Sunday, May 1, 2011

Striking sparks.

   Alright, so I'm pretty pumped to be reading Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 right now. It seems to have come along just when I've been on a dystopian kick with reading books like The Hunger Games series. So, with that being said, let's jump into this cesspool of rigid order, brutal totalitarianism, and blind conformity, and see if we can't uncover this situation's particular brand of crazy.
   In the beginning, there was fire. No really. Seriously, this book starts with fire! As the main character, Guy Montag, is living out his perfectly satisfying job as a firefighter, we find our first intresting bit of information. Firefighters in this time aren't meant to stop fires, they're meant to start them. The reason? To burn illegal books. Well if you're trying to stagnate society, books are generally where you start. Sever their link to the past and you have clear opportunity to rewrite history... and set the future in stone.
    Next we come to this girl, Clarisse. I really like her, she reminds me of Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter, she's the "out there" personality everyone needs. So was kind of mad when she disappeared and then died. On the other end of the spectrum, Mildred gets on my freaking nerves. She just doesn't have anything going for her to me. Beatty is the boss but still gets along with everyone, Clarisse dares to be different, the other firefighters are your regular drinking-buddy types, but Mildred doesn't speak of anything. Wait. I got it, Mildred is that wife that lives in the suburbs, throws parties and calls them "soirees", and subtly takes shots at her girlfriends for not being just like her. That's who she'd be today at least. On a side note, that three wall TV thing is scary. I watch too much TV now, if it was three walls and they talked to me, I'd be screwed productivity wise. And on another side note, If I seem a little to fond of Beatty and the other firefighters, I get they fully buy into the whole dystopian scene. But under that umbrella of "one-size-fits-all" mentality, they have distinguishable personalities that would make them generally likeable in our world. It's not that I don't like Mildred because she follows the crowd, it's that if she were here in our world, she would be no different, letting her life be dictated by magazines, the latest trends, whatever was in at the time, and those kinds of people annoy me. But hey, that's my opinion, and that and a quarter will get you twenty-five cents, and in my case, a good grade. Have I used that before? Oh well, moving on.
    I'm rather interested to see how this plan with the Professor (as I've dubbed him) will work out. After seeing the first few thoughts that Guy has had that stray off the beaten path, it's clear he has potential, but for what? He's striking sparks in that head of his, and it seems something will be catching fire soon enough (if you got both references, I'll be impressed).