LITERATURE VS TV

To begin with, we are currently living in a society in which if we went out to ask its each and every citizen which one is the last book they have read, most of them could even barely remember.

However, if we ask about the last TV programme, show or series they have seen, I bet they would quickly say any without that much effort.

Why is this happening? Truth is I do not really know.

The only acceptable reason I come across when it comes to dealing with this theme, is that reading (novels, tales, biographies, philosophic, scientific, hystoric essays...) may entail too much thinking to be safe, where as watching TV does not force you necessarily to do it. And thinking -not only about triviliaties) could lead us to realise that it is something about us which is missing.

This issue was captured in Bradbury's dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury is a norteamerican writer of the second half of the twentieth century and he chose this title for his novel because of the tempetaure a book need to catch fire.

The main character is Guy Montag, who is a fireman who does not exactly put out fires, quite the opposite... what he does for a living is burning boooks for "the good of Humanity", since in the imaginary society in which he is living books are ilegal, accused of leading us to unhappiness. As if this was not enough, books allegedly make us become antisocial human beings, to the point of being called "a loaded gun".

That is the reason why Bradbury stressed the importance of the TV role; meanwhile the firemen are burning each and every book they find on the street, in libraries, inside their homes... Books such as Faulkner's novels, for instance, Whitman's poetry or Sartre's philosophic essays.

Nothing that it helps the human mind to think for itself is allowed in the society created by Bradbury. Therefore, TV is the enemy of restricting the freethinking, of breaking the intellectualism and curiosity of that time. In the novel, families gathered in front of a TV, without having any sort of real conversation among its members.

So, ok, yes, books are guilty of people's sadness since people is happier with nothing to think about and because, when we read any story we are prone to wish we had such an interesting life as the main character has, which is impossible.

Still, we need the books. It is necessary to think for ourselves, to have what it is commonly known as critical eye, in order to have that special something we all have to be different from the others.

Fahrenheit 451 is a science-fiction book, so we cannot take it too much seriously, but it is clear enough that something Bradbury's telling us in this story, may be happening at this very moment, though unintentionally.

Please click here to watch a part of the film adaption by the famous french director, François Truffaut.

Autumn.