It's crazy...insane...reading a book written so long ago, and seeing SO many similarities in today's society. I'm a Christian, and I've read the bible many times, and will continue reading it until the day I die. I love books as well...and like Ray, I grew up in libraries reading and reading. It's so spooky...a man like Ray, who, although not a true "prophet", seems to have seen the future with an amazing clarity that scares the dickens out of me. I can go into so many things his book has said that rings true in today's society...but I might bore people to death...who knows. One thing I do know...if you're not a Christian, but want to shake yourself back into reality, this book sure as heck does it. I needed the reality check...and, thanks Ray...as a Christian, I've backslidden to a point in the last few years where I've stopped reading the bible...my relationship with the Lord has suffered. I started falling into the same line of thinking that alot of people have done all over the world...because that's what...in your novel, lead to the burning of books by the PEOPLE themselves. The books are a symptom...the line of thinking EXISTS...the disease...I see it has taken root in our society...and it's growing ever so slowly...so slowly you never notice it unless you REALLY step back and...look. I'm 29; I've always been a thinker. People think I'm so WEIRD because of who I am. It never bothers me, I am who I am. That line of thinking, although not nearly as bad as Ray's future setting, has gripped this culture enough that people make comments to the effect "You're weird...you're not like normal people". Cracks me up =)
Thanks!
-Chris

So true, it IS spooky! Just yesterday, my son was cracking jokes about editorials in the paper about burning "Harry Potter" books because they've got dangerous material in them for children, and I immediately said 451. He said "What does that mean?"..and I said, "I don't remember, but I read it once...something about the temp that paper burns."
Went to library the next day, and brought home an old friend I hadn't seen since 1974! Mr. Bradbury, I know you didn't write it for me, but THANKS for the gift!
PS. I've passed it along to neighbors after conversation about it...At least 4 new readers before its due!

Almost every story in Illustrated Man (stories written in the late 1940's to 1950) talked of things to come. Like HG Wells before him, along with his contemporary AC Clarke, Mr. Bradbury has continually applied his uncanny gift to tell of what might be. He credits his "muses." He obviously is tapped into a God-given gift which he has gloriously shared with his readers from around the world for nearly sixty years.

One aspect of his writing that makes him even more remarkable, I believe, is his superior crafting of the language. His metaphors, images, picturesque details, and "sense of things we all think" (but do not articulate) are what his "illustrated man" would be in a real world -living art work! ILL.MAN prologue: "Picasso colors and Rouault colors , El Greco bodies, ...(the illustrations) were windows looking in on reality."

Fifty years before their time, he wrote accurately of virtual reality, routine space excursions, medical advancements, literacy concerns (in a high-tech society), the planets, Martian mysteries, robotics, computers, telecommunicating, and always mankind's role in it all.

His writings often walk close to the edge of where we will someday be. Mr. Bradbury is correct in referring to himself as an acrobat or magician of sorts. He remains very much balanced, a vital wiseman, active in his society now at 81 years young.

Mr. Bradbury is an American Sage. "Living forever" is in his genetic make up. Lucky for all of us.

For great descriptions of characters, settings, and conflicts - Dandelion Wine (Greentown, Douglas, Tom, John Huff, Mr. Jonas's cure, Col. Freeleigh, Great Grandmother's death), F451 (the books burning, the mechanical dog, Beatty vs. Montag, Guy's escape across the river, the book people) The Martian Chronicles (the landscapes, the ancients, the family picnic), From the Dust Returned (mummies, minds, far travelling, Cecy's omniscience(new in 2001), and Something Wicked This Way Comes (the arriving carnival, fears and hope of Jim and Will, Mr. Dark, the October people) are each literary classics in their own right.

And then you can try (to begin) to discuss his countless short stories, movie efforts, and articles. (See Dandelion's fine references in "Resources" in this site.)

Indeed, "Passing it on" was great advice. Mr. Bradbury has given us a lifetime of great stories. If someone you know has not read his works, offer a collection to him/her and be thanked (many times) later!

[This message has been edited by fjpalumbo (edited 01-08-2002).]

I just finished reading the "Illustrated Man" for like the fourth time. You're right, a lot of the stories in the book are windows to the future. Personally, I'd say it's one of my favorites.

I started with the Illustrated Man, and I have just finished reading Kaleidescope, and Uncle Einar to my Daughters. My oldest daughter enjoyed Uncle Einar quite a bit. I am trying to wean her from the Potter series,
no slam intended. I just want her to open her eyes to other Authors. So I Figured why not now especially with a visionary such as Mr Bradbury!!!

Ray Bradbury's remark that "the world is full of people with lit matches" remains true. One of these narrow-minded groups of fanatics held a Harry Potter book burning in New Mexico on New Year's Eve. The only thing that mystifies me is the overwhelming popularity of Harry Potter as if it was better than any other book ever written. I've read two of the Harry books and can easily name 400 books just as good which don't get the attention. Harry Potter has served as a good stepping stone for kids to longer and more complex works--they are now moving on to C. S. Lewis and E. Nesbit. So nice to see them asking for something besides Goosebumps or Animorphs, or judging a book by more than whether they can get through it in an evening.

But do you think they will continue to do so?

Somehow the lit matches sometimes get books read. Think about all the censored/banned books that have opened eyes, and minds with the contention that had been stirred up on their behalf. I never knew about Slaughterhouse Five without the line in the movie Footloose.
"Satanic verses" by Salamon Rushdee caused more inquisitive thought, not to mention a author on the worlds most wanted list. My daughters know about Ray Bradbury
from watching an episode of Disney's Silverstone where the students and their teacher get into major trouble for reading
F-451. This caused me to be thrilled to see
that Mr. Bradbury is being read again
by a new generation. Any way you can incite the desire in a potential reader to turn the page, and set an idea on fire can't be all bad. Having the the freedom to progress by
stimulating thought has been any storytellers
challenge or delight, days on end. Our conscience collectively has to maintain the
opportunity to have access freely to ideas!
Ray Bradbury has sparked the torch by furiously typing his way to create a path of flaming bits of rebellious fun to be enjoyed wherever you have light to read his words...


[This message has been edited by uncle (edited 01-09-2002).]

Ray's vision is sometimes unbelievable. Reading any of his stories sets the scene for what may be and that may be sooner than we think.

In fact, just yesterday I stopped by a firm that is now manufacturing flat TV screens. I mentioned Ray's TV walls in F451 and a lady related to me that they are working on just such a thing.

[This message has been edited by flyboy (edited 01-18-2002).]

[This message has been edited by flyboy (edited 01-18-2002).]

For more on this subject go to www.salon.com/people/feature/2001/08/29/bradbury/print.html for discussion of F451 and a Bradbury interview.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Murgen01:
It's so spooky...a man like Ray, who, although not a true "prophet", seems to have seen the future with an amazing clarity that scares the dickens out of me.

Murgen01 I posted the following under another area because I had to say it:

First understand that typically when I pick up a book, I obsessively read throughout the weekend, late into the night until I finish it. BUT, when I first picked up Fahrenheit 451 I read to a certain point.. and put the book down. I didn't pick it up again for some time. When something inside me told me to pick it up again I was amazed! The exact point I began reading answered in my mind a life dilema I was experiencing. I read onward.

Again I put the book down, and again when I picked it up some time later the same thing happened. Some new life dilema was answered by the wisdom of the book at the exact spot I had began reading.

This happened so many times with 451 that I took it as a sign. I would stop reading when my gut told me to stop, and I would NOT pick it up again until my gut told me to. AND sure enough it was always like a wise grandmother imparting to me wisdom to assist me beyond a stopping point in my mental/emotional development.

When I think of Fahrenheit 451 I of course think of all that Ray Bradbury no doubt intended us to think, but I also wonder about the unique wisdom it imparted to me and my particular life situations.
=============end of original post======
I am not Christian and really don't have the background of 'traditional' religion at all. I am however very spiritual so when others say things like; "God", "Prophet", "Miracle" etc they are not completely foreign to me, but might not carry the strict definition others have learned.

My experience with 451 has always hung in my mind as some sort of message from somewhere. Perhaps Ray is a prophet, or at least the words he has recorded come from a higher place perhaps given to him to give to us from that higher place.

Who knows I just found it interesting that you have similar feelings surrounding these profound words that were placed on paper for us all to see.

Oh and also, have faith in your beliefs. When I read your line;

"I needed the reality check...and, thanks Ray...as a Christian, I've backslidden to a point in the last few years where I've stopped reading the bible...my relationship with the Lord has suffered."

My immediate response was; "Oh he was *allowed* to go to the other side to take into his heart the feelings of the 'disease' so that he would know from true experience that his path is his own. How else can we truly know our path is our own unless we have become the alternative.

[This message has been edited by samantha (edited 01-19-2002).]

[This message has been edited by samantha (edited 01-19-2002).]

"There's more than one way to burn a book."
Ray Bradbury, "Author's Afterword" (added in 1979), <i>Fahrenheit 451</i>.

Have you seen the recent articles about the sensitivity censorship (politically correct to the max) being applied to passages used for reading comprehension tests? And then asking the student to explain material that had been excised? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=716&e=...tizes_literary_texts
And some opinions: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=106&nci...hen_the_tester_fails http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/05/opinion/05RAVI.html http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020617/opinion/17john.htm

On another board I frequent, another poster commented about being able to hear "'Uncle Bob' Heinlein fuming, eloquently, and volubly." I replied that Ray Bradbury had fumed so back in 1979, and directed all readers to go find a post-1979 edition of <i>Fahrenheit 451</i> for the Author's Afterword, in which he recounts his discoveries that his work was being bowdlerized and what he did about it.

When discussing F451 with HS students, I give as much care in discussing the "Afterword" and "Coda" (c. 1982 & 1979 ) of the Ballantine - DelRay edition (c.1973) as I do to the reading of the text. They address some key points that young people (and all of us for that matter) need to be aware of.
Montag became aware after losing all of what he had known before or possessed. What a price to pay - but worth it! How many of us are willing to read between the lines when the media gives us clips and bytes, turn off the TV on our kids, read the classics, discuss current events, and develop critical -yet positive- approaches to today's speed of light social and political challenges!

Mr. Bradbury wrote about this 50 years ago. He has given us plenty of time to take heed. Now it is our responsibility to promote literacy, education, and values that keep us strong as a nation!

See RB quotes and philosophies on same: http://www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury/quotes.htm#Education

Well, sertainly the book inspired me a great deal. But, if you put the interesting picture in your mental mind while reading the book, I admit that they can be quite graphic. Although we all might have different perpectives of the books photograhic image capasicity, we must remember like most of the people in this message board had said, it was writen half a century ago. However, I found some parts in the book very confuzing with the facts