Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

In any case, the point that I keep wanting to get to before I get sidetracked, is the coherence thing, and it is something that could relatively easily have been remedied, IMO.

At the start of the book, Bradbury is basically saying that people deliberately suppress information that they find threatening, taxing and/or discomfiting, and I am totally with him on that - we all know how it goes with warring ideologies - each one tries to shout down the other one because they don't like what the others are saying, and as already mentioned, we don't need governments to do this for us.

[...and in this very thing I find a huge irony, btw (getting sidetracked again, oi!) , because on various platforms, Bradbury would keep shouting down "minorities"; he would keep shouting down pleas for equality based on? hot air, really - he blubbers and blusters, and employs fallacies of presumption - he tries to create the impression that if we had to give in to every minority claim, there'd never be an end to it - sort of a slippery slope argument mixed with a subjectivist fallacy mixed with a sweeping generalization fallacy...
..and here I refer to the following:
“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. ]

..anyway, so as I was saying, at the start it's the burning the books which is a bit of a befuddled argument too, the reasoning behind how it all works, but let's give him leeway on that. My real bugbear is the war. The war is just mentioned as a sort of aside for most of the book, and for most of the book, we have all this karfuffle about the bookburning and hound (what is the point of the hound in the overall development of the plot, anyway? Take out the hound and the story is still the same, so the hound is really just an added silliness), but actually, what the story appears to be about at THE END, is that the people ... well, what? There was a war that destroyed them all because people do not pay attention to history, is what he seems to be trying to say, but he does not say it very eloquently at all... I mean, one has no idea who the government is, and how the war came about, and if the man in the street could have had and/or would have had any say in the waging of this war... I mean, it's just all garbled and not sufficiently developed at all.

Not to mention, that I found the whole oral tradition thing just as distracting to any potential central message. On the one hand, Bradbury seems to be trying to say that people are avoiding challenging ideas (just like he himself avoids the "assualt" from minorities (I will quote from one of his essays later, to further illustrate his hypocrisy)) and in the next instance, it is suddenly about the physical books - he doesn't seem able to establish coherently that the paper and ink is not the same thing as the ideas encompassed in books - and also, it seems very important to him to preserve "certain" people's ideas, whereas I think (in my own personal little ideology) it would have been a lot more productive to rather suggest that people should engage with existing texts and assimilate them to build one's own new ideas upon these historical texts. Bradbury seems to miss the point that culture is a dynamic thing, that it should move with the times, that there is no value in trying to freeze reality into moments past.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: " I guess what I am going for is that ideas may be the main attraction, but it is possible to do ideas while still delivering a believable character, ... "

Okay, we might differ on some details, but in the end analysis, we are actually agreeing on one point about this specific book - that we both feel that the characterization could have been better, amirite?

I'd like to try and tie in the themes previously discussed with my gripe about how disjointed in spite of its simplicity the plot is.

What exactly is it that Bradbury is trying to say? One of the things he says is that we need to read and reflect. Looking at today's glut of information in our information society, that is a valid point, indeed, and one addressed by theorists more eloquent than Bradbury, but its a valid point nevertheless, that the information that mass media bombards us with, tends to be fluffy stuff, not stuff that really challenges you and enriches you.

Ugh, and now I have to go. Will be back with more a bit later, my apologies.

Discussion from previous thread: Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "SF that is not hard SF is still SF, yes? Lots of SF concerns itself more with social issues than technology. It's true that I will give a little on hard SF on characterization IF the ideas are spectacular...."

...but sometimes the ideas are really the thing. Take Borges for example. There it's the structure and the ideas that count, and characterization takes a back seat.

In Fahrenheit, there is nothing new, nothing interesting either technologically or in any other respect either - he says nothing new that could not have been applied to people 2 or 3 or 4 centuries ago, and that had not been said before.

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "SF that is not hard SF is still SF, yes? Lots of SF concerns itself more with social issues than technology. It's true that I will give a little on hard SF on characterization IF the ideas are spectacular...."

...but sometimes the ideas are really the thing. Take Borges for example. There it's the structure and the ideas that count, and characterization takes a back seat.

In Fahrenheit, there is nothing new, nothing interesting either technologically or in any other respect either - he says nothing new that could not have been applied to people 2 or 3 or 4 centuries ago, and that had not been said before. ...but I would really really rather have us discuss this in the last thread where I would have freedom to refer to the entire novel- agreed? See you there!
For your convenience: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Amy (Other Amy) wrote: "Writings don't just get silenced because some evil authority wants them silenced (although that happens). They also get silenced because they offend people. It's usually the majority that is offended and demands works be pulled, but here in the US we have seen some of this from minority groups as well, insisting that what they define as hate speech not be allowed on college campuses and such...."

I'm glad you mentioned that before I started typing about it - in fact you're taking the words out of my mouth, because I was JUST about to say (in the next thread) that contrary to what I had thought, the book is not so much a warning against totalitarianism but against intellectual sloth and against neglecting history and the past. (The latter which actually becomes a lot clearer in the last section of the book - perhaps we can still talk about that aspect in the last thread. )

...and another thing is, you guys are talking as if this is SF and really, this is not "hard" SF where technologies are explored, rather than social satire where societal attitudes are discussed, and hence my requirement for deeper and more convincing characterization. Sure, there's the hound and the wall-to-wall TV, but those are not explored from a technological point of view rather than being props for getting Bradbury's point across, as I see it, anyway. The wall-to-wall television is just taking the television craze of the day (early 1950's) to its logical extreme.

Still not, but the plan is tomorrow evening. :P

Linda wrote: "However, copying part of the profile........that´s just creepy..."
Takes plagiarism to a whole new level, doesn't it?

Still not heard back from GR, btw.

Jennifer wrote: "The dreaded Jennifer. When I was 10 I wanted to to called Guinevere. I have moved on ."

I know. That's why I have people call me Jenn, but even that is just totally as common as dirt. :( ...and I have never liked my other name, but I've been thinking lately, that at least it's less common.

Ruth wrote: "Did I just imagine that someone (Traveller?) made some lists like of Nobel Laureates and other prize winners? If they exist, where are they?"

Yes I was just yesterday thinking of revamping that whole section, and putting things like that into a folder for lists, but would this help, in the meantime? https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Cecily wrote: "Yes, Millie is a characterless character ("paper-thin" - nice), and although in some ways I found that irritating and sexist, I think it's because Bradbury's intended message was the mind-numbing e..."

Glad that you liked the writing, Cecily. I must tell you honestly that I found the writing pretty bland and lacking, especially in this middle section.

You know, this novella really disappointed me in many ways. In the first place, I found it overly simplistic but incoherent in spite of that.

Yes, the story starts out in a promising manner; Bradbury drops some powerful and even poetic prose, which we mentioned in thread 1, which makes you lick your lips for more to come. But then it never does come until you're in part 3, where it does not satisfy as expected. (Too little too late?)

...and then there is the lack of coherence issue, but let me address that in the next thread.

Oh, but I might want to vent a bit about something we touched on earlier: Bradbury's blatant sexism and political conservatism. One sees that he bitterly complains about "minorities" in this section; and amongst those 'minorities' he means blacks and women. ( and undoubtedly gay people are implicitly included) .

This is borne out by rantings and ravings that he conducted in essays and other writings. (...and Whitney tells us in his oratory as well?)
So, this minority speaking for yours truly just says "ick" to that! (A minority that consists half of global humanity - or perhaps we're a minority because we are 'less' than human, and the 'lesser' vessels, eh?)

Okay, I thought it worthwhile to mention the issues that I see Bradbury addressing in part 1, and how I feel about his treatment.

As I'd mentioned in the previous thread, Bradbury's exposition feels extremely conservative to me, and since I myself am not conservative in all of the same ways, part of his message is lost on me - this is why I likened him to Theodor Adorno and why he feels like an old grump to me.

One of the things he is complaining about is television - and although his forecast of wall-to-wall TV didn't quite come true, one can see why he is worried about the trend- just sitting and staring at a screen is a very passive activity, isn't it? I guess Bradbury can be excused for not foreseeing the internet, which is of course a much more interactive medium, in 1953.

Bradbury seems to also hate haste and speed and I am afraid there he has lost me as a cheering audience. Much as I love country idylls, and dislike the smoke and noise of the city, "progress" and richness of experience has its rewards too.

I guess this is something that different people would feel differently about.

Perhaps more about the rest of what he addresses, in the next thread.

Hmm, that's a bit disconcerting to know...

This would bring us to Montag himself and his motivations. I felt that the author did not give us any background on Montag that would help explain his motivations; WHY is Montag different; WHY is Montag prepared to defy the system?

I feel that we have slightly more clues with Clarrisse's personality - she has been quirky from a young age and she comes from a quirky family who were non-conformists to start with. But Montag? One could perhaps argue that Clarisse 'awakened' him, but their contact is fleeting and besides, Montag had started to collect books even before he'd met Clarisse.

One could perhaps argue that characterization needn't be important in speculative fiction, but I would like to counter-argue that we're not dealing with hard SF here, we're dealing with social issues, and therefore "human" issues, and therefore, human motivations should be believable.

Any thoughts? Agreement? Disagreement?

Since nobody has said anything on this section yet, perhaps I can use it to discuss something that has been bothering me about this work. Actually a few things bothered me, but I'll leave some of them for the last thread.

For now, maybe we can discuss some of the issues pertaining to the earlier section of the book:
At the start of the book, the narrative seems to address 2 or 3 main issues: let's try to tease them out.
1. Montag is a fireman who burns books in service to the establishment. He is a cog in a wheel; an unthinking one, but he is not quite as bad as his wife Millie, who is little more than an empty automaton. She is a paper-thin character - yes, Bradbury intended for her to be this way, that much is clear, but in his endeavor to make her empty and soul-less, he also makes her unbelievable. There is some debate as to whether a character should feel "real". Should a character be rounded and believable? It would be nice if the group could discuss this issue.

How do you guys feel about Millie? Do you feel happy with the way that Bradbury crafted this character?

Thanks for the heads up, Derek. Yes, I knew about the Google ones, but as you mentioned, those always (as do the WorldCat ones) acknowledge the writer and the site that the reviews are from, unlike the 2 other links I pointed to, and I guess I'm fine with that. (With google and Worldcat, I mean)

Thread for discussion of The Tale of the Alchemist Who Sold His Soul, The Doomed Bride, A Grave-Robber’s Tale and The Tale of Roland Crazed with Love.

Hmm, I really liked the first story, but cannot help wondering how come the idiot Knight of Cups is still alive... ;) :P (If he'd been torn to pieces.)

Perhaps a better ending would have been for him to marry the dishonored Amazon and give their son a happy life? ...but maybe this knight does not have it in him, to be a good and honorable father and husband?

How about we do 2 or 3 stories per thread? Next thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Hanged man:




It originally depicted a pittura infamante , a shameful image of a traitor being punished in a manner common at the time for traitors in Italy. Some versions portray Judas, and include the bags of silver in his hands.

A 1393 decree for Milan and Lombardy of the punishment for traitors: “Let him be [dragged] on a [wooden] plank by a horse to the place of execution, and there be suspended by one foot to the gallows, and be left there until he is dead. As long as he lives let him be given food and drink.”

Modern versions of the tarot deck depict a man hanging upside-down by one foot. The figure is most often suspended from a wooden beam (as in a cross or gallows) or a tree. Ambiguity results from the fact that the card itself may be viewed inverted.

The Hanged Man is unsettling because it symbolizes paradox. The Hanged Man presents truths that are hidden in their opposites.

King of coins:
(I think this is that traditional Rider-Waite version. )




The King of Coins depicts a mature man of considerable earthly power, usually depicted as a diplomatic business-man with a lot of practical wisdom. The king of pentacles can be miserly at times. He has a taste for sensual delights and earthly gifts. Here is a man who has a social standing and is big on keeping up with the Joneses. On the downside, he can be a man of phenomenally huge ego, one who should not be crossed.