The last time I read Fahrenheit 451 I was in my late teens.  It was the late 1970’s, post-Watergate.

There’s no way in hell this vision could come true; this was an abstraction, a thought experiment, or so I felt at the time.  Even though it wasn’t entirely uncommon to hear about book burnings – folks all riled up in Small Town, America about Catcher in the Rye – it seemed impossible that the citizens of this country would ever permit a wholesale removal of intelligence and culture.

It’s time to re-read many books I’ve read in my lifetime, now that I have some time on my hands.  This one was one of many on that list.

And damned if decades don’t make a difference in interpretation.

Or in the likelihood of abstraction to become truth.

12:38:56 PM    comment []