I enjoyed both Fahrenheit 451 and The Pedestrian. If I had to pick on of the stories I would pick Fahrenheit 451. They are both similar ,but I prefered Fahrenheit because of the way it was more similar to our world today. Not just the techonology part ,but aslo the thought of the people in it are the same. People in Fahrenheit 451 enjoy violence like a lot of people enjoy it today. Overall though I enjoyed both of them a lot.

I loved this book(Fahrenheit451)! My imagination sparked from this! But, now we have to write a three page essay Wish Me Luck!!!

Three pages? That's not so much. So: luck!

Very late to the discussion, I know, but then again, I just found it. I am amazed by this whole thread. "Fahrenheit 451"? "The Pedestrian"? BORING? Hard to follow or understand?

We must be, here, in the presences of victims of the MTV Generation, 3-second attention span. These books are hardly quantum physics textbooks. I first read them as a child, found nothing hard about them, had no problem with concentrating, "Got it" as far as the impact of technology on society and well knew the implications of burning books.

Ray Bradbury also said one time you didn't have to burn books, you just have to get people to stop reading them. I would take it one step further, and say you just have to dumb them down so much, they get lost in a story about book burnings...that way, you can save even the expense of paying someone to burn them.

A sad commentary on literacy in our time...

Even the best warnings sometimes go unheard!
Read On!

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/451/451.html

FJP451: Thanks for the link, that makes it just so much worse. Simply one more sign and symptom of the Fall Of America.

B. I., I taught English for many years, just stepping away last year. I must agree in some degree with your point of view, though I keep the spirit and perspective of Guy Montag close to my heart. I typically presented 12-15 major titles per year, and as many as 10 in semester classes. (There were always short stories and constant articles for analysis.) IE, Shakespeare, Steinbeck, London, classic SF from Shelley to Poe to Wells to Bradbury; Dickens, Hawthorne, London, Lee, Orwell, Weisel, philosophers, satirists, current independent readings, auto / biographies, et al! Kids wrote volumes of stuff, too. (I sure don't miss correcting all of those papers each night!)

My two sons, though fine readers, seem seldom to have major readings to complete. Most is explained "in class" to keep everyone on an even keel. This summer we read and listened to and discussed Dandelion Wine, Huck Finn, and Grades of Wrath as we spent a week traveling to DC during our yearly family sojourn. There is nothing better than reading together with those closest to you. I always read to kids in class, and many commented they seldom were read to at home. Thus, the art of page turning becomes what is at the topic of discussion here.

I know several members of this board read to Mr. Bradbury during his final year with us. I had intended to send him a recording but never got it mailed out ~ unfortunately. I did, however, send him a package and letters from members of an adult course I had recently concluded. It was sent his way on June 4th...

Have you read RB's "The Murderer," "Usher II," and "The Exiles"? These stories, all written in the 1950's, reflect Mr. Bradbury's acute sense of things to come (of which you are rightfully so concerned). These were his wake-up calls along with "Pedestrian" and F451!

fjp451: Yes, I read all three you mentioned at the bottom, but "The Murderer" and its details kind of escape me at the moment.

The other two, "Usher II" and "The Exiles", often read and much loved...and I love the literary themes and the way they are presented. Just as a note, WAY back in the 1960s, when I was in high school, our English reader (Junior year, I think), had TWO science fiction stories, one by Jack Finney I believe, whose title I forget, and Bradbury's "The Pedestrian."

In the whole book, they were the only two the teacher SKIPPED. I read them myself. I was already a Bradbury fan by then, but I was upset about the two "skips" and still feel it reeked of intellectual snobbery.

And I simply MUST add, within the last 8-10 years, I had a student who was using "Cliff Notes" for a book report, say, within my hearing, "Why can't they write all books this way?"

I remember that. And despair.

Glenn Reed of swans.com wonderfully writes about F451 and getting...Mildreded.
http://www.swans.com/library/art18/glennr09.html

Linnl, that article captures the discourse perfectly. It reminds me of Albert Brock's "answer" to this techno-insanity into which each generation now becomes more completely mired. (Imagine actually waiting in line for a day and a half for the newest "must have gizmo!?")

Here, Blue Indy, "The Murderer":
Ah, for a nice "Chocolate milkshake!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBF1FHiZeXY

That's right! The machine murderer...thanks for that link and I might note I DID just have a chocolate milkshake, although I poured it on nothing.

Now, perhaps you will disagree with me on this, and I want to make plain I LOVE science fiction movies. But notice we have been stuck - in terms of HUMAN exploration - in Low Earth Orbit for more than 40 years. I think in a sense there is a reason beyond the obivious ones, cost, politics, etc. I think it also has to do with the fact the realities of space flight seem to PALE, on the surface, with the fantasy of make believe.

Oh yes, Ron Howard's "Apollo 13" was as tense a thriller as you could ask for, but you already know the outcome. It just doesn't compare to the Star Wars battles against the Death Star, the Cosmic Deep Breather Darth Vader, or the dashing Hans Solo. In these worlds, hyperspace drive, or warp drives are REAL, and we flash between the atars as easily as we do now between countries or cities. It raises our expectations to an unrealistic level, and causes comparisons in which mundane reality simply loses.

The best memorial for Ray Bradbury, or any like him, is to -literally- spread their works across the galaxy, along with the human explorers that will carry them. To do that a new generation is going to have to learn the "easy" flights to other planets simply are not possible, now, in the real world...and will take at least centuries before they are possible at all.

I know about the "Techno-insanity", and I am one of the few that has never owned a cell phone, and never will. We are indeed, mired, addicted, enslaved to them. Yet here is the paradox: to REALLY reach the stars, we will need everyone one of those gizmos, and more.We must learn to rule THEM, and not let them rule US.

That is where I think the humanity of a Ray Bradbury, ticketing Man, every last screwed-up part of him, to the far reaches of infinity, may be able to help get us back on track to what I see as the new Manifest Destiny of the human species.