Ray Bradbury chooses Faux news...

[dysfunctional press]

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/16524/

"...Bradbury still has a lot to say, especially about how people do not understand his most literary work, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. It is widely taught in junior high and high schools and is for many students the first time they learn the names Aristotle, Dickens and Tolstoy.

Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship.

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen..."

[enki23]

1. so he had a later-life conversion. it happens.

the book was obviously about state censorship, among other things (including the negative influences of television). it's not like the censorship angle was subtle. the fact that he's trying to downplay that part of it later in life to fit his political orientation doesn't change that, except perhaps within the confines of his own dementing brain.

in any case, what exactly is he trying to say anyway? that censorship is okay, then? but TV is bad, except when it's promoting rightwinger propaganda? so censorship is okay, so long as the rightwingers are in charge? what?

[underpants]

3. Eh I watch Fox News from time to time too this writer just chose to mention it

if it said CNN would that mean that he agrees with it?

[Shakespeare]

2. *shrugs*

And that still doesn't diminish his writing. I've met the man too many times to count here in Los Angeles, and he's a delightful person, and endlessly generous and encouraging. I'd say he's more an iconoclast than a wingnut, and really don't care what he watches on TV.

[renate]

24. that's nice to hear!

When I was young I read his books repeatedly, cover to cover, hardly coming up for air. He always had such interesting ways of looking below the surface of things, and of making the reader think. So I was really surprised when Fahrenheit 9-11 came out and he made a stink about the title (even though you can't copyright titles), and I've heard bits and pieces of information since then that indicated that he was a Republican (I won't say freeper, because he is intelligent). The idea of someone like Ray Bradbury supporting Bush just seemed, and seems, so odd.

So I'm glad to hear that at least he's delightful, nice, generous, and encouraging. It makes his apparently conservative leanings even more mysterious, though.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Ray Bradbury died several years ago.

This is some sort of Martian imposter, and he's doing a horrible job.

[teriyaki jones]

5. Not according to deadoraliveinfo.com

http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/bnames-nf/Bradbury+Ray

Sez he's 86 and still kickin' FWIW

[zbdent]

8. I think someone was trying to make a joke

...

[Shakespeare]

9. And a lame one, too. n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. He's not dead yet, he doesn't want to go on the cart

[Javaman]

18. I think we can consider him mostly dead. nt

[shain from kane]

6. Back in 1953, everyone was really concerned about Milton Berle's influential TV programs,

especially his series on the life of Napoleon. They're coming to take me away.

[zbdent]

10. If I recall correctly, it was 1984 which had where you couldn't turn the TV off

(except in the higher-up offices of the party faithful).

I'm not sure how many TVs were in "Fahrenheit 451" ... been quite some time since I read it ...

[KharmaTrain]

11. Many Confuse The Two...

I can see Bradbury's point here...especially in light of the impact television first had on society and politics. This was also the same era McLuan was writing about the "medium being the message". Just like movies were crying that TV would be their demise...as did radio drama...this was Bradbury covering it from the literary side.

In many ways, our corporate media has taken the lead over the government in determining censorship or "taste"...under the guise of self-regulation that has led to the soundbite culture we live in today. So many get their "news" from the few "factoids" that are tossed out there and then filtered through the pundits who throw them out there.

[shain from kane]

12. In addition, the book was based on the short story, "The Fireman", published in Galaxy magazine,

February 1951, which most certainly means it was written in 1950. Did anyone really recognize the subsequent influence of television, especially based on the exceedingly lame programming at the time? What was the ratio of televisions to population in 1950?

[onenote]

21. 1950 was the year television began to take off

Between 1942 and 1949, around 3.6 million sets were sold in the US. In 1950 alone, over 6 million were sold.

The number of households in the US in 1950 was around 43 million, which means that around 20 percent of all households probably had a TV by year's end.

[shain from kane]

23. Thanks for the information. I may have to revise my remarks, although burning books to promote

the preferred method of watching television for information seems to be extreme. Another writer, Harland Ellison, had a series of essays and reviews called "The Glass Teat", which summarized his opinion of television.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. I always saw it as a condemnation of conformity, not a diatriba

against censorship. TV was in its infancy when he wrote it, but he had grown up with the explosion of both radio and film, and saw the mass culture they produced. It was not much of a stretch to see what TV might be capable of, and obviously if someone is passively absorbing TV all day they are not going to have time for actively working the imagination in reading.

Taken in that context it is just as valid, if not more so than talking about censorship. In F451 it was less about the government taking away books than about the populace not understanding why books are necessary in the first place.

As a side note, did anyone else see the story about the used book dealer who has been burning his overstock, because he couldn't even give it away to libraries? We have the big chain bookstores, a few independent bookstores, and used bookstores that are going under or are supporting themselves with trading in used DVDs as well. Libraries are being closed due to lack of funds and lack of interest. But huge screes TV sales are way up.

[roamer65]

14. Isn't this the same guy in his book "The Martian Chronicles"...

had the astronauts landing on Mars in leisure suits and breathing atmospheric oxygen? I don't think I need to say any more.

[Shakespeare]

15. You do understand the concept of "fiction," don't you?

He also had tattoos come to life in The Illustrated Man. Does that one give you problems, too? :eyes:

[roamer65]

16. Frankly, I'm not a fan of Bradbury, but...

to each their own, eh?

Although, in 200-300 years we may indeed be able to do what Bradbury states in his novel, after we terraform Mars. Indeed, one of the very few "positives" of global climate change is that we may learn to terraform Mars correctly.

[Shakespeare]

17. I'm not suggesting you should be a fan of his....

...only that you offer criticism that has at least some basis in reality. In fiction, Mars can have a breathable atmosphere. Hell, Mars can be populated by purple giraffes. That's why it's fiction. To toss that out as a way to dismiss Bradbury is just absurd.

[roamer65]

19. Sure, Mars can be anything he wants in fiction.

However, I prefer my science fiction to have basic scientific accuracy to it. I'm entitled to my opinion of his work, just as you. You may prefer leisure suits, I prefer space suits. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Live long and prosper, Shakespeare ;)

[brentspeak]

20. Uh, what's the problem here again?

Fox News is playing on mute in the background, and I guess, obviously, that automatically makes Bradbury some kind of Bush-loving, pro-Iraq War Freeper????

[rucky]

22. contrast to what he was saying about TV "factoids"

more of an "irony alert" than a "freeper alert" imho.