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2009-06-26 Home Front: Culture Wars

Ray Bradbury Dismisses Internet as "Distracting" and "Meaningless"

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Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-06-26 03:36|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps the most tedious book ever published. But Liberals love the politics, so schoolchildren are made to study this piece of dross.

Posted by Phil_B 2009-06-26 04:40|| 2009-06-26 04:40|| Front Page Top

#2 Did spellcheck convert George Orwell into George Orson Welles?

And why?

Posted by no mo uro 2009-06-26 05:42|| 2009-06-26 05:42|| Front Page Top

#3 "Orson" Wells, of War Of the Worlds fame, was born with the Christian name George. Orson is his middle name.

And personally, I enjoyed Fahrenheit 451, as I did everything else of Bradbury's that I've read. In fact, I'd say that he ranks only second to Heinlein, in the world of SF. Asimov? Now there's some seriously tedious writing! Outside of the occasional short story I never had the stamina to finish anything he wrote.

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2009-06-26 05:57|| 2009-06-26 05:57|| Front Page Top

#4 Herbert George Wells

The Godfather of American Liberalism
H. G. Wells: novelist, historian, authoritarian, anticapitalist, eugenicist, and advisor to presidents.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_HG-wells.html

Posted by Large Snerong7311 2009-06-26 06:15|| 2009-06-26 06:15|| Front Page Top

#5 I think I understand why he'd say that. His writing revels in the senses; in the smell and sound and feel of things. I'd read that he preferred a manual typewriter for the sensation of the keys moving to hit the paper. He wouldn't want to lose the sense of the weight of the book and the feel of the covers and turning the pages--they'd be integrated with the act of reading for him.
I haven't read much of his recent work, so perhaps he's done it already, but I'd guess that if he were to write about books online he'd envision a self-aware server that rewrote the stories you stored on it; fitting them to what it thought you should be reading.
The internet--distracting? Not possible. Let me go check my email again.

Posted by James">James 2009-06-26 07:14|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2009-06-26 07:14|| Front Page Top

#6 George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 October 10, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio. Welles was also an accomplished magician, starring in troop variety spectacles in the war years. Noted for his innovative dramatic productions as well as his distinctive voice and personality, Welles is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished dramatic artists of the 20th century. His first two films with RKO, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, are widely considered two of the greatest ever made. His other films, including Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight, are also considered masterpieces.[1][2] He was also well-known for a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds which, performed in the style of a news broadcast, reportedly caused widespread panic when listeners thought that a real invasion was in progress.

Wikipedia

Posted by Parabellum 2009-06-26 07:22|| http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/]">[http://sidemeat.wordpress.com/] 2009-06-26 07:22|| Front Page Top

#7 he'd envision a self-aware server that rewrote the stories you stored on it; fitting them to what it thought you should be reading.
The media already does this.

Posted by CrazyFool 2009-06-26 08:21|| 2009-06-26 08:21|| Front Page Top

#8 Not quite CF, what the media does is rewrite the way THEY think you should read.
(Also called Propaganda)

Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-06-26 08:58|| 2009-06-26 08:58|| Front Page Top

#9 Ray Bradbury is a tedious writer. He is not a science fiction writer. He wrote fantasy. Jack Vance wrote better social commentary.

Posted by AlmostAnonymous5839">AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-06-26 09:25|| 2009-06-26 09:25|| Front Page Top

#10 Martian Chronicles was a pretty good book, but Bradbury was and is a terminal reactionary. He hasn't had a damn thing to say in what, forty-five, fifty years now?

Posted by Mitch H.">Mitch H. 2009-06-26 09:28|| http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/]">[http://blogfonte.blogspot.com/] 2009-06-26 09:28|| Front Page Top

#11 Internet Dismisses Ray Bradbury as "Distracting" and "Meaningless"

Posted by spiffo 2009-06-26 09:47|| 2009-06-26 09:47|| Front Page Top

#12 Bradbury's angle was that his stories usually did not have saccharine happy endings that were the norm in science fiction of the time, nor were the loose ends particularly wrapped up.

He also avoided the "Deus ex Machina" problem of the new invention being central to the plot, and tried hard to avoid scientific impossibilities. Going way back, however, he has disliked television, which was central to several of his plot lines, such as "Fahrenheit 451" and "The Veldt".

A very influential short story, "There will come soft rains", had a major anti-nuclear war impact both in the US and the Soviet Union, where in 1984 it was made into an animated short.

Over here, it was most recently referenced in the 2008 video game Fallout 3.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-06-26 11:09|| 2009-06-26 11:09|| Front Page Top

#13 In what respect does Orson Welles qualify as a science fiction author, let alone one of the greats? He didn't even write the radio adaptation of War of the Worlds, Howard Koch did. Perhaps like many other pop-culturists, the author does not know that Welles and H.G. Wells were different people.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-06-26 11:21|| 2009-06-26 11:21|| Front Page Top

#14 "Saccharine happy endings" were no more the norm in SF during the heyday of Bradbury's career than were bug-eyed monsters and flying saucers. This is a literary establishment stereotype of the field, and Bradbury played to it. See Tom Godwin's "The Cold Equations," Heinlein's original Starship Troopers, or practically anything by Alfred Bester, Fred Pohl (who is still with us btw) or A.E. van Vogt. This kind of sophisticated and balanced work was by no means atypical. Movie/TV scifi and printed SF are not the same and until very recently did not even resemble each other.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-06-26 11:44|| 2009-06-26 11:44|| Front Page Top

#15 I recently re-read Fahrenheit 451. After the election it seemed apropos.

In the afterward Bradbury talks about changes in the decades since he first wrote the novel. He gets many letters from people suggesting ways to conform it with current notions of political correctness. I never get tired of remembering his response: "There is more than way way to burn a book!"

Note that current editions of Heinlein and everything else have been expurgated by the PC gods. If you want to read what an author actually wrote you generally have to go to editions from to 50's or earlier.
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Posted by Iblis 2009-06-26 12:08|| 2009-06-26 12:08|| Front Page Top

#16 The late Michael Crichton was another writer who achieved acceptance from the literary/media establishment by playing off the "not typical sci-fi" strawman. Unlike Bradbury, Crichton did routinely resort to scientific impossibilities and Deus Ex Machina devices that would normally result in instant rejection from experienced SF editors who were familiar with the field as it actually is, rather than as it is stereotyped among academic literary conformists and media critics.
The former includes the whole premise of Jurassic Park, since it was already known at the time that viable DNA could not be recovered from amber. As for the latter, the ending of The Andromeda Strain, where a random mutation suddenly solves the problem by unaccountably affecting every individual virus, is classic Deus Ex Machina. Having a new invention as a central plot device is not necessarily a Deus Ex Machina unless one confuses the "god from the machine" with literal machines, as the lit-snob side of the Two Cultures dichotomy (another humanities strawman) is apt to do.
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Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-06-26 12:23|| 2009-06-26 12:23|| Front Page Top

#17 In summary, the author of this piece (Jason Mick) knows very little about science fiction, cares less, and is too lazy to do any research.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2009-06-26 12:51|| 2009-06-26 12:51|| Front Page Top

#18 George Orson Wells - the illegitimate son of Orson Bean and Herbert George Wells...

Posted by mojo 2009-06-26 13:30|| 2009-06-26 13:30|| Front Page Top

#19 He hasn't had a damn thing to say in what, forty-five, fifty years now?

Ranks right up there with Kurt Vonnegut.

Posted by Pappy 2009-06-26 15:07|| 2009-06-26 15:07|| Front Page Top

#20 Ray Bradbury's short stories were the first adult fiction I read back in the primary grades. I still like most of his stuff. I also admire old pharts who dare to flip off the world.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2009-06-26 16:05|| 2009-06-26 16:05|| Front Page Top

#21 IIRC Plato in his Dialogues cites Socrates as afraid that being able to write things down and read them later would dumb down the whole process and make people mentally lazy.

Attitudes haven't changed much in couple millennium.

Posted by Procopius2k 2009-06-26 16:10|| 2009-06-26 16:10|| Front Page Top

#22 99% of books are crap
99% of internet content is crap

Up to you to find the gems.

Today your library will fit onto an USB stick. Enough to read for the next two or three depressions

Posted by European Conservative 2009-06-26 16:48|| 2009-06-26 16:48|| Front Page Top

#23 Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crap.

Posted by mojo 2009-06-26 18:09|| 2009-06-26 18:09|| Front Page Top

#24 David's law, crap today crap tomorrow, but yesteryears gems fade and tarnish with time.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2009-06-26 20:32|| 2009-06-26 20:32|| Front Page Top

#25 William Shakespear and dear Jane Austin still hold up well.

Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife 2009-06-26 21:58|| 2009-06-26 21:58|| Front Page Top

#26 AC,

It also depends on the particular magazine one read. Stories in Astounding (later Analog) tended to be uplifting human-triumphant stories, thanks to John Campbell, with some peculiar exceptions when Campbell was away. "E for Effort" by T.L. Sherred, for example. F&SF and Galaxy tended to have the more problematic stories.

Posted by Eric Jablow">Eric Jablow 2009-06-26 23:29|| 2009-06-26 23:29|| Front Page Top

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