In The Dog of the South, a novel by Charles Portis that once saved me, Ray Midge finds a novel in his hotel room but stops reading it a few pages in upon discovering that it's sci-fi. The first futuristic detail he comes across, a reference to a "helicab," turns him against the book. "I put it down, which is to say I didn't fling it, though I could tell it'd been flung many times before." From what I've gathered about the genre's history, it's the kind of reaction sci-fi writers have long been acquainted with. Attempt to envision the future, delve too far beyond what's known, what's easier to recognize as reality, and prepare to be jeered. I find I'm more sympathetic to the genre. I don't demand that a writer be "right" about the outward appearance of the future. I'm looking for, among other things, an engrossing vision, whatever the approach. I'm interested in what someone thinks the future might hold and the practice of rendering it on the page as an imaginative work. As for the potential for cheesiness, like any other defect to be found in a book, something can always be expected and a little more than expected can be tolerated. And fun cheese, I cry passionately, is to be duly appreciated.
The basic concept of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 seems to have endured and understandably so, I think: a society has established a policy of burning books. It struck me as true before I ever read it, hardly difficult to imagine, which is perhaps the secret of its resonance. Now having read it, a few other aspects of his world enhance the effect. Book burning isn't only a means of social control but a form of entertainment, at least for those in charge of igniting the flames. In a society hostile to all learning that isn't technical, ignorance and numbing distraction reign. Unlike other dystopian sci-fi novels like 1984 or We, Bradbury distinguishes himself by making ample room for a reasonable and rather moving hope, borne of a sincere love of books. These are aspects of a novel that could also save someone if not for the execution.
The details aren't a problem - the robotic dogs, the fireproof homes. I had trouble believing that there are full-time firemen after generations of them scrambling around starting book pyres. (They make enough to own homes and live comfortably on part-time or on-call wages?) A petty objection, I know, just something I amused myself with to distract me from the novel's real, fundamental flaws: Awkward lines, too numerous to overlook. Stilted dialogue, as if the writer were drawing on the idea of speech rather than actual speech. Characters with barely any personality. Straightfaced melodrama. The pathos intended to be derived from the situation is almost entirely undermined by the telling. Anything I've listed might be categorized as cheese but it is hardly fun, I cry dispassionately.
Insufficient humanity, discordant verbal music. The concept survived because, it seems, that's all there is to the book. That's worth something, this legacy - a warning, a collective nightmare, or at least a lingering trace of a collective nightmare, and the glimmer of a way out. I didn't fling it.
