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| Cover of 60th Anniversary Edition of the book, Fahrenheit 451. |
As you know (from my recent post), when I recently finished reading the book, Fahrenheit 451, I was so impressed that I signed out the 60th Anniversary Edition from the library.
After having the book about two months, I reluctantly returned it to the library yesterday. I probably should be a copy for myself (but do I really NEED another book I've already read?). Originally, I intended to read it a second time and noting key ideas and phrases. However, since it is a rather "dark" story, I shied away from returning to it. I was not in the mood for more "deep" reading.
One reason I was interested in the 60th Anniversary Edition was the supplemental material (nearly 100 pages) that was not in the edition I read. The key difference between the 50th and 60th Anniversary Editions is the supplemental material:
- New "Introduction" by author Neil Gaiman;
- "History, Context, and Criticism" by Jonathan R. Eller (The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies) consisting of:
- The Story of Fahrenheit 451
- Other Voices
- A 1953 essay by Bradbury: "The Day After Tomorrow: Why Science Fiction"
- The 1976 Listening Library Audio Introduction (by Ray Bradbury)
- The Ray Bradbury Introduction to the 1982 & 1989 editions: "Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451";
- "Coda" (1979) by Ray Bradbury.
+ + + + + + + + +
Orville Prescott, in his 1953 New York Times Book Review, said:
"We fear the unholy powers unleashed by science. We fear the absolute power of states more tyrannical than the tyrannies of the past because they strive to rule men's minds as well as their bodies."
"[His] basic message is a plea for direct, personal experience rather than perpetual synthetic entertainment: for individual thought, action, and responsibility."Historian, critic, and writer Gilbert Highet wrote in his 1954 review:
"...we may reach the stage of hating literature because it is an effort to assimilate, despising books because they are beyond us, changing schools into 'activity centers,' and abandoning the search for happiness because we prefer soothing or exciting pleasures"Author Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale) said:
"The very act of reading is considered detrimental to social order because it causes people to think, and then to distrust the authorities. Instead of books, the public offered conformity via four-wall TV with the sound piped directly into their head...."Poet Sir John Betjeman wrote:
"[Ray Bradbury] foresees an America living in cities and at war with the rest of the world."
"Interior walls are huge televisions screens. Conversation is just mutual back-slapping...No opinions, no philosophy or sociology are allowed."Writer Sir Kingsley Amis observed:
The lesson to be drawn from the more imaginative science fiction hells, such as Bradbury's, is not only that a society could be devised that would frustrate the active virtues, nor even that these could eventually be suppressed, but that there is in all sorts of people something that longs for that to happen."--------------------------------------------------------------------
Links:
http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2016/05/fahrenheit-451.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Gaiman
http://bradbury.iupui.edu/staff/jonathan-r-eller
http://bradbury.iupui.edu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Truffaut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_Prescott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Highet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Betjeman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Amis
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Written: Sunday 17 July 2016.
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