When Ray was interviewed on TV a couple of days ago, which I wrote about on another thread, he specifically said his book was a "sociological study," and not meant to be political. Of course I realize that anyone reading it could view it differently, but at least I know that's how Ray himself perceives his book.

Pterran - does not one influence the other? First political, then social, or vice-versa? The firemen were most defintely emplyed by the government. Hence there must have been some laws passed about it. On the other hand, it were the people who rebelled against the book burning (the old lady that got burned, Montag, etc). Arguments could be made for both sides.

Cheers, Translator

Also it's a really groovy suspense adventure.
One of the best.
Mr. Bradbury just did it right all the way around.

I've read F451 twice (more than that, but twice most notably) throughout my lifetime. Once when I was very young, I read it as a school assignment in the third grade (I had a very literary upbringing). I didn't much enjoy it, to say the least.

Years go by and I grow taller, older, none-the-wiser, but more literate. Married now, I happened upon a copy of it which my wife brought to our now-massive book collection. Being one of the rare times that I was not reading something at the moment, I delved into it...

Bradbury has an amazing talent which I've enjoyed throughout years now, in that you're almost playing cat & mouse with him in his stories. You can read F451 and nod sagely and say, "Yes, look at the censorship! Look at the future-world, ruined!"

But you can also look up from your volumes of poetry, your shelves of dusty books and the scent it gives your house, squint away from your volumes of inked-and-paged ideas and you can pick up F451. And there, you have the Hound, fresh from the Baskervilles with Detective Holmes nowhere in sight! There, you have a part of "Brave New World," and a bit of "1984," and some more lonely thoughts on a world that went totally lax and gave in to its poorest ideas. You look at the characters, you see the greatest heroes of myth and literature in all their anguish. You read the narratives and suddenly find bits of Poe, pieces of Frost, pieces of Dickenson...there's poetry and song in there! You chuckle when they mention the pair of Book Memorizers who are "Pride," and also "Prejudice," and you get the joke because you already know it was never published in a two-volume set...

In short, you catch Bradbury's reference and you grin and exclaim, "Gotcha!" and then delve deeper still, looking for the rest of the treasure.

*

My most recent thought on the matter was an interesting similarity I noticed.

I'm not sure if anyone here has read Walter Miller jr.'s classic work, "A Canticle For Leibowitz," (and if you haven't, you should snap to it at once), but there is a definite similarity between Bradbury's wandering gypsy-troupe of books and Miller's monks who are bookleggers and memorizers, suffering for their literature through the long Dark Age of Man after the collapse of civilization at the end of World War III.

I've always wondered if Miller read F451 (to think he hadn't would be nonsense).

I've always been a bit curious, too, if Bradbury had chanced to read "Canticle."

I am officially done rambling.

I thoroughly enjoyed your ramblings . . . more literate and interesting than my own "well-thought-out" posts, as many could attest.

Very nice stuff. It evoked Bradbury in the images and names and style. Very nice. Thanks.

"Does not one influence the other?"

Yes, Translator, Definately! But I don't think that Ray was implying politics in the book. He was just making his own social commentary. This explains why he did not want his title to be connected to anybody's political views (right OR left) and was, in turn, angry with Moore for trying to turn his social commmentary into a political statement.