sometimes seems prophetic of the onset of Stalinism, particularly in the bleak ending. Modern Library's reintroduction of Zamyatin's novel is a literary event sure to bring this neglected classic to the attention of a new readership. Amazon.com: We (Modern Library Classics) (9780812974621): Yevgeny Zamyatin, Natasha Randall: Books

Erewhon by: Samuel Butler Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902) was a Victorian novelist who wrote in many genres. The Way of All Flesh and Erewhon are his most famous novels. Besides fiction Butler also wrote on evolution, Christian orthodoxy, Italian art, literary history and translated the Illiad and The Odyssey. Erewhon is a utopian satire of Victorian England published in 1872. The title is the name of a fictional country and it is also the word nowhere spelled backwards. The beginning of the book deals with the discovery of Erewhon, which is based on Butlers time in New Zealand where he worked on a sheep ranch for four years. The novel satirizes religion, anthropocentrism, and criminal punishment.

Amazon.com: Erewhon (9781438527871): Samuel Butler: Books

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To add to the list you also have niven's known universe series prologue... Where the world had unified and the government was able to eliminate violence.... at the cost of individualism, real education, and basically legalised brainwashing (at about every level).....

Which totally dumbfounds the invading aliens.

I dont' think theres any book that takes place in that era in his universe but it creeps in in a lot of places throughout the books.

Edited by Blackmarch
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Wow, that sounds interesting. Thank you Black. :)

The first story in Man-Kzin Wars I pretty much sets the stage that the rest fall into and expand on.

Another dystopia utopia novel I thought was interesting was "The Giver" (If I recall the title correctly). It's a little on the surreal side, as there is nothing that grounds it to any era or location but focuses pretty much on society and culture.

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I actually loved the book and still have a copy lurking around on a bookshelf somewhere. I think I'm more fascinated by the idea of when it was written and how "prophetic" some parts are rather than always the quality of writing or the flow of the story. He sure had our fixation with "reality" TV pegged.

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