4chan archive /lit/ (index)
2012-09-23 07:15 3002159 Anonymous (160px-Farneheit_451.jpg 160x227 11kB)
Just read Fahrenheit 451 for the first time (gasp) and was stunned at the parallels between this world and the one in the book. Especially the part about people not really talking about anything and agreeing on everything. What does /lit/ think?

13 min later 3002192 Anonymous
that's the point of social commentary why are you surprised

41 min later 3002266 Anonymous
Go read "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and then get back to us. In my opinion, it matches much better to what is happening these days and gives us a surreal insight as to what may happen in the near future.

1 hours later 3002329 Anonymous
>>3002266 >>3002159 no u guys 1948 is the bestes book evar Shitposting aside, I agree with Brave New World being much more "recent" than F451 or 1984, the way it critiques the whole society and not merely the authority. Slightly off-topic, read the reviews of Brave New World on Amazon. One star ones are hillarious.

1 hours later 3002332 Anonymous
I'll be sure to read brave new world. And would Jon Stewart be considered a social commentator?

1 hours later 3002342 Anonymous
u mean no u guys 1984 is the bestes book evar

1 hours later 3002350 βPictorishawk
>>3002329 It'd probably be better say that it's more 'relevant' to us (assuming the both of us are in first worlds with relatively privileged lives) because Aldous Huxley wrote it as a critique of America and how this constant pandering and pascifying has crept into major cultures. 1984 was written with totalitarian regimes like the USSR in mind, and Fahrenheit 451 was just about how television and political correctness sucks.

1 hours later 3002358 Anonymous
>It'd probably be better say that it's more 'relevant' to us (assuming the both of us are in first worlds with relatively privileged lives) because Aldous Huxley wrote it as a critique of America and how this constant pandering and pascifying has crept into major cultures. 1984 was written with totalitarian regimes like the USSR in mind, and Fahrenheit 451 was just about how television and political correctness sucks. Totally agree with you. Probably why 1984 never "struck" me as hard as Fahrenheit 451

1 hours later 3002360 Anonymous
i agree

1 hours later 3002361 Anonymous
>>3002159 Sure is reddit in here.

1 hours later 3002366 Anonymous
lol

1 hours later 3002374 Anonymous .
>>3002361 lol

1 hours later 3002378 Anonymous
>>3002358 Great additional explanation. Also, what do you guys think about Lord of the Flies? Not really fitting into this company, but I didn't see any discussion of it here for the longest time.

1 hours later 3002380 Anonymous
Any other great social commentary books?

1 hours later 3002421 Anonymous
I read this book just one or two years ago and I should have read it way sooner. I understand it brings some interesting concepts and point of view, but I felt like there was nothing new, I already read these problematics with more details (more or less being the center of the story) in a lot of other books. I was expecting a complexity close to 1984 or Huxley's work and contrary to them, there is no political or sociological description significant enough to be interesting. You "just" follow the changing mind of one guy and everything happens and ends very quickly. The only real concept described here is already exposed in the other literatures in a more intelligent way. On the whole, I enjoyed reading it. It's more of an essay, but in light of other works by Bradbury, you get to see that this is actually kind of his style (which made it hard for me to read Martian chronicle). As it's been said before, of the three major dystopian books this is the less relevant to our society.

1 hours later 3002468 Anonymous
>>3002378 I enjoyed Lord of the Flies. I think more people would probably enjoy it if they got to choose to read it, a lot of people are forced to in school and so basically refuse to enjoy reading it. I didn't agree at the time with the idea that humans were basically savage without the influence of civilization but I have changed my opinion over the years and now generally do agree with it. On a somewhat related tangent, not really a 'major' dystopian book but has anyone here read Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake"? I really enjoyed that one.

2 hours later 3002478 βPictorishawk
>>3002468 Did you read The Year of the Flood? I didn't like it as much, but if filled in a lot of things in Oryx and Crake, and it's probably really building things up for the third book. Really looking forward to that.

2 hours later 3002484 βPictorishawk
Stop saying really.

2 hours later 3002488 Anonymous
What's with the red line?

2 hours later 3002495 Anonymous
>>3002478 Felt about the same as you. Didn't enjoy it quite as much (it was still a great story though), and it certainly did fill in a fair bit that was missing from Oryx and Crake. I actually didn't know there was going to be a third book... that just made my morning.

2 hours later 3002688 Anonymous
>>3002484 really?

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