Finally, One From My Bucket List

Maybe I had to feel at death's door to recommit to my must read list for 2012.  I got Fahrenheit 451 from the library in July and left it with my son so he could read it.  Now he is back in school; I renewed it and it sat on my night stand.  Then came the fall.  Not only didn't I have the mental stamina to read but I couldn't even get my glasses on from my eye swollen shut.  What a perfect book to rejoin the ranks of readers.

And that's Bradbury's point:  he saw a future where no one reads, where talk is prattle and not conversation, where wall size TVs entertain (he got that right but missed the lure of pornography as well as round the clock sports and "reality" programming).  His television is mock interactive but I wonder how close on the horizon is contributing programs ... if computer games can progress on alternative lines based on a players actions, how long will it be before the television audience will direct its own happy endings.

In my lengthy recuperation, I'm back to watching some of those shallow information shows like the Dr.s.  On Dr Phil yesterday, a "renowned" psychiatrist promoted his theory and book about the Demise of Guys from there addiction to computer games and pornography and instant gratification with a false sense of control.  A nation of avatars.

I think 451 is the book on my list that I like the best so far.  In a sense it reminds me of both The Phantom Tollbooth and A Wrinkle in Time.  First because it, like them, is close to its 50th anniversary of being published.  All three seem to represent a more innocent time, a sense of looming change -- negative at that -- and yet a celebration of humanity and its resilience.

Like all my favorite books, I but it under my mental microscope to diagnose where I think the author leaked into the story.  I believe some cousin or friend teased him about getting a dime if he could fill a sieve at the beach.  What a wonderful image.  His words spoken I recall through Faber about three principals of good writing aligns with those from the literary analyses I read last year:  the layering of meaning at the same time the minutiae of details; the leisure to interpret; and the commitment to act after thought.

I also was entranced with the theme of anti-intellectualism and covert censorship.  In the back of the "dime" paperback copy I read, Bradbury rants on a text book of short stories that were edited, dumbed down.  Resonated with me for a couple of reasons:  my younger son who is taking Greek tragedy and already read Oedipus Rex and Antigone in high school was appalled when his professor asked the class how many had read the Old Testament and none raised their hands, and this a Catholic college; and I must get back and finish my two nonfiction books, Sowell's Intellects and Society and Bloom's Closing of the American Mind.  How Bradbury made Bloom's points, earlier and with an allegory.

Back to subtle, societal effective censorship.  How often this year have I been tempted to read a book advertised or reviewed in the NYT's weekly supplement, and how many times, like every time, has that recently published book been both shallow and sensationalistic.  Making me feel like Mildred and her friends.  How often, especially after the boys left private school, was I angered by the agenda driven teacher reading lists, that pandered to minorities and advocated a philosophy if bland indifference and entitlement to mediocrity.    How often do I recoil at the titles selected by my reading group.

Which brings me to a short review of City of Light juxtaposed against an unlikely counterpoint of The Empty Glass.  What possibly could they have in common?  (Why does this seem like a final exam in college where I wrote up what I did the night before -- never studying -- and how that related to required reading.)  Both tales "star" a woman who has "sexual relations" with a President:  in CoL with Grover Cleveland (yuck shades of Stanford White from American Eve -- White even appears in this book as the architect of Buffalo's grandeur) and Monroe with JFK, and various other cabinet members and/or touch football buddies.  Both women are powerless, viewed by adoring fans, either as a respected school marm and pillar of the community in Buffalo or as the sex icon of the 60s by the world, as enviable.  But both are clueless and powerless and manipulated by money and political agenda. 

So what are the uberthemes of these two novels:  not female intellectual inferiority, but maybe a Bradburian reinterpretation of history, a dumbing down and appeal to sensationalism and the human negative trait to see plots in order to lessen personal responsibility and accountability. 

This is a long essay like review and I am happy to have my brain almost 100% back, off oxycoton and my personality no longer timid and cowering.  Feeling restored, I feel like Bradbury's Clarisse, eager to be outdoors and talking.  Guess what -- today's talking is a one-way blog posting.