Originally Posted by sleepy jack (Post 588600)

If you found the characters flat it's because you didn't understand what the book was about and you could hardly blame Orwell for that.



It wasn't. Anything to back those claims up though?

Originally Posted by Terrible Lizard (Post 588606)

They were flat because they didn't compell me, the story was good, the theme and the ideas behind it were good, but the characters could've died in the first chapter and I wouldn't have given a ****.

Originally Posted by Terrible Lizard (Post 588606)

Guy Montag was a compelling protagonist and unlike Orwell who wrote the story just for the message, Bradbury wrote the story with the intention of "writing a good story."

Originally Posted by Terrible Lizard (Post 588606)

The idea of censorship in terms of 451 is the head of the snake that leads to Big Brother, and that end is not very deep in the hat, America was perfectly okay with the banning of books deemed "morally unacceptable."

Bradbury's story was a more heated opinion than Orwell's, Orwell wasn't even a russian.

Originally Posted by Seltzer (Post 588492)

Originally Posted by sleepy jack (Post 588679)

Winston was portrayed as slightly flat to make it easy to jump into the character's shoe; which is a brilliant way to create a character. In addition to that 1984 isn't a novel where the characters are more important than the setting they're in, what happens to them, and the system that surrounds them.



Here you go again with another sweeping (and wrong) generalization about Orwell. He didn't write just for a message. If you read some of his essays (like the aptly titled "Why I Write") you'd see he wasn't just some anti-totalitarianism activist who had to write to get his message across. He actually enjoyed writing even though he was far more pointed than your average author.



For one, Orwell's book came several years before Bradbury's so your snake metaphor would reverse the roles. In addition to that 1984 wasn't some pleasant YEAH stick it to the Ruskies! kind of book. There's a reason its geographically based off the Western world as opposed to Russia world. At the time when it was written much of Britain was in poverty and the novel served as Orwell's prediction that Democracy wouldn't survive that war. That wasn't exactly a well-liked opinion you know. A big brother government is something that's far more scary (and more realistic) than Bradbury's extremist story. I can understanding using hyperbole to illustrate a point and I'm not trying to trash Fahrenheit 451 but 1984 is on a different level altogether.

Originally Posted by Terrible Lizard (Post 588848)

Good point, but considering Fahrenheit was banned in some towns because the book had scenes where the bible was burned. I don't think Ray's image was that extreme.

What I was getting at, and what Frank Zappa was getting at 20 or so years ago, is that censorship no matter how little can lead to the horrors of big brother, you only need half of a worm to grow into a full twisting catastrophe.

I should get my hands on "Why I Write." but perhaps the quotes I read by him were taken from that, I'm not sure.

Also back to character development, Orwell made Winston an everyman so the reader could relate, but that always seems to distance the reader to me.
I mean, Prometheus from Anthem seems to have more character traits than Smith I rooted for Equality, but Winston's eventual failing only left me with depression regarding the cold effeciency of the Orwellian future, not necessarily of Winston's situation.

Originally Posted by sleepy jack (Post 589143)

I just think because 1984 has a larger scope the thought behind it is far more original and frightening. I'm not going to knock Fahrenheit 451 (anymore than I already have) as I think it's a good book, but I feel 1984 is on a different level and doing something of a greater magnitude. Orwell aimed to document a time, Bradbury was writing a fiction story. Because of this I think the aesthetic of 1984 is absolutely necessary; it's a bleak story depicting bleaker times and a minimalistic style as opposed to a more poetic one serves the story more.