http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/books/ray-bradbury-popularizer-of-science-fiction-dies-at-91.html?hp

-And before we ever got to stand on Mars

Man I had no idea he was still alive

And I thought today couldn't get any worse. He was an inspiration to me and I'm sad he's passed on.

wowowowowow lololololol ^^Crazy people out there^^...

Fahrenheit 451 was a pretty awesome book. Though we read it in school, i always sensed that there was something special about that book though i could never put my finger on what exactly.

The thing the teacher told you it was about isn't what it's about.

I meant there was something special about the book. I don't know if it was the tone of the book, or the flat ancillary characters, but something intrigue me.

I didn't mean to say, "jee this here book is mighty fine tho i dont reckin i understands it!"

Yet, I digress.


What IS it about, while were on the subject? (And please let the explanation be long.)

Everyone who reads it, including its author when he first wrote it, insists it's about how censorship will rise out of suppression of "dangerous" literature and ideas, and will progress from dangerous to threatening to offensive to controversial to simply uncomfortable, until we've got nothing to read but magazines and nothing to watch but chat shows.

Later in his life, Ray Bradbury came to instead insist it was about how TV is evil and will somehow kill off books.

-Let's just say that time changes people, and Ray didn't necessarily change into someone better. A lot of his later writings were really egotistical, as I recall. But never speak ill of the freshly dead, remember the good times and just leave the bad in the cupboard for later.

i liked some of his books. thats really all i have to contribute to this one... o.O

Your teacher told you it was about censorship. She might also have mentioned something about soviets, but only because for a time every single book ever written was about how the soviets were bad. It's not actually about censorship, not in the literal sense that's played out in the book where offensive materials are destroyed. It is, somewhat, about the dumbing-down of media, but that, like the censorship, is not a cause in the book but a consequence. If you look at what the characters are doing, it appears to be nothing more than a censorship ridden consumerist society. You have to look deeper at why their society is that way. The book is actually about a much more subversive form of self-censorship, political correctness. Bradbury describes a society that values political correctness above all else. They value it so much that their television programs show no conflict and in fact have no substance at all, in case it would offend someone. They value it so much that they destroy all evidence of anything offensive in the past. They force everyone to conform, so that no one is different. The book is really about political correctness run amok, and the censorship is just a consequence of that. The root of the problem in their society is this refusal to admit that anyone is different. It has gotten so bad, by the time the book starts, that these people actively abhor anyone who deviates. It is also, yes, about the evil of television. From Bradbury's perspective, television was the driving force behind political correctness in the first place. Why didn't your teacher tell you this? Ironically, because being against political correctness is not politically correct.

A side note, I'm having a hard time imagining a world view where the author of a work isn't the authority on what that work is about. Authority has the word Author right there in it.

When the author disagrees with himself about his own work, he loses authority. But more importantly, the world view you're trying to imagine is called "the death of the author", which totally has nothing to do with this thread's actual topic, it's more a comment on the belief that a reader shouldn't have to take the author's views and opinions into account when interpreting a work, that it should stand on its own merits.

-I actually don't usually apply to the Death of the Author theory, myself. I'm with George Lucas, a work is never finished, only abandoned.

I re-read it to check and it really is about tv destroying everything. Though not quite literally; everything is destroyed by anti-intellectualism. It's all tied together into a neat little package of horror. It's like a more polite Idiocracy.

I'd forgotten how bad the ending is, though. Should have ended like 1984, much more powerful.

As to the Death of the Author theory, I've always found it absurd. Imagine reading Starship Troopers without know Heinlein was a navy man and a flaming liberal.

Heard of Ray Bradbury, of course, but I never read his books. Came close to at one point but I chose Slaughterhouse-Five instead. And while a great book, well, it destroyed my sense and perception of time forever. Oy. RIP.

As far as the whole "death of the author" thing is concerned, well, I think that a well-done work doesn't have the authors views and biases shining through every single part of it, enabling it to stand on its own merits. But the whole "you can't edit your own work, it belongs to the senate and people of rome once it's released!!!1one" sentiment has gotten quite ridiculous. Bleh.

Kurt vonnegut jr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **** yees!!!

Did you see the movie? Its almost more incoherent than the book but still.

Barthes wrote "Death of the Author" because the literary critics were running out of papers to write.