A new blog - guymontag.org - has appeared. It's run by a legal librarian who is interested in our attitudes to the web and books. Might be worth a look from time to time. The full explanation is here:

http://guymontag.org/?page_id=2

Interesting! His opening "About" statement could have come right out of one of the books I'm reading: "The Cult Of The Amateur".
I don't recall that Montag is a "California Fireman", though, but it has been a long time since I read the book. I think I'll check that site from time to time to see how it develops...

Montag was from Illinois, not California.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
A new blog - guymontag.org - has appeared. It's run by a legal librarian...

Good - I hate it when illegal librarians try to establish weblogs!

How about Conan The Librarian? Nobody ever returns books late with him around!

Dandy, thanks for the clarification. I'll have to read the book again - I don't recall any state or even country being mentioned...

quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
I don't recall any state or even country being mentioned...

Nor do I. I have a full electronic text of F451, and I've just done a search for both California and Illinois, and neither state is mentioned anywhere in the novel.

HOWEVER, Montag does recall meeting Mildred in... Chicago!

Plus, Beatty refers to the McClellans as once living in Chicago.

So to say Montag was from Illinois seems highly plausible.

Sheesh, talk about having a grudge against Wikipedia...

To all:


I am the law librarian running guymontag.org. Thank you for your comments and the correction (Guy was not a "Californian") If you have any suggestions, comments or story ideas, please feel free to email them to me, david@guymontag.org. My concern is for the printed word which I am sure is shared with many on this site. Thanks

David

david@guymontag.org

Hi, Guy.

Wasn't the city destroyed at the end said or implied to be Chicago, or did I just infer that from the other mention of Chicago?

Wishful thinking?

Sorry, cheap shot. Never been there, would love to visit. Preferably in summer. In all the movies I've seen, Chicago looks mighty cold in the winter.

Anyhoo, the only explicit mentions of Chicago are the ones I referred to in the earlier post. And even those aren't enough to confirm that the story is taking place IN Chicago. In fact, it seems more reasonable for it NOT to be in Chicago, since the only references to it are in characters' memories. Maybe it's set in the next big city along from Chicago, whatever that would be.

Oh, and Doug Spaulding: notice that David calls himself a LAW librarian so as to evade the idea of being either a legal or an illegal librarian.

Ray said once that "the sun dresses you in L. A." where winter in Chicago was the lowest level (the seventh rung or wherever the really cold part was) in Dante's Inferno.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Oh, and Doug Spaulding: notice that David calls himself a LAW librarian so as to evade the idea of being either a legal or an illegal librarian.

I noticed that straightaway!

Straightaway is a good word.

quote:

Originally posted by dandelion:
Ray said once that "the sun dresses you in L. A." where winter in Chicago was the lowest level (the seventh rung or wherever the really cold part was) in Dante's Inferno.

Ray has certainly remarked to me just recently that the weather is one of the things he loves about SoCal.