Very provacative. I agree that noone should be prosecuted for a personal opinions. I enjoy Fahrenheit greatly but I don't like the Pedestrian because it shows an extreme, in my opinion, too extreme to ever be considered realistic. Fahrenheit was much more believeable. I take this from seeing that even as technology grows we are still interested in sports,seeing people face to face, and excercise. If Mr. Bradbury per say, would have had him meet someone, or a few people even, I would maybe enjoyed the story more. I realize that the point of the book is to show how people disregard anything but technology, but only one person, in a fairly large city? Thats alittle unbeleiveable to me.

I am encouraged to read the posts of the young readers. A huge part of experiencing a new author is deciding how you feel about the genre and his type of writing. There is no law that says everyone should be a Bradbury fan. Some of these students have offered honest comments on the difficulty they experienced while reading his works. We can all remember our first time reading Bradbury. And, for some of us, we were much older than these students when we were first aquatinted with Bradbury. I am curious to know what seemed to be the most confusing for you while you were reading?

Honestly, I really didn't understand Fahrenheit 451 or The Pedestrian either. I do not think Ray Bradbury is that inspiring of an author. There were a few aspects of his book I did find interesting such as, the technology he predicted is beginning to appear in the world today. I wouldn't say I did not enjoy reading these books it just kind of took me alittle while to understand what he was saying. I think they both were complicated books to understand but once I did understand them I thought both books were good books. I would recommend these books to someone of an older age to read.

I do understand the meaning of the book, but I do not believe that the burning of books to create the new world order could be seen by anyone as a means to stop people from being offended. This logic is ridiculous to me. Anyone with intelligence could see that is completely impossible to not offend everyone without the complete removal of what makes people human. Like Montag, I doubt that anyone would not be tempted to read books because people have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and an unparalleled curiosity which drives that thirst.

Thank you Thinker123. You're on of very few positive messages. Yes, we are all students that aren't very old. A lot of the people on here mmost likely did read his book at an older age than us. Not everyone is going to understand things if they aren't interested. It's hard to even try to understand a book if you are...

1. Not really into reading that genre of books. Science fiction being Ray Bradbury's choice.
2. Not into reading at all.
3. Not interested in the book itself.

I honestly feel that most of us did not understand it because we didn't want to read it, but thank you for your positive comment about us.

@Fjp451

"Pink Floyd ~ The Wall
We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it's just another brick in the wall.
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

(The "teacher" in me took over...oops!)"

Since we are using cheesy lyrics to insult others intelligence may i make a reference to the song Admit It by the band Say Anything

"Despite your pseudo-bohemian appearance and vaguely leftist doctrine of beliefs, you know nothing ABOUT art or sex that you couldn't read in any trendy new york underground fashion magazine...Proto-typical non-conformist. You are a vacuous soldier of the thrift store gestapo. You adhere to a set of standards and tastes that appear to be determined by an unseen panel of hipster judges-BULLSHIT-giving your thumbs up and thumbs down to incoming and outgoing trends and styles of music and art. Go analog baby, you're so post-modern. You're diving face forward into an antiquated past, it's disgusting! It's offensive! Don't stick your nose up at me! You spend your time sitting in circles with your friends, pontificating to each other, forever competing for that one moment of self aggrandizing glory in which you hog the intellectual spotlight, holding dominion over the entire SHALLOW....POINTLESS...conversation. Oh we're not worthy."

I find these posts interesting, as we are getting a lot of different viewpoints on what makes F451 approachable (or not) by new readers.

I would also like to know more about what parts people found "hard to understand". Please be specific: give us an example of a particular scene or section which is difficult.

For the logic around book-burning, it is not enough to just consider F451 on its own. You have to have some awareness of the way books have been burned as symbolic, political acts across history. Most recently, it happened under the Nazis in World War II and under Stalin in the Soviet Union (Russia). But just because these events are long in the past doesn't mean we can forget about them. Everyone who has questioned whether you can really control people's thoughts by banning or burning books needs to look up "book burning".

It's also easy to forget in our current "free" society that that there have always been (and still are, in certain parts of the world) oppressive regimes that keep citizens under tight control and use FEAR as part of the control mechanism.

Why is Montag the only character to rebel? (Well, he's not, and the point of the book is that he discovers like-minded people. There are lots of them, but they don't know each other.)

Why doesn't Montag speak out about book burning? (He's a fireman, for goodness sake! To speak out would lose him his job, his position in the community, his freedom, and possibly his life. In the world of F451, people who rebel mysteriously disappear.)

The Pontificator: You missed my point. I was only saying, without challenging materials (F451, Brave New World, 1984, Hunger Games, Night, etc.), the classroom does become a "by rote" setting. Thinking outside of the box is what learning is all about. It is not always going to be an easy read. Your teacher has raised the bar for some, and, hopefully the exchanges here have made many individuals in your class think a bit more. That can only help in the process of expressing one's view in an informed way.

It is not my style to insult one's intelligence! I do call things as I see them, however! We do not need more "bricks," or as you offered "self aggrandizing glory!"

Pontificator: What did you think of the decisions Montag made in dealing with his conflicts? (Ie., He is a lot like Job in the Bible. His troubles only seem to get deeper the more he tries to do the "right" thing?)

BTW, that's quite an intense lyric you offered in your response! Interesting allusions!

Hey all,

Though my very low post count might suggest otherwise, I'm actually not new here, I just typically limit my involvement to casual lurking

All of this talk has been very interesting; injecting a bit more "liveliness" into the boards. I'm a bit older than the hight school students that have been posting here, but perhaps younger than most of the board members, judging by their own references, so I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

I'm a huge Bradbury fan; I think of him as one of the best writers of all time, though I do think that his work is, at times, uneven (with as much as he's produced, this isn't really an insult). That said, "The Pedestrian" and F451 are two of his masterpieces, in my opinion.

Like some on the board here, I was at first a little concerned at how many of the high school students were confused by Bradbury. F451 is not all that difficult a read (one reason it's often selected, aside from its excellence). But then zb56 said something that clicked. He or she said how any book can be confusing if the reader isn't into reading or interested in the book. I think that is spot-on correct. I remember more than a few pieces of literature that I was forced to read in HS that I had zero interest in. Consequently, I skimmed, skipped chapters, etc. to get the reading done with the bare amount of effort. Did the books that I did this with seem confusing? Absolutely! Even if I had read every word I would have still been lost because my mind wouldn't have been focused on the reading because I wasn't very interested.

By the way, this is in no way meant as an attack on those students who may have not read super-carefully--I don't blame you. If you aren't interested, it is nearly impossible to force yourself to be so. Similarly, I can see how some students might find Bradbury difficult because they just plain found him difficult. Like with anything your mileage may vary. Reading doesn't come as easily to some. That's nothing to be ashamed of.

That being said, I'd just like to point out that Mr. Bradbury himself has, on numerous occasions, spoken out against reading lists. Though I'm sure Mr. B is happy that students are reading his work, I wonder how he feels about them being forced to do so. No one forced me to read Bradbury, and I'm glad they didn't! Huck Finn, one of the great books of all time, was ruined for me for a period because being forced to read it when I wasn't ready left a bad taste in my mouth. I just hope that those students who don't care for Bradbury now will give him a chance later in life.

Yes, yes, I know that this opens up a giant can of worms about how we have to educate students by exposing them to literature. For the record, I agree. I was an English major and am currently getting a degree in writing (something Mr. Bradbury has warned against--haha), and I fully acknowledge the importance of reading. But I do think that there is a real issue with forcing students to read things that don't interest them. As I mentioned above, Mr. Bradbury has, in the past, agreed. I'll leave it to far smarter minds like his to find the right balance between the two sides of the argument.

@davidafshar
You are right on so many levels! I don't like any of the books i have been forced to read in school but I love reading! I'm more of an adventure story person or a comedy but that doesn't mean i don't like mysteries! I think You really hit home with Your comment. You can relate to us kids and I can respect that. I think you should comment more often because You really know what you're talking about!
#realtalk

@A Pink Orange
I'm the same way, if its not an extremely interesting book I'm not going to stay with it long. Ray Bradbury's books start to slow down and I just simply lose interest.

Whats not to get Fahrenhiet 451 is about books being illegal and houses are now fireproof so they dont need fireman to put out fires they just start them in the future. But in the Pedestrians he just shows how technology is isolating us and that we need to be more active and get out and keep our social skills good. But you can fight with the technology either way because there are ways that it is good then there are many ways to show how technology is bad and how it is isolating us. Like this website wouldn`t you rather talk to someone in person about all this because you do not know who your talking to.

(Another piece of personal slander deleted. D.)

But if you only talked to the people that you knew in person then you would not have alot of friends so the book has a point but yet it doesn`t.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: dandelion,

I have to agree with dandelion's prodigy I would rather talk to someone in person then on the internet. On the internet you never know who is telling the truth about who they are, but at the same time it is easier to express your opinion online when you are shy and can't express yourself the way you'd like. I think the books have different points to different readers everyone digests information differently.

quote:

Originally posted by zb56:
This is to Dandelion about how you asked if images would help us understand. It seemed as many of us were more confused by Fahrenhiet 451. I really do not think images would help. We watched the movie shorty after reading the book (yes, movies are very much different and we picked out the differences) but the movie didn't help at all. Even on the parts that were the same. Mostly all I got from this book was about how books are important, but didn't get much more. Yeah, I really didn't want to read the book, but just because I didn't want to read doesn't mean that I think he is a terrible author. Images don't always help though. As Bradbury is trying to portray, technology isn't always the answer.

Basically what I am trying to do is answer your question. Would images help.. no. I really don't think so. By the way, you are quite famous in our class. You're quite the topic at times!

Thanks for the answer. I wish the last paragraph were directed at me but it obviously refers to Ray, which is great. It's often been noted how the quality of Bradbury's writing is difficult to adapt to film even by a cinema master.

I'm the same way like I had said previously before I would rather read a romance novel or a mystery book, rather than a science fiction book. Not judging all science fiction books, I mean there's tons of books out there about tons of different topics. I understood bradburys book and I'm not trying to downgrade him in any way. I don't write books myself but I love to write. I write my own songs and being a writer I would have to say I'd like people to give me and my music or songs a chance before they're judged. I kept an open mind while reading he book and I'll admit it was different than what I'm use to, or what I normally read. I kudos Bradbury for being a writer. Writing is a talent and having the idea for the f451 book was great. At the ages of 15 and 16 it may be difficult for some to comprehend. Although we know the meaning of the book. We discussed it in class, and we watched a movie on it as well. In my opinion I just think we were all uninterested in the book. I was no thrilled to read it nonstop like some books I may really like and I'm into a lot but it was a good book. It had a good lesson and it made you think a good bit but to me it was as kids something we may have needed. Technology especially now in today's society has improved and will keep improving as far as I know. Maybe for teenagers to read this it would be good and teach us good values at one perhaps. Maybe we would spend more time with family instead of our phones or iPods etc. there is one thing I got it of the 2 stories we read in class.
Fahrenheit 451 was only confusin at times because it was a different time period and had made up things in the "future" and I think some hinge perhaps were puzzling to us and eccentric. I'm sorry to those of you who are extreme fans and love ray and if we offended you by stating our opinions. We are teenagers and it's what we do and I'm sure that's what this site was made for.!to discuss these things. I'm also sorry myself for posting in the wrong place dandelion. I am new and I wasn't sure where to go or what topic to pick honestly. Now I cannot speak for all I is but I found the book decent. I wasn't thrilled about it but I don't hate it either or don't understand it. I kudos ray and I ask that you please keep an open mind for my classmates. We all have different opinions by I'd like to say thank you for those who don't automatically Judge us for our honest opinions. Goodnight all!