Not long ago I had a conversation with the owner of a used bookstore about re-reading the books you read in high school. I said that I had read a few recently and found that I enjoyed and appreciated them more, and he replied that there were also some books that don't hold up as well. "Like Catcher in the Rye," he said (although I've never read that book, so I can't confirm his assertion).I hate to say it, but Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books for me. I remember quite liking it in 9th grade English, but I haven't been dying to pick it back up again. Still, when a friend started a book club with the purpose of revisiting classics, and when the first book was announced, I didn't mind the idea of reading it again now that I'm twice the age I was when I read it before.
Unfortunately, I think I appreciated it more as a 14-year-old. I felt like the book said nothing new to me, even with another decade and a half of life experience under my belt, and in fact maybe it said less. It felt more dated and more improbable, and I was overwhelmed by Bradbury's excessive use of metaphor and simile (and the fact that it brought out a little junior high/high school voice in my head saying, "that's metaphor, and that's simile). It felt like the kind of flowery almost-stream-of-consciousness language that you're drawn to as a teenager when you first start feeling like you want to break free of convention, and then get over once you get to college.
I'm sorry if you really like this book. It may just be me. It may just be that it's that this is the kind of thing I liked to try to write when I was 15 - flowery, hopeful-depressing dystopia stories. Fahrenheit 451 is certainly better-executed than anything I wrote at 15, but it's still a remnant of my teenage years, and I've moved past that, and I don't care to return. To me, it just didn't stand the test of time in terms of style, or narrative, or social implications.
But at least it was short, so nothing lost, right?
3 comments:
I recently discovered this fun series on the Onion AV club called "Better Late Than Never?" where critics write about cultural landmarks that they somehow missed. There is an entry there on Fahrenheit 451 that reflects a lot of your sentiments:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/fahrenheit-451,45026/
You loved Ray Bradbury books so much as a teenager that I went to some effort to get you an autographed copy of The Martian Chronicles for Christmas one year (actually I just happened to be at the bookstore when he was there).
Alas...
Interesting how books you love as a teenager aren't necessarily faves later on. I had the same thing happen to me recently when I picked up An American Tragedy again. I didn't like it as much. It was sad.
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