Literary News

And on the other side of that, he had a story in Martian Chronicles about some young native Martian thrashing about, shapeshifting, tortured by the various perceptions of others.



Masonwire said:
It's funny/sad [insert whatever adjective you find appropriate] how much of the current debate has been anticipated by Ray Bradbury:

“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
evan_danvers said:
And on the other side of that, he had a story in Martian Chronicles about some young native Martian thrashing about, shapeshifting, tortured by the various perceptions of others.



Masonwire said:
It's funny/sad [insert whatever adjective you find appropriate] how much of the current debate has been anticipated by Ray Bradbury:

“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we?

Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


The word "minorities" is being replaced by "Global majority heritage" groups/individuals.
 
I was at the Dead Sea when I received a message with the news of McCarthy's passing last week.

Never before in my 47 years of life have I experienced anything like it: it seemed uncanny and providential and borderline deranged that such news would reach me as I was drying off after swimming in that most dead, most ancient, most biblical of places - that the death of the writer I mostly associate with the words I have just used would touch me in that godless place in the god-haunted land.

Reading McCarthy's books is a humbling and unique experience. He was, arguably, the best writer of his time.

I am reminded of Sheriff Bell's dream from No County For Old Men, the dream of him and his father crossing the frozen dark on horseback at night, his father moving ahead and the certainty that he would wait ahead, tending a fire in the blizzard - death is certain but tending to the fire is the only response we can mount.
 
Future Shock

bendk said:
Are You Ready For Books of The Future? Here’s What Books Look Like in 50 Years
Click to expand...

In 50, I will be dead. Probably way before that.
I predict digital books, cloud based books, will be extremely easy to rewrite sections, redact words and phrases, and misrepresent the author.
Not that cutting down the rain forest is the best way to continue for physical.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top