Bradbury and 451 - let the novel run
About seven years ago I joined hundred of others to see Ray Bradbury. Powered by a walking stick as he entered stage at the Los Angeles Book Fair, the stick became something of a wand, the man a magician. He told tales of his childhood. of his career, and somehow swirled us all into that magical fairground imagination of his.I re-read Fahrenheit 451 last night. One curious aspect of the book is that it became something entirely other in my memory of reading it. In fact it seems I am remembering my own unwritten story that Bradbury's conjured me into writing - another bit of Bradbury magic.
I'm off in a few minutes to Lancaster, defending my PhD thesis which is built around my dystopian novel Ectopia. It has many strong and curious parallels with Fahrenheit 451, but one that has just struck me involves the way I freed the principle character in my book, Bender, to discover his own story. He found his own definition in running, securing his life by the decisions he made as he faced various circumstances met with along the way. in bradbury's 1993 preface he says of his lead character and the process of writing:
"'Go' I said to Montag, thrusting another dime into the machine (he was renting a typewriter by the hour), 'and live your life, changing it as you go. I'll run after.'
Montag ran. I followed.
Montag's novel is here.
I am grateful that he wrote it for me."
Gratitude that my character lived, his grand book came into being - that's the mode I mean to take up to Lancaster with me. I'll let you know how it played at the end of the week.
posted by Martin at 10:17 AM
2 Comments:
How interesting - I too reread Fahrenheit 451 recently (ish) - it had been a novel that impressed me enormously and it no longer resonates. I just couldn't accept its premise - I guess it's an indication of how the digital world has eaten away at the power of the book as an iconic (and dangerous) thing. I still read quite a lot of 40s/50s/60s dystopic visions (notably Wyndham, Christopher, Bradbury) and it is curious how some of them remain so powerful and disturbing while others seem like curios from a distant and unfathomable time.
I didn't buy into the books premise either ... since so many dystopian books are about the value of books, the wonders and perils of writing, I now tend to immediately pass over that aspect as some authorial hang-up and see what else is there. Bradbury seems in two minds himself in 451, saying that Books are not what matters, but the art of seeing and appreciating what is around you. What I liked best, I think, was Morgan's way of never giving up. I've just read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' in which a character says: 'This is what the good guys do. They keep trying. They dont give up.'
That's the aspect I like. The never giving up. I guess that's the trick and heroism of writing after all ... feelin like the good guy so writing on regardless.
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