That Time When They Censored Fahrenheit 451

The reviews of HBO ’s “Fahrenheit 451” haven’tbeen sogood, but at least the publicity shouldlead more people to read a great dystopian novel. Talking about the book many years later,Bradbury said, “I wasn’t worried about freedom, I was worried about people being turned into morons by TV…the moronic influence of popular culture through local TV news and the proliferation of giant screens and the bombardment of factoids.” If only he could see our current culture, where TV news agitates viewers into warring tribes.But he certainly portrayed a society in which an authoritarian government burns books, and most people have seen it as a powerful warning about censorship. Which makes it particularly ironic, and more significant every day, that  Fahrenheit 451 itself was censored – trimmed, expurgated, bowdlerized – by people who no doubt thought they had the best of intentions.When Bradbury discovered what had been done, he wrote this Coda to the 1979 Del Rey edition. It ’s worth reading today. What he said then is still true: “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people run­ning about with lit matches.” Read the Coda, thenread the book:About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology,  The Martian Chronicles.But, she added, wouldn ’t it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women’s characters an...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs