Ray Bradbury should get a medal. Or more medals, much more than he's already acquired based off the visionary talent of his oeuvre, impressive both in terms of quantity and quality. Is there any one among us who doesn't remember being given Fahrenheit 451 and feeling granted access into something momentous? Something powerful, driven by force and secrecy? It was the first book that I can recall that made reading more than entertainment, more than fun, but threatening, rollicking, and dangerous. It sounds delirious, though, doesn't it? Books, of all things, a few hundred pages of paper and ink stains - what's the big fuss?
Bradbury knew what the fuss was about and as does anyone with half a brain. Words are dangerous. They're transformative. When we read we're engaging in a very intimate and private conversation. In many ways, especially today, it's the last safe refuge for anyone desiring a little privacy, that inner sanctum of our heads reverberating with thoughts and ideas while we read, a sanctuary that no government can access. It's why writers in less fortunate countries to this day are censored, jailed, shoved off to the side and kept down. Once a word gets out you can't take it back. And once a book of them gets out, put together in such a way, it's out there, creating noise and making a racket. As Hugo put it, "You can resist an invading army but not an idea whose time has come." Bradbury was the first writer to get this across to me, the potential revolt existing innately in words, language, and communication.
So now Bradbury continues to fight the good fight. Only it's a more banal offense these days. He's fighting for a local library, which like many in California's failing public system is in danger of shutting down and closing its doors. The Ventura County Public Library system is sunk mighty deep in some serious debt and the H.P. Wright Library - serving more than 2/3 of that county - takes on the bulk of that fiscal dent. The libraries have historically been funded by property tax dollars, but the recent final descent in value that those properties continue to undergo now leaves the entire system nearly $700,000 in debt and if H.P Wright can't come up with $280,000 the branch will be forced to close. A private fundraising group, San Buenaventura Friends of the Library, has already raised $80,000. They fight against a March deadline.
Enter Bradbury. He's holding a $25-dollar a head discussion and filming of one of his short stories that's been adapted for the screen. Proceeds go to the fundraiser. Sadly, though, the fundraising goal isn't even a permanent suture-job. If the property tax values stay as dismal as they are, the libraries will remain in their precarious state of limbo. Truly sad, indeed. Free and public access to oodles of information, now in danger of closing. Books galore. History for ages. Encyclopedic catalogues of anything and everything that's gone down over the course of Earth's very existence and a testament to all things Human. Sure, close it up. It's only education.
The internet is one foreseeable argument against the library. After all, I won't fool myself into believing many people use libraries anymore. Given the recent statistics on reading I don't even want to think about how many people use libraries. Even growing up they were never the most crowded of places. But you could count on it being there. Bradbury had a thing or two to say about the internet, calling it a big distraction, meaningless, not real, and in the air somewhere. As I see it, you can't compare the internet and a library. The internet is awash with a cocktail of information mixed with misinformation. You have to take everything with about a pound of salt. If I ever need to know something and I'm not willing to gamble on its veracity, I'm off to the library - not the internet.
If we do indeed value education, especially for that of the poor, those who can't afford private education or can't afford to be buying books, or whatever the case may be in today's woeful times, we should do everything we can to keep our libraries running along smoothly.
A closing quote from Bradbury, one which I wholly agree with: "Libraries raised me. I don't believe in college and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated high school it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college so I went to the library three days a week for ten years."
Isn't open access to information a democratic ideal? Books, newspapers, journals, all for free, no questions asked (hopefully). Anyone who so wishes to can have it. What a fantastic thrill it is to be hunkered down at one of these rich wooden desks, blanketed by silence save for the running engine of our thoughts, and reading a passage, a glimpse of something real that completely blows us away, and then to be able to share that same apex of emotion with someone else, a friend there with us, someone at home. Like that, we pass on what we've felt, we pass on information, emotion, and pathos. And that's the dangerous power of books, because it's quiet, clandestine and subversive. And it's all there at our fingertips, emanating from the pages in coruscating bursts of freedom, a freedom unlike any other because it's all ours. Now clearly we're not dealing with the abolition of libraries through authoritarian interference or anything Draconian like that. I don't mean any of this that way. But it's a tragedy that we should be losing any major libraries. If one person loses access to their self-improvement, their own education and enlightenment,that strikes me as a tragedy. This is something worthy of support.
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