 |
 |
|
451
07.25.10
I recently reread Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451; a book whose future is now in our past; a book I read for the first time in high school about 20 years ago.
Over the past 2-5 years I've reread a handful of books from that time and have enjoyed how differently they're experienced in my 30s. It lead me to ponder whether or not we make the right choices when assigning reading to teenagers.
It seems like most of the lessons that come from books adults consider classics are lessons which can only be appreciated by adults – which I suspect is why children often find them boring or without meaning.
I wonder if we would have better success in promoting the act and art of reading, better luck instilling reading as a valid pastime, if kids were reading things that spoke more directly to their stage in life, their experience. If the same lessons about literature were applied to more accessible material.
I'm not saying Fahrenheit 451 is a difficult read, or that its message is hard to understand, but I do think it's language is richer than most high school freshmen probably realize and its implications, its fictional future, is not as hard to imagine as reality for adults. (Though at the end of the edition of the book I have there is an interview with Bradbury where he states his confidence that the book's events could never come to pass.)
Then again, if I hadn't read the book in high school, if I was coming to the story for the first time now, would I be able to see things as I do? How much of my current understanding is based on my reading from 20 years ago? It's hard to say. Consciously, aside from the larger plot, I didn't recall more.
Continued....
SAH
|
|
 |
|
|
"I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths." (From Fahrenheit 451)
As newspapers become completely digital, are they becoming less, or more, easy to burn?
submitted by SAH
|
|
|
|
