The Most Interesting Man in the World - Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is just full of contradictions. He should be Scotch-Korean or something like that. During his interviews, Bradbury explained how factoids were useless and that TV was just full of them. He said all this in an interview while he was watching Fox News on his big screen television in his library while "factoids" were going across the bottom of the screen. He thinks television is taking over the world and that no one will read books in the near future. I find it interesting that Bradbury even has a TV show. Bradbury wrote in the 50's that imagination and books would be gone by now, and truthfully he is partially right. Many people would rather watch the movie than read the book. I mean how many people have read the Twilight books, compared to how many people have seen the movies? Books are an important part of our society, and it is a good thing that there are people in this world like Bradbury who are trying to get books more popular than TV.

Bradbury is an interesting man. Even though it says how Fahrenheit 451 is about government censorship right on the front cover of the book, Bradbury claims that the main point of the book is not about government censorship. This is where I disagree with Bradbury, and the best part about books is no one is wrong as long as they can argue their point. I consider it government censorship when the government does not let people read books, arrests anybody who has them, and burns the entire house that contains them. I do not see how that could be anything but censorship. The government does not want anybody to get any ideas that could defy them. They are trying to have complete control over the people.

Bradbury has an amazing mind. He imagined Ipod earbuds and flatscreen TV's decades before they came out. His views of the future were amazingly acccurate, but hopefully the book burning part will never come true. Bradbury may not like television or any sort of technology for that matter, but his ideas possibly could have been the cornerstone for the current technological devices we now use everyday. Who knows, Bradbury may write about something tomorrow that will be the technology we are using in 50 years.

Fahrenheit 451 Blog

What would the world be like with no knowledge, no opportunities to learn new things, no books. Ray Bradbury imagined this horrible world and wrote about it. The product was Fahrenheit 451. Reading gives you knowledge, and knowledge is power. People who have power can do extraordinary things when they put their mind to it. They can have their own say in things. People filled with knowledge can lead others and inspire them. Knowledge spreads, but it does not when a government burns books and arrests people who have them. The government was trying to stop people from having their own ideas. They were taking away the things from the people that could produce a person who defied the rules, and could stand up and say, "Hey, that isn't right."

Clarisse was one of these people who did not like the mold set for humans. She was her own being. She was herself. She looked at the world as a great place full of surprises. Clarisse lived life. She did not spend countless hours watching a TV. She stopped and looked at the world around her instead of going somewhere just to get there. This attitude towards life changed Guy Montag's look on life. Maybe there was more to life than just technology. Montag was not happy with his life. Clarisse's ideas made Montag finally start to live and love his life.

Although Ray Bradbury claims his book has nothing to do with government censorship, it still seems like the major theme in the novel to me. The government is not allowing anybody to read books. If they do, their house is burned and that person is arrested. That is about as much censorship as I have ever heard of. The government did not want anyone to have the opportunity to defy. They wanted total control of people. This world would be very weird if there were no books. Bradbury expected the future of humans to include no books, and hopefully he is wrong.