"Fahrenheit 451" Anything Else? (**SPOILERS ALLOWED**)

[stormhawk]

Hey, just wondering if anyone else who is reading Fahrenheit 451 has other topics they wanted to discuss for which I haven't already started a discussion?

[stormhawk]

An interesting commentary on how things are dumbed-down ... when Mildred's friends are visiting and Montag turns off the Parlor ... one of them suggests talking politics to make Guy happy. They begin a conversation about the recent election ... Winston Noble vs. Humphrey Hogue, Winston looking as sharp and noble as his name, Humphrey rumpled with a five-o'clock shadow ... and everyone making their political choice based on how handsome the one fellow looked, regardless of what they had to say. I thought this was quite prescient Nixon/Kennedy race that lay 7 years in the future at the time of publication.

[Michelle]

In a way, that presidential popularity vote thing worked out similarly for a lot of elections. I remember one guy running when I was a kid, that I remarked to my mom that he'd never win because "his name was too weird." I couldn't at that age articulate racism, but I still understood the whole thing to be some sort of popularity contest where you couldn't be too unusual to win.