Comments on: Ray Bradbury on Fahrenheit 451: ‘I wasn’t worried about censorship—I was worried about people being turned into morons by TV’

By: Rob Preece

Rob Preece — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:09:43 +0000

I wonder if his politics have changed over the years and if he doesn’t choose to remember his earlier stands?

On a recent rereading, I found F451 a profoundly antiwar book, with the destructions of books being part of government’s manipulation of popular opinion to bring them into support of a war that any knowledgable person could have seen would be hugely destructive. That came out more clearly than the censorship angle, although certainly those go together, don’t they?

Rob Preece
Publisher, http://www.BooksForABuck.com

By: Aggregated CILIP blogs

Aggregated CILIP blogs — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 08:48:42 +0000

More on e-books and e-book readers…

I came across a new and interesting blog this morning – in fact I was directed to it by Chark Blog -…

By: Bill Janssen

Bill Janssen — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 21:26:22 +0000

He does in fact gripe about the “factoids” presented on quiz shows. But his more relevant gripe (if you read my article you’ll see it) is about the short attention spans caused by more visceral forms of presentation — in 1951, they were radio and television.

By: David Rothman

David Rothman — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:46:26 +0000

Great thoughts, Brian. I agree that Bradbury has both targets in mind. How bizarre he’d play down his censorship angle. I guess he writes enough words to have forgotten what he said

As for errors in books, yep, as someone who’s worked in the sausage factory, so to speak, I agree. That’s one reason I’m so keen on interactivity for e-books. It isn’t just a techie thing; rather, it’s a way to hold authors accountable to traditional standards of accuracy and fairness. Imagine if Bradbury’s responses to readers had been embedded in F451.

David

By: Brian Carnell

Brian Carnell — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:33:06 +0000

1. Frankly, F451 is about both censorship and (what Bradbury saw as) the idiocy of TV. For him to just outright deny the censorship angle is silly.

2. I’m not sure Bradbury would be a fan of e-books. He’s previously said the Internet is a scam by computer companies and told Salon, “A computer is a typewriter. I have two typewriters, I don’t need another one.”

3. I’ve never understood the TV vs. book “factoid” claim (full disclosure — I am a complete TV addict). Fine, I can watch the evening news or watch a documentary and find lots of nonsense and numerous errors.

But you know what happens when I read a book — yep, I find lots of nonsense and numerous errors.

TV has its problems, but look at how urban legends have taken off thanks to the largely text-based medium of e-mail.