Reading (and) Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (The 50 th Anniversary Edition) . New York: Picador (1998), 190 pp. So how do you get kids to read? I read a stray article written by a well-known novelist who shrugged off the problem. This concern has been blown out of proportion, she said. Thanks to steep literacy levels, more people are reading now than at any other time in history. Numerically, this is true. But I think the rebuttal misses the point: as I see it, people are worried because those who got an education used to be deeply committed to reading; many of those who get an education today are reading-averse. I’ve had quite a few former students confess that they read one or no books before college; and I’ve talked to several educated adults who admit that they haven’t read a full book in, say, a decade (or more). So back to square one: how do you get kids to read? If you ask Ray Bradbury, as you can see in the interview that accompanies the 50 th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451 , this ...
I really, really liked this tale. Man, that last part where the dog is out on the porch, hurt, is so moving. Very sad. Good tale.
ReplyDeleteI'm absolutely not for treating animals poorly, so that part felt cruel. Blame Mr. Worcester, though. What did you make of the narrator?
ReplyDeleteThe guy that doesn't dare intervene? Gosh, probably someone like me, someone who wears leather even being against animal abuse... Although I would've stopped Mr. Worcester, though; there's something about live cruelty that doesn't admit delays.
ReplyDeleteOh, and "his" dog, that I have never bought.
ReplyDeleteTrue, animal cruelty is terrible stuff. I still have dreadful flashes of a video I saw of how dogs are skinned alive in China to turn them into fur for the lining of coats and other clothing.
ReplyDeleteI guess my question about the narrator goes along these lines: I know it's tempting, but what made you think it was a "guy" who didn't dare intervene? Check out, for instance, the couple of words in italics in the story.
A girl narrator! I had not thought of that possibility... that's really cool. Jeez, I should've noticed the oddity of the remark.
ReplyDeleteSo this woman left her husband for another woman who lived in the neighborhood?
Oh wow, the China dogs story is horrible. Fiction is a good to criticize animal cruelty (and everything else).
The interesting thing, I think, is why you chose the photo to accompany the story.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it look placid enough? One would not want to ruin the main part of the story with a more revealing picture at the start. Right?
ReplyDeleteI think the reason you chose the photo is very revealing: it's a representation of setting. It would be a very different story if this was your front porch:
ReplyDeletehttp://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/02/22/arts/Ouro600.jpg
You're absolutely right: the story would register differently with the porch you mentioned. But I must admit the picture was really an afterthought, chosen ex post facto and in a relative rush. It had to portray a placid suburb, and it couldn't show a dog (as to not ruin the main part of the story). That was the rationale.
ReplyDeleteI came to see your new post and didn't find it :(
ReplyDeleteLove ya.