The temperature at which books burn

[EricKei]

A thread on CS inspired me to make this one~ (A Search didn't show any threads dedicated to the subject)

To Cut & Paste my own stuff:

The book Fahrenheit 451 is about the evils of television and other mass media (including addiction to it and the resultant apparent "dumbing down" of people as a result), NOT about burning books or censorship. Well, at least according to some guy called Ray Bradbury, anyway, what would he know? ~_~ According to what is possibly urban legend, he has been "corrected" by at least one classroom audience during a speech about the work (at UCLA), causing him to walk out on them.

"Fahrenheit 451 is not about the topic of censorship. Rather, it is a story of how television destroys interest in reading literature, leading to a replacement of knowledge with “factoids”: partial information devoid of context." - attr. to Ray Bradbury

Some people refer to (roughly) 450F as the auto-ignition point of book paper; others say it's more like 450C. YMMV.

The book predicted, among other things: flat-screen TV's and "media walls", surround sound, the increasing spectre of the "death" of print media, and tiny little wireless electronic devices that sit in your ear that allow for 2-way communication over long distances -- in other words, Bluetooth headsets, wireless earbuds, and similar devices. IIRC, jetpacks, too, but we haven't quite mastered those. Yet. Oh yeah, and unmanned flying drones.

[replying to another post:] It's not so much that the people do not WANT to read books (some of them do, despite that being, in effect, a capital crime) -- it's that TV has supplanted print media completely, and books are seen as archaic and useless artifacts of the past in their society.

Also, there is at least a hint of the underlying notion that broadcast media is easier to control. People who have become addicted to the tube (read: the overwhelming majority of the populace in that setting) will watch what they are shown, generally believe what the mighty glowing screens tell them. Books cannot be so easily controlled, unless, of course, you digitize them all and convince everybody to download them all onto wireless-net-connected electronic devices whose contents can potentially be altered at will by those who control the source of said texts...

Wait a sec... >_>

By burning all of the books, any works that disagree with <people in charge>'s views on "the way things should be" cannot exert undue influence simply because they no longer exist.

What do you guys think?

[anakhouri]

I always thought those in charge thought books were dangerous because they presented ideas the governing body could not control, unlike television which can be easily manipulated (even into making the viewers think they are someone participating in the action).

In a way it is about censorship on a massive scale; cut out ALL ideas with which the government does not agree. Beginning with books. NO books were allowed to survive.

The novel also shares some themes with Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron in that the media created by the ruling class is intended to make everyone feel equal and to eliminate differences. In the film by Truffant the head fireman gives a magnificent speech about how if people read stories of other people who do grand things it will make the readers feel badly about their own lack of accomplishment. This is of course propaganda put forth by the government, since in my experience reading about the accomplishments of others usually inspires the reader to do great things as well.

Also, there is at least a hint of the underlying notion that broadcast media is easier to control. People who have become addicted to the tube (read: the overwhelming majority of the populace in that setting) will watch what they are shown, generally believe what the mighty glowing screens tell them. Books cannot be so easily controlled, unless, of course, you digitize them all and convince everybody to download them all onto wireless-net-connected electronic devices whose contents can potentially be altered at will by those who control the source of said texts...

My husband actually wrote a story based on this very idea that was published in Nature.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/486286a.html

[Ginger Tea]

I can't comment too much on the book as I have not read it and I last saw a B&W version sometime in the mid 90's along with the BBC Peter Cushing 1984 and the 80's remake I only recall seeing bits of even though we did own the VHS.

I could Goodwin the thread about a certain book bonfire fan, who autographs grail diaries.

Printed media on the whole might be dying as more and more information is made 'freely' on the internet, even if it is not actually meant to be given away, News papers are the first to suffer as the story changes hourly as more information is made available, a print story could be outdated as soon as it leaves the press, let alone when you buy and read the paper.

Books themselves are a bit more resilient to online life, if someone wanted to make a new book available as a .txt they would have to type it all out and we have found that if you get on the wrong side of Amazon they can and will take your 'books' away, you could not get that happening with Boarders or Amazon's physical sales.

Too many books are becoming movies, so who would bother with the book after the movie?
For those that do, the charm of the minds eye is tainted by the visuals set on film, try as you might to imagine Harry, but most would see Daniel Radcliffe, even audio books are abridged to nothing more than radio scripts sans sound effects with the briefest of set dressings.
I have only listened to the Abridged Girl with the dragon tattoo, the trilogy was on offer for the price of a paperback each, but unless you get the unabridged version most of the pages will be hacked to little more than dialogue.
Prices for Audio books are stupid in the UK retail wise anyways, £30 for one book of the Unabridged LoTR trilogy, granted that's a lot of talking for the reader, but seeing as AB's were meant to be sold initially as books for the blind, it makes it a niche market, so they keep on printing brail as the dominant if not only choice.

I last read a book 2 years ago, it was Fade Out the 6th or 7th Rachel Caine Morganville vampire book, actually I never finished it, I was reading it out side of the main marquee of the Cambridge Folk Festival as my leg really gimped out on me and I was not going to risk falling down in a crowded area, so I sat and listened and read a book, or at least part of one.
I have 12 or 13 books in the series, the LoTR, hunger games and Girl with trilogies gathering dust too as well as the first dune book.

I just lack enthusiasm to sit down and read, even though I have had all this free time since my redundancy, I can quite happily listen to music and relax thinking about this story I really should be writing down pans out, but if I want to give something my attention like a book or a movie (especially a subtitled one where I can not just listen to it for a while), I find myself lacking in inclination.

I believe all books should survive for as long as possible and that people who have rare books should strive to have them digitally archived as either photographs or typed up, it will not devalue your 1860's first edition that has not seen a reprint since 1900 and most were lost or destroyed during the first world war, or even during the 2nd's bonfires.
Once the last book is gone, that's it, it is gone.

I was appalled to hear of the fate of all but one known copy of Nosferatu, even if it was filmed without the rights, I don't see it as a great movie or adaptation, I struggled to sit through it, the 70's remake fared better, but in destroying it it meant that later generations degraded the only master over time, that by the time we could digitally restore a film, a lot of damage could already be done.

Apparently there are half a dozen ore more different cuts of Metropolis as people found scenes cut from one country intact in another's archive, yet most versions found for sale are the generic 'edited' versions with little to no clean up, mostly due to the fact that as it is out of copyright, no rights owners can just say "lets get the longest best cut and clean it up for market" it's a case of the reel owners setting their prices for people to get a hold of their copy to work from.
And when I see it on DVD it is always £20, a movie I got on VHS for £5 when it was a covermount.

edit:

With television and especially in regards to the levels of SFX either prosthetics (a dying art) and CGI, the news could go all Blair Witch on us, or do the opposite, something real happens and it is written off as a publicity stunt.
The movie Harrison ended with the main actor explaining that his rebellion and showing old movies over a hacked broadcast channel and pleas for people to remove their limiters was nothing more than a movie in itself, a play with one principle actor and then a dozen actors at the end of the 12 or so hour show who only dressed as riot police.

*spoiler*
"Everything you saw that day was fake, nothing was real, just as this is not real." put's gun in mouth pulls trigger in front of live TV audience.
*spoiler*

I joked at work about making a snuff movie, but mine would not be pornographic, that seems to be what people think as a rule, I see the sex as optional, the death mandatory and relayed an anecdote I don't recall where I got it from, that people used real corpses in their movie only to have their special effects work lambasted for being too poor.
To show real death is seen as fake, for real death to seem real a layer of Hollywood needs to be drizzled over the corpse.

The season finale and actually the only episode filmed of Ghost Watch for BBC TV in the 90's has gone down urban legend as being a bit too real and the co host really did die and the helicopter crash she was involved in weeks later was staged to get her in hospital so they could then pronounce her dead, iir she is still alive and well.
Every effort was made to sell it as live TV, real TV presenters, the Crime Watch number used giving you an automated all lines are busy please call back later, it sold itself very well on the night, perhaps not as well now on re-watching 15 or so years later.

So if I saw a YouTube video of an attempted assassination of a government official from a foreign country, I work on the principle that it could be an excerpt from a film or tv show filmed as if it was a news camera and crew capturing it.
It may be real, it might have happened live on air in Spain, but I didn't see the news that day (or ever) so would not know the real president of any country VS an actor who plays him on TV.

[anakhouri]

I'm sorry you're not able to get into books- they're THE most important invention of humankind.

I recall seeing that episode of Ghostwatch (within the past year, and knowing full well it was a hoax) and found it chilling.

You're correct in that other forms of media are easily manipulated and spun. In Romero's "Diary of the Dead" he makes the same point that we are constantly remaking our world; in the film the characters are making video of their experiences fleeing the zombie apocalypse and uploading it to websites to show everyone the unvarnished truth- yet they are constantly editing it as they go to cut out the 'boring parts' or to make themselves look better.

Books on the other hand are stable. In Bleak House, Lady Dredlock will always die. Harry Potter will always save the magical world. The unicorn will always learn to love and to regret. Even if someone edits it to make you believe something else, the real story will always exist, somewhere, even if only in the hearts of the people who read it before it was brutalized.

I'm a reader and an author and I can't conceive of a world without books. For years I have been debating on what title I will memorize when the firemen come.

[Ginger Tea]

part of my decline of reading stemmed from my ever shifting working hours, I would get home at 3 after stopping off for some food from Tesco's and 9 times out of 10 be asleep as soon as I got in, waking up at 7 and not having an attentive brain to entertain a movie, hell I've lost track on how many times I would be asleep 10 minutes into a film after the 6-2 shift, which wasn't ever a week solid, one time it was 6-2 followed by 9-7 and back again till I had done my 7 days.
Body clock was out of whack and my work life balance was totally out.
Now I am just a passive media absorber, I only pay more attention to foreign films due to the subtitles and due to that I find myself less and less inclined to sit through a movie even if I have a few hours to kill till the live radio dead air what the fuck is wrong with you section at 4:30 UK time.

Adaptations of books still in progress can ruin themselves when they want a sequel before the book is out or decide that the authors sequel is not to their liking Ring 2 vs Spiral, so everything that the guy would have written should he had plans for a 3rd book would never be seen by the west nor much inside of Japan save for die hard fans of his work, as everything he wrote is non cannon to the world presented in the movies.

The book I was writing in the 90's has spent the most of the last decade just running around as scenes in my head being edited around but never committed to paper (I didn't have a pc when I first moved and all my A4 5mm square paper drafts lay untyped in binders), my current story is the same, I started it off as a one shot going in one direction, now it is facing another and has gone from a 1st person I had running through my head killing time till RDA WTFIWWY came on, to a more narrative spanning decades.

Yet I don't think I will ever write about it other than the notes I jotted down in the gaps of a Sudoku paperback and even if I did, it like the stories before them will never be seen by another soul.

[Dakhur]

As someone with a personal library of over 2000 books, I can't fathom people not wanting to read. The idea of burning a book is beyond me, let along making a bonfire out of them.

I might have electronic copies, but that's only as good as the electrons they're contained on. Real paper is good forever.