Usher 2 in The Martian Chronicles... could it ever happen?

Question

(Spoilers be ahead for the Martian Chronicles!)


Do you remember the story Usher 2? A guy builds a fancy mechanical house filled with famous literary characters, especially Edgar Allen Poe influenced. However, the censorship committee strictly prohibits monsters and fantasy of any sort. Books have been burned without the censors actually reading them.

(By the way, is this referring in Fahrenheit 451?)

I sometimes wonder if something like that will happen, what with the censorship nowadays. Harry Potter makes children worship Satan, books about vampires will make kids want to see blood, violent murder-mysteries will make our kids want to get a knife and stab their parents, yada, yada, yada...

Bradbury was truly ahead of his time when he wrote it. Do you think it could one day become reality?

Answer 1

Personally, I am a bigger fan of Heinlein; his stuff seems to become reality a bit more often (video phones, computer generated images, and individual robotic battle suits).

Bradbury's most works seem to be a little less likely, but there is still the potential to be real. As long as it's not "Fahrenheit 451", I'll be happy.

Answer 2

First, Bradbury wasn't the best a predicting things. Look at the time line for that book. He predicts man have rockets leaving for the moon by 1999. We should have had Mars colonies by 2005 if you trust his predictions. Secondly Bradbury didn't predict one very important invention -- The computer. People communicate so much through the internet, I don't think people will ever have a problem spreading there ideas. Thirdly the people that protest books like Harry Potter are just strange Christian Fundamentalist. To be honest, they are a joke, they represent a very small portion of the population, and no one really takes them seriously, so no I don't think this will ever come to pass.

Answer 3

lots of bradbury's work reflects back to his other works, so an allusion to fahrenheit would probably be correct.

i don't think that thought will be surpressed like bradbury predicted, at least in our lifetime. i think as digital media takes off, there will be less and less of a demand for the printed word, but it'll stick around for a while yet. i think with computers, though, that even though people buy paper books less they won't have to read less.

on the flip side, more TV and more internet IS making us a lot dumber. our language is becoming all txt msg language. if we teach our children that literature, fiction, books are important then the art form will survive and thrive... if we just sit them in front of the tv and the computer til they're 18 then they won't care about books.

Answer 4

Bradbury was a gifted writer, huh? I like him. I have no way of knowing what sci-fi or fantasy may become more like reality, though, sorry. Trips to the moon did and trips deep under the sea did (thinking of Jules Verne), so you just never know. ;-}