Halcyon
New Member
Greetings,
I just finished Fahrenheit 451. I enjoyed it, but it left me with general questions about fiction reading(mostly related to the book), to which I will employ you, dear cyber friends, to answer for me. But first, please read this paragraph from the novel:
“Montag looked at the river. We’ll go on the river. He looked at the old railroad tracks. Or we’ll go that way. Or we’ll walk on the highways now, and we’ll have time to put things into ourselves. And someday, after it sets in us a long time, it’ll come out our hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We’ll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, and the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it’ll all gather together inside and it’ll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it’s finally me, where it’s in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it’ll never run off. I’ll hold onto the world tight someday. I’ve got one finger on it now; that’s a beginning. "
1. What type of writing is this?
Though confident I’m perfectly literate, I would admit that I’m a piss-poor reader. But I still think this book wasn’t entirely simple reading. I felt like I understood (also enjoyed) the book, but I don’t have a large enough reading base to properly place this book as a ‘type’ of writing. What do you, experienced reader, think?
2. Would someone define difficult reading vs. easy reading, and place Fahrenheit 451 within this continuum?
I imagine that ‘academic reading’ or ‘technical reading’ can be either easy or difficult. I suppose it is also fair to say that fiction/non-fiction and all the flavors within fall into or between easy and difficult. So is something difficult simply because it is verbose or full of recondite vocabulary (i.e. jargon)? Likewise, is something easy to read because it’s full of straight forward ideas in straight forward sentences (Mr. Potter for example)?
I just finished Fahrenheit 451. I enjoyed it, but it left me with general questions about fiction reading(mostly related to the book), to which I will employ you, dear cyber friends, to answer for me. But first, please read this paragraph from the novel:
“Montag looked at the river. We’ll go on the river. He looked at the old railroad tracks. Or we’ll go that way. Or we’ll walk on the highways now, and we’ll have time to put things into ourselves. And someday, after it sets in us a long time, it’ll come out our hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We’ll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, and the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it’ll all gather together inside and it’ll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it’s finally me, where it’s in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it’ll never run off. I’ll hold onto the world tight someday. I’ve got one finger on it now; that’s a beginning. "
1. What type of writing is this?
Though confident I’m perfectly literate, I would admit that I’m a piss-poor reader. But I still think this book wasn’t entirely simple reading. I felt like I understood (also enjoyed) the book, but I don’t have a large enough reading base to properly place this book as a ‘type’ of writing. What do you, experienced reader, think?
2. Would someone define difficult reading vs. easy reading, and place Fahrenheit 451 within this continuum?
I imagine that ‘academic reading’ or ‘technical reading’ can be either easy or difficult. I suppose it is also fair to say that fiction/non-fiction and all the flavors within fall into or between easy and difficult. So is something difficult simply because it is verbose or full of recondite vocabulary (i.e. jargon)? Likewise, is something easy to read because it’s full of straight forward ideas in straight forward sentences (Mr. Potter for example)?
I understand straight forward witting - sentences that make sense to me. I’ve never really encountered anything else that I paid attention to. 
