04 June 2007 @ 05:19 pm
Compromise, or "There Is More Than One Way To Burn A Book"
I lost all respect for Ray Bradbury when he decided to complain about the title of Fahrenheit 9/11, but this is just insulting.

"Oh, no," cries Bradbury. "Fahrenheit 451 isn't about censorship! It's about television!"

Right. Uh-huh. Sure. So, Mr. Bradbury, about this coda, written by you, in 1979...

"'Shut the door, they're coming through the window, shut the window, they're coming through the door,' are the words to an old song. They fit my lifestyle with newly arriving butcher/censors every month. Only six months ago, I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from the novel. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with the censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony. Judy-Lynn Del Rey, one of the new Ballantine editors, is having the entire book reset and republished this summer with all the damns and hells back in place."

(Emphasis mine.)

Nice try.

See, the only thing I can think of is, when you wrote that coda, censorship was really a game of political correctness. You write at length that you will not bow to a group which doesn't like your portrayal of them: "If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters."

I can't help thinking that now that censorship is the provenance of the side you tend to support--besides your idolatry of our current President[1], you didn't have a leg to stand on by complaining about title theft[2] so I have to assume you didn't like the politics of Fahrenheit 9/11[3] and decided to do what you could to muddy the waters--you have a choice between retracting the novel and declaring that maybe those people you support aren't always right.

Nice to see your principles are so consistent: my guys can do no wrong, truth be damned.

[1]Of President Bush: "wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a s***head and we're glad to be rid of him." --Salon, 2001. Ironically, the linchpin of his support was "now we can get some education reform." I doubt No Child Left Behind is what Ray had in mind.
[2] Or would you like to justify Something Wicked This Way Comes and I Sing The Body Electric?
[3] I thought it was a bad movie, plain and simple, but that's a different matter...
 
 
Soundtrack: Legion Of Stoopid - Machinae Supremacy - Downloaded
Velocity: furious
 
 
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[identity profile] scifantasy.livejournal.com on June 5th, 2007 02:01 am (UTC)
Re: Seawasp disease
Huh. I always was bothered by Don McLean's refusal to explain exactly what "American Pie" is about--though the Straight Dope article explaining how it's probably about the changing face of rock and roll satisfied me. The justification McLean gave for not explaining was that a singer should do his thing and get off the stage, which sounds a lot like Eco's reasoning.

But yes, I'd rather have that than be told what to think.

And yeah, I think the irony could only get worse if, say, Heinlein, Champion Of Libertarianism, explained in detail how to read Starship Troopers or The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

And I, for one, quite like "Seawasp's Disease."
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[identity profile] prince-corwin.livejournal.com on June 5th, 2007 02:32 pm (UTC)
Re: Seawasp disease
Yeah, as I said, Eco goes to absurd extremes about it. If you happen to have that essay, you'll find out that the act of titling a novel is, for him, a necessary evil, because it gives too many clues about the meaning of the novel.

Well. Okay then. But then, Eco teaches semiotics at a university. That sort of contortion is necessary for him. But I fall a lot closer to Eco than to Spoor when I actually think about it.
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[identity profile] scifantasy.livejournal.com on June 5th, 2007 03:36 pm (UTC)
Re: Seawasp disease
I remember that essay, yeah.
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[identity profile] prince-corwin.livejournal.com on June 5th, 2007 04:56 pm (UTC)
Re: Seawasp disease
And, appropos of my initial response, I just waded through the ML thread.

The man has had several strokes. I'm not familiar with his pre-stroke politics (and to be honest, am not that interested) but I can very very easily believe that a stroke could lead someone to view his own prior works and own prior politics in a completely new way.
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