Fahrenheit 451

This book is not on the list - Fahrenheit 451 - but it's author - the great Ray Bradbury - passed on the 7th June. Like it or not, it's the one book I agree could've been on the List but wasn't. The other book is rather obviously Brave New World. I say obviously because my favourite genre is always going to be the eutopian/dystopian future. I've got my own idea for a script of that sort, which I actually submitted for a university assignment.

Regardless - a great writer is dead, and all of us book lovers, writers, critics, have to feel that sort of thing. The course thoughts usually swerve straight towards jokes that could be made (think of when Steve Irwin died, how quick did South Park put him in an episode with a Stingray still in his chest?). Something bad about books, burning, and all that.

The serious people will talk about how revolutionary his book was, particularly Fahrenheit 451. There's a future world, were books are banned. Books burn at the temperature 451 degrees, and houses are fire proof. So in this future world, when you're found with books your front door is knocked down, they come inside with the firetruck and burn the house clear of books, rather than down.

A remarkable thing about the book is how Bradbury wrote it. He used typewriters that were paid for by the hour or half hour, for maybe a penny. He spent a week working for hours at a time, and after his writing he owned a tidy sum of money on using the typewriters, but he was completely enthralled by the story, had to write it, and let it burn out of him onto the paper and through his fingers. It's quite an apt parallel to how the story tells itself - quick, brash, but with a good impact and for a proper end.

There was a movie made of the book too, which got mixed reviews. Some people don't like the 1984 movie that was made, and it set up a hard time for any future dystopian novel future book/movie translations. Fahrenheit wasn't any different, with a lot of fans saying it was tripe, and obviously the writer had nothing to do with it. They changed the world and storyline too much. The problem? Ray Bradbury was apparently there for the whole thing, giving the OK on all and any changes they made!

Depending on how true that is, it's quite funny. I hear people make the same claim about Disney's recent movie version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I will never believe Douglas Adams would've penned that script, NOR that he would've let the movie go to screen looking like that. Disney undervalued the long-time dedicated fanbase of the book series, and tried far too hard - and annoyingly - to appeal to the mass audiences out there.

It worked in a way. Us steadfast fans promised our mates it'd be great, we all went and were severely disappointed, never to return. We liked seeing our favourite characters on the big screen, but apart from that, PLURH. Friends who weren't swept up in the original wave were lucky, and didn't see it. For all their effort, they certainly don't have the support to get a second movie out of it, especially after having Arthur and Trillian get together in the final scene of the movie.

There is 6 books in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, and do you know how often Arthur and Trillian meet up? Hook up? Get together? Apart from Randomly, NEVER. Not to say they shouldn't, and we didn't dream of it at times, but that's just too stupid to suddenly give the Hitchhiker's Guide fandom what it's always been OK without, actually. I'm reminded briefly of Fry's attempts to get Leela in Futurama, but I'm digressing waaay to much here. Apologies.

There are several books you should all read, because there's nothing better than a "what if" scenario that is fleshed out good -and proper- and holds a biiig mirror up to current society, asking it "What do you see?"

So:
1984 - this utter classic and my number 1 book of forever introduces the idea of Big Brother, and Winston Smith is our hero who's set against the government-run world. A movie adaptation exists.
Brave New World - this number 2 is a great look at a more science-fictiony world, where everyone is conditioned from pre-birth through infanthood to really know their place and stick it out, regardless, as hardwired as your genes. John is a "savage", someone from outside the main city of our story, were reproduction happens normally. Fate crushed the two worlds together, and it's Johns reaction to a sterile, laugh-at-you-for-your-natural-ways world that drives the story along to it's conclusion, asking us if we really want to live in a world of genetic perfection to a point of designer made GENERATIONS. No movie adaptation exists, though it should.
Clockwork Orange - believe it or not, we're just trendy and in the heighth of fashion here - young Alex D'Large and his droogs are future babies, from a world were things have turned the darkest corner. I like to think of Clockwork Orange as a story that takes "Boys will be boys" and pushes it to it's limit. It raises a good many questions about the rights or correctional methods and how far you can push the "change" before it becomes a compulsion rather than a want. Poor Alex is indeed brainwashed, and he no longer desires to attack whoever he likes, steal and rape and pillage in general, feeling sick whenever the opportunity presents itself. But we're then shown that a man who doesn't get to choose to be good ceases to be a man, and is not good at all. He doesn't choose good, he simply avoids evil because it makes him ill. This is not redemption, nor lasting. A movie adaptation, a very famous one, exists, and it's ending is quite controversial, seeing it lops off the last chapter entirely, which distinctly alters the books ending and in the end it's meaning. I for one prefer the shorter version entirely, but I respect the book seperately from the movie, and acknowledge that they're both different pieces of media, even if they're from the same seed.
Fahrenheit 451 - I've given a brief description of this up above. Out of all the pieces mentioned here, only 1984 and Clockwork Orange are on The List, but it doesn't make the other entries any less significant. The List is good at highlighting "best ofs", certainly, but if you're into those books there's a great chance you'd be into the entire genre, which is where this extra research will bear you some real fruit. A movie adaptation exists, that I haven't watched and have been warned against. It just makes it seem more tempting, ironically.
AD4M & 3VE - Not actually published yet, it's my own dystopian/eutopian novel. Is it cheeky putting my own work here? Sure why not, but hey if I'm not gonna push my own stuff who is? At the moment it exists as a script which I am preening for inclusion in my portfolio.
The basic premise is revolution, as we see a typical robots versus human society, where both have an equal existence if you glimpse at it. Look harder, and there's plenty that points to an unfair standing of all society. No movie adaptation exists yet.
THX1138 - This one is NOT a novel, but is George Lucas' own go at the eutopia/dystopia society media. It's interesting how it starts, but is quite obviously self-gratifying seeing THX 1138 is George Lucas' own sound system production company. It begins with tones of varying "this is the future" sort of worlds, where emotions are forbidden and everyone's doped up on some significant drug, like soma. The main character, also named THX 1138, has a wife who's off her meds for some reason, and she convinces him to not take his meds. Undrugged, they enjoy touching, emotion, I'm sure some sex. This alerts the authorities who just go ape and begin persuing them. This is where the movie devolves into one big chase scene, that goes forever until THX manages to escape to the top levels of the world. Sans wife, roll credits. That's it, that's the movie. It's very good for a look at world-building, because George is good at that, but seems bad at everything else. We've all seen Star Wars 1, 2 and 3. They're not really worthy of the shadow of 4, 5 and 6, are they?
Regardless THX1138 seems like it wanted to be a novel much more than a movie, and seeing it was never written it feels only half done. Like all good movies, it does involved bosoms of some sort (No really. 1984, Clockwork Orange and THX1138 all have them).

And that's my skinny on that. Thank you, Ray Bradbury, for your contribution to the world of fiction, the warning against the bookless future (which we seem to be heading towards...) and for writing.