Line #1 Headscratchers/Fahrenheit451


1	* I'm just going to quote [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080704110124/http://plover.net/~bonds/F451.html Stephen Bond]]'s pointing out that the premise of the book is implausible and how the "Book People" come across as shallow idiots who learn books by rote instead of engaging with the text, and wonder if anybody else thought anything similar.
2	** Well, as nothing in the book defies the laws of physics (other than implying some people have super-memory, and the transforming helicopters/cars and fireproof-houses are just the typical predicted advances in technology in stories set in the future, and pretty tame, at that), nothing about the premise ''is'' "impossible." Learning books by rote is not stated to be a substitute for "engaging with the text" but the only way to hang onto your books when the government burns all physical copies (before anyone invokes TechMarchesOn, using e-books would be even more foolish, since they require electrical power that is scarce when you're on the run from society, ''and'' accessing them can be easily tracked); reciting is used as the only available substitute (under the circumstances) for reading, and memorizing as a weapon to protect valuable texts from the fire so people can continue to engage with them just as people once did in the days of the OralTradition. Is it tragic that people have to resort to this method to read? Yes. But what's the alternative? And what's shallow about {{bookworm}} rebel survivalists? Bond's completely right that the film was poor -- [[AdaptationDecay as usual]]. I find it ridiculous, however, that he got the impression that a society that hates books also ''cannot read''. People read words all the time in the book! The tv programs come with scripts for audience participation! The Firemen get written reports of houses to burn! Bond should have read Faber's conversation with Montag; it's not the act of reading written strokes of ink or type that represent sounds and form words that is disappearing, it's the activity of ''reading'', and any {{bookworm}} could have told him there's a difference. It's ''books'' the government destroys, not the written word.
3	** ''Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn'' did exactly the same with ''his own'' books, out of the well founded fear that the Soviet government would seize the drafts. Which would have meant that the books would have been lost and could have been used as evidence against him. The book people are in the exact same position as Solzenitsyn, but with ''all'' books already written; and not just the ones they are writing right now.
4	** Really, criticism is a luxury -- that's why most people read novels that are meant to be fun and not something they can wrestle with or dissect the symbolism of. You need time to think and time to read more books in order to engage in criticism. So the Book People are taking a literal approach to "preserving" books, but it's something that they love, and hopefully one day they'll transmit the texts back into writing and have the luxury of criticism one again. Also, the Book People are pretty pretentious -- ninety percent of their texts are the kinds of books you say that you've read so that you can impress others. At least the film changed up their group (and literature) from being all staid old white men.
5	** Books also provide a way of preserving the voices and ideas of people from the past. Destroying books can be taken to mean that they are eradicating the memories of the people who have written and read them. These "pretentious" people may simply believe that these books, authors, and ideas are worth remembering, and they see themselves, with the best intentions, as the last safeguards to keep the ideas of the books and the writers from disappearing entirely from the world. If they have been able to pass on their book to even one person, then they would have kept the book in human memory for at least a little longer.
6	** The headscratcher bugged me all day, so I hit the book. Apart from the fact nothing in it is "implausible" (look around you!), well. I have the Harper Collins 1996 paperback. Pages 158-161, Montag talks with Granger (the leader of the book men group). The books mentioned by title are: ''Literature/BookOfEcclesiastes'' (held by Montag and Harris of Youngstown), ''Literature/TheRepublic'' (Granger), ''Literature/GulliversTravels'' and ''Walden''. Other authors mentioned by name: Marcus Aurelius (presumably ''Meditations'', held by Mr. Simmons, who, incidentally, is an Ortega y Gasset scholar - Ortega y Gasset of ''The Revolt of the Masses'', an analysis of how our society is sliding towards the ''Fahrenheit 451'' one), Charles Darwin, Schopenhauer, Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, Aristophanes, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha, Confucius, Thomas Love Peacock, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, [[Literature/TheFourGospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John]], lord Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli and Creator/BertrandRussell. Now, ecclectic? Certainly? Pretentious? In what way are the book men pretentious? According to [[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/pretentious American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language]], ''pretentious'' means:
7	### Claiming that or behaving as if one is important or deserving of merit when such is not the case: a pretentious socialite.
8	### Showing or betraying an attitude of superiority: made pretentious remarks about his education.
9	### Marked by an extravagant or presumptuous outward show; ostentatious: a pretentious house. See Synonyms at showy.
10	Are the book men claiming to be more important than they really are? Page 160:
11	-->'''Granger''': Right now we have a horrible job; we're waiting for the war to begin and, as quickly, end. It's not pleasant, but then we're not in control, we're the odd minority crying in the wilderness. When the war is over, perhaps we can be of some use in the world.\
12	'''Montag''': Do you really think they'll listen then?\
13	'''Granger''': If not, we'll just have to wait. We'll pass the books on to our children, by word of mouth,and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people. A lot will be lost that way, of course. But you can't ''make'' people listen. They have to come round in their time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them, It can't last.\
14	'''Montag''': How many of you are there?\
15	'''Granger''': Thousands on the roads, the abandoned railtracks, tonight, bums on the outside, libraries inside. It wasn't planned, at first. Each man had a book he wanted to remember, and did. Then, over a period of twenty years or so, we met each other, travelling, and got the loose network together and set out a plan. '''The most important single thing we had to pound into ourselves was that we were not important, we mustn't be pedants; we were not to feel superior to anyone else in the world'''. We're nothing more than dust-jackets for the books, no significance otherwise.
16	Doesn't sound too self-important, is it? Of course, self-important is as self-important does, but Granger explains that they're actively trying not to be. That counts for something. They can't be showy (that't suicide) and nothing is actually said about how they interact with the texts (whatever that means - I always thought it meant thinking about what you read, maybe arguing against it in your own head, but who am I to know).
17	Dismissing all signs of education and independent thought as pretentious is what ''Beatty'' does in the book:
18	-->'''Beatty''' (pg. 65): Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally "bright", did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone ''made'' equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for '''there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against'''.

Context Headscratchers / Fahrenheit451