Several thoughts. First, and least serious, is that Clarisse is Guy
Montag's Manic Pixie Dream GirlTM, the youthful, vivacious female
archetype whose function as a plot device is to spur a male
protagonist's awakening from depression and torpor, as with Trillian and
Arthur Dent in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Second,
Bradbury's breathless, colorful writing competes well for his readers'
presumed short attention spans, and might even fare well versus the
spectacular domestic entertainment appliance that covers three walls of
Mildred Montag's living room. Related, Bradbury's prognostications of
said short attention span devices, penned in 1951, not only came true
but leapfrogged past the television age into the Internet and virtual
reality. He nailed the unwillingness -- or even inability -- of the
domestic population to engage civically rather than distract itself with
various software and circuses; chillingly, his gloomy predictions have
found their full flower in today's seemingly endless cycle of optional
wars.
So far, so good, with an A+ for threat recognition; but then
Bradbury loses points for the third act's toehold in the academic
conceit that the cultural blueprint to reconstitute a post-apocalyptic
world can be carried in the heads of classics scholars and their fellow
travelers. A room full of white-shirted Isaac Asimov readers taking
recreational respite from lab duty might buy that as a nifty parable,
but as speculation, it stretches the rubber band beyond the breaking
point.
It does, however, give a new meaning to the phrase, "You read me like a book."
8 years ago
