i just finished re-reading Fahrenheit 451. I was against rereading anymore books this year because i felt that my nostalgia had gotten away from me. I wanted to explore NEW things. LIke “Wicked’ the book i purchased 3 years ago and never read. Or “The red tent” another book i purchased as required reading for being part of the home birth circuit.... but never read.
but there was something about Ray Bradbury and his words that i needed more of. When he passed away i read chapters from all of his books i own and wrote the quotes on the chalkboard and discussed them with my kids.
so i picked Fahrenheit 451.
it took me a couple days, and i laughed and cried and did the usual bradbury reading thing and stopped and read aloud to the family his beautiful poetic words. But when i put the book down THIS time, i was struck by how differently it felt to me.
in middle school, if my memory serves, i read Fahrenheit 451 directly after reading steinbecks “The Pearl”. The seeming juxtaposition of a bunch of privileged white people giving up on books seemed to pale in comparison to the battle for survival of an indigenous people against the deceitful white man.
i thought, oh what big problems you have MONTAG! you burn books and get to watch huge tvs all day and drive as fast as you want!
then a few years later, i read Brave New World and i thought, “hmmm, this feels kind of like fahrenheit 451 kinda... but it seemed way more depressing and hopeless and also more futuristic and being all sorts of emo, i liked it. I wouldnt realize ITS importantance culturally or politcially until i reread it as a coffee house intellectual..... but thats another story for another time...
So then came the day in 9th grade when my english lit teacher was trying to teach us all about descriptive narratives and their place in american writing. She lamented on how the modern writer was relying less and less on conjuring an image with poetry that moved people and more and more on just skipping to the one, two punch.
SO she asked us all to lay our heads down in silence from the hours of 9:30 -10:25, her hours of control over us, and she was going to read to us. She was not going to give us an authors name or a title, she was just going to read. We were not to look anything up about the book- although this was all pre internet.... none of us had iphones or any kind of ability to google. we would have had to go to the library and dewey decimal it out like a boss and that would take hours.
so anyway, the first day we all felt silly and so she had us do an exercise where we laid our heads on our desks and listened to a random string of words, and then write what we thought about when she read, she told us to trust each other. she told us not to worrry about what our friend across the room was doing or if anyone was looking at us or picking their noses or if our hair looked ok. She promised to call out anyone cheating so none of us would feel compromised.
We learned trust.
Then, the next day we bowed our heads as believers in a church and she began to read.
everyday she would read and everyday we fell further down the rabbit hole.
The classmates and I would enter the room with an anticipatory rush that no one wanted to admit to or recognize but as soon as she followed behind us and shut the door everyone bowed again.
NO one was admitting that we were daydreaming about these astronauts and this far away world. NO one was admitting that our dreams were full of martian skin and oven hot temperatures, love in the afternoon and mystical unimaginable worlds. NO one was admitting anything.
then she did it to us. the last day. the last words. we all felt the sadness of the end of the magic that had happened in that room. We all felt the weird sense of loss of something none of us ever even knew we had.
and then she asked us to do one thing - IF WE WANTED- and only if we wanted.
she said, “if that story moved you, go home, and write down WHY. write down what you imagined. what you FELT. and if you want to, tell me about it. and if you want to, share it with us.”
that was on a friday.
Now if i told you that i went home and jotted down a long list of everything i felt, i would be a liar.
I went home and stared at my notebook called ENGLISH like it was a grinning terrorist thief cloaked in lined paper, come to detonate my soul in the night.
i laughed at how RIDICULOUS THIS ASSIGNMENT WAS!~~
what kind of an assignment is “optional”?
she was crazy. i wasnt doing it. no one would. and then I would look stupid.
and I went to bed friday.
and saturday.
and sunday.
and then i woke up on Monday morning at 5 am sweating and shaking and nervous and i sat down at my desk and cried and wrote two paragraphs of the meaning of the word MARTIAN and the world Mr Bradbury gave me.
I walked into class and i saw it.
the room full of people pretending they hadnt written anything.
our teacher asked who wrote.
no one responded.
“no one wrote anything?” she asked with one eyebrow up.
Everyone shuffled in their seats trying to look as though they werent nervous and were simply looking for a pen they misplaced. but everyone of the jittering bodies was secretly saying a prayer that she wasnt some sort of mystical dragon rider with the abilities to ferret out a liar writer with hidden scrolls in their satchels.... (or maybe that was just me....)
Then one kid, the kinda of kid that was always joking. Heavy set, big blue eyes, football star with a winning smile adn a mean father that everyone knew beat him with fists for not being born a little taller but that he would never admit to any of it because he was being groomed to be a man......
well, that one kid raised his hand and said “ i wrote”
and then before anyone had time to sew up their faulty jawed mouths he followed it with, “id like to share it”.
he stood up there and i cannot tell you for the life of me what he said. Any version of it that my mind could write15 or more years later would bastardize it, im sure.
but i remember crying.
i remember pulling out my piece of paper and walking to the front to read it aloud.
i remember the whole damned class read something.
and one kid in back got up and admitting that he hadnt ACTUALLY written anything, he had thought about it, and he wanted to just TELL us what he felt.
and we left that day and we came back tuesday and the whole ride was over.
Our teacher went on to be quite good, thought never THAT good as THAT day.... but we all learned more stuff that i still dont know if i remember and we got to do some acting and role playing when we read a story that was racist and she wanted all of us white kids to be screamed at by black kids and then we had a substitute teacher come in when she had to take a week off as punishment for that little exercise.... but we had LEARNED.
So as i read Fahrenheit 451, i was reminded of all the words Mr. Bradbury gave me and I remembered all the worlds he gave me and i saw how similar our world IS NOW to his fantasy world and i got chills and i got nauseous and i got scared.
and then after the book he had written a little bit about how, over the past 50years he and THIS book have been censored and i was nodding and agreeing and feeling angry.
Then following that, there was an interview With Ray Bradbury.
the whole interview is poignant and i encourage you to read it for yourself.
I saw Ray Bradbury speak at comicon in san diego back in 2004- dont laugh, i was there with a friend, i had no idea that Ray Bradbury or Brian Froud would both be there and that I would leave shaking and crying and with signatures of my idols or that i would ever admit this to anyone......
but back to the interview-
One part that stood out was when asked what can a teacher, educator, and parent should do to instill a love of language in young people so that they appreciate the power of the word in a culture that is increasingly dominated by the visual?
his answer was:
“Hand them a book, thats all. Science fiction, fantasy- my books have changed a lot of lives. My books are full of images and metaphors, but theyre connected to intellectual concepts. Give one to a twelve year old boy who doesnt like to read, and that boy will fall in love and start to read.”
well, better yet, id say..... read it to them.
and somewhere in some parallel universe, in some anywhere midwestern town, and maybe on some random night after the first deep chill of a dark november night that freezes his bones, maybe i suppose Mr. Bradbury goes for a stroll...
and then i imagine that one day, when i am walking through a nearby midwestern town i might bump into him, and maybe we will engage in some nonchalant conversation about dandelions and true love, and maybe Mr Bradbury and i will go down into the cellar and stroll the miles and miles of bottles on the shelves and we will stop in front of one that reads “1995- english class-Redford, MI” and we will laugh at the simple things and crack it open and drink the words of the souls found that day in some broken down school in a broken down town. it will Linger on our lips, bittersweet and leave an aching in our hearts for greener grass......fluffy clouds...... and fireflies.
