The book is clear that people stopped reading books on their own, then came to distrust them, and then pressured the government to outlaw them. It wasn’t top-down like you might expect in an authoritarian society.
TBH, the book is a lot of “old man yells at cloud”. Bradbury wasn’t even that old at the time he wrote it, but it comes off that way.
One thing I think makes a good point is porches. Just a place for you to hang out and signal to your neighbors that it’s OK to start up a random conversation as they walk by. Most houses aren’t built these days with porches that are particularly usable for that, and setback requirements in zoning often make them legally impossible to add.
Ah, it’s been a long time for me as well and I think I may have picked that idea up somewhere and must have found it attractive enough to supplant the obvious part…
Interesting that it could be read not only as a climate change joke, but also a disinformation joke, given what she’s reading from.
People seem to not realize that the government wasn’t the one burning books in Fahrenheit 451…Edit: Been awhile for me - but this does not seem to be true.
Who controlled the “firemen?” Who outlawed books?
The book is clear that people stopped reading books on their own, then came to distrust them, and then pressured the government to outlaw them. It wasn’t top-down like you might expect in an authoritarian society.
TBH, the book is a lot of “old man yells at cloud”. Bradbury wasn’t even that old at the time he wrote it, but it comes off that way.
One thing I think makes a good point is porches. Just a place for you to hang out and signal to your neighbors that it’s OK to start up a random conversation as they walk by. Most houses aren’t built these days with porches that are particularly usable for that, and setback requirements in zoning often make them legally impossible to add.
You know it’s been a while since I’ve read that book, but I’m pretty positive that isn’t true.
Ah, it’s been a long time for me as well and I think I may have picked that idea up somewhere and must have found it attractive enough to supplant the obvious part…
Guess it’s time to re-read!
I have read it relatively recently, and you’re not completely off. The people democratically decided to outlaw books because their society sucked.
Ah glad to know I wasn’t too far off the mark