I really liked Montag's near-death experience with the crazy kids driving the beetle. I really liked the paranoid sense the author conveyed, where Montag began running, but soon broke under the strain and ran for his life. It was really descriptive, the way he conveyed Montag's thoughts, and how the car just kept on gaining on him. "two hundred, one hundred feet away, ninety, eighty..." I could really imagine the car speeding up on him while he's running for his life, spilling books everywhere.
In other news, 10 days until Etoile Rosenqueen's takeover of the NIS Store!
(Man, I wish Rosenqueen bought out HTH. That'd be cool. Go by the Netherworld's school curriculum instead of Earths, and learn things like Torture and lying. YAY.)
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2 comments:
Justin,
I think you could give us a bit more detail in your analysis here. Why is it so descriptive? What words stand out?
On another note, I have two responses to your comment on my blog about the gammer theory book.
Mr. J
Justin,
I do have to concede one point to you, and that is that this is a wonderful debate and one I would not have (most likely) if not for this “blog”. You do have a point there.
I think that the afterward in the book is interesting because even though it says he never reads the books, he spews these quotes all the time. I mean, he is able to fuel an entire dream (the one that he tells Montag about on page 106) full of quotes, from books, no less. One of the things I wondered was where he got all of those. Unfortunately, the afterward sheds little light on that.
The difference that I was referring to between the printing press and a computer was simply that a printing press is used for printing books. Books to educate us, entertain us, etcetera. The computer, however, is full of these…things. One could spend a lifetime on the computer doing nothing, learning nothing. I don’t mean a printing press is infinitely better because everything it prints is good (on the contrary, fifty percent of the books printed today are utter rubbish, in my opinion, but I shouldn’t even get started, I could rant about that for hours), I mean just that, though some things on a computer are good, there are a lot of bad things too. Things that are, in my opinion, ruining our civilization.
I haven’t had a chance to read that website you sent me yet, but I really should. I personally like owning books. I don’t even like taking them out of the library, so having them on the net is not something I would be find of. And I have to disagree about the free aspect as well. My aspiration is to be a writer. I couldn’t live off of that if my books were free. Behind every one of those books on the net, there is an author who is loosing money. It’s sort of like pirating music, in my opinion, you are causing the artists to loose money, and if you really liked them, you would care more about the living that they need to make.
I think the opposite about chat rooms. They push people apart. I speak from personal experience when I say that there are things that I would never say to someone in person that I would say in an email. I think that is horrible. You don’t have to actually see your friends anymore. In fact, you don’t even have to talk to them; you can just sit at your computer for hours. Also, to the “chat speak” thing, more people then you know use it. It pops up in conversation now. Just the other day I was talking to someone who said LOL in conversation. I almost gagged. People can't speak anymore. We’re loosing language and sometimes, I think that I am the only person I know who even sees it.
I do believe that deviantART is better than normal “blogs”. I think that sharing art on the internet is a good thing. It can be inspirational to artist and it can help them with a career. Myspace, however is completely different. People use their Myspaces to post pictures of themselves in their underwear, and before you deny that, let me tell you, I know people who have done it. They aren’t posting literature. They are talking about how bored they are. They are so bored, in fact, that they have nothing better to do than sit on their Mysapce, boring everyone else with how bored they are. Note to bored Myspacers: PICK UP A BOOK, a not so new invention that relieves boredom and might just teach you something. How freighting.
Listen, my mind has been changed slightly about “blogs”. Do I still think they are the decline of civilization? Yes. Do I think that everything that everyone post on their “blog” is utterly horrible? No. This debate for example. But things like this are not what people post on their “blogs”. “Blog” entries are pointless rambling ninety-five percent of the time about useless things that shouldn’t be posted on the Internet. No one wants to read about that stuff anyway. Keep a diary. I also think that a “blog” can't help someone with a philological problem. Most of the time, people don’t post anything of importance on their “blogs” anyway. If they have a serious problem, they are not likely to put it in a public place. It’s just not human nature to open yourself up to ridicule like that. And if they were to put something up that showed evidence of a problem, they would put it under some screen name, emochild666, or something. How are we supposed to know who that is?
I’m not sure that I understand your reference to “The Lost World” involving “The Edge of Chaos”, perhaps you could explain it again?
I did understand the bit following, however, and, as usual, I have to disagree with something. I don’t think that the Internet is bringing people together. Sure, I could now talk to a teenager in China. Great. I never would have met her without the Internet. But what about the friends I already have? I don’t see them anymore. I just chat away with them. I can sit at my computer and never have to talk to another soul. Is that bringing people together?
I DO agree with what you said about the loss of individuality. The new “thing” is to be individual. It’s a trend, in fact, there are so many “in” kids out there who are just so darn individual, they’re all exactly the same. They all see the same “individual” movies, post “blogs” that are all the same…but wait! They’re being individual. The human race can be broken down into a few simple categories. And here’s the worst part: people love it. They love their labels, their MTV shows, telling them what to think. They love their commercials that tell them that without this new cashmere sweater from Abercrombie, they’ll be behind the times. They love their “blogs”. How did this happen? People stopped thinking for themselves. The TV comes along and tells them what to think, the Internet makes it so that you can be anyone, just so that you can fit into one of these categories. New ideas aren’t being circulated anymore. And why is that? Because people have stopped reading. They’re not learning anything, so they are content, eager, to be told what to think. They’re like Mildred, of Fahrenheit 451.
Now one of the things that I am confused about is that you say, “The entire world shall be full of not billions of different people, but one person occupying a billion spaces through a billion different bodies. Free thinking will become nonexistent.” And yet, you support the cause of this, the computer, the television, the game systems.
I’ll be waiting for your response.
Kit
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