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Great vocab inclusions but a few grammar mishaps? Not sure about whoever edited this

“It was long believed that disease is propagated via air, and that the miasmic exudations of the dragon could thus be pestilential, helping to explain the link between dragging and malarial swamps and marshes”

A little thing I got from the Getty on historical origins of lore. Short and informative, mostly, then sometimes it says something so random or unconnected like a reference without a source or explanation I’m like was this written by AI or do we speak a different language

Forgot to be updating oops

Finished the book part, onto the history, context, and criticism part!

“Come on now, we’re going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them” LOL

Roles of fire are so interesting — destruction/taking, warmth/giving, natural vs. mechanical light, ashes, phoenix

“And someday, after it sets in us a long time, it’ll come out our hands in our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right”
It was an interesting philosophy those scholars seemed to have. The waiting game.

Guy imagines millie “leaning toward the great shimmering walls of color and motion, where the family talked and talked and talked to her…and smiled at her and said nothing of the bomb that was an inch, now half an inch, now a quarter inch from the top of the hotel. Leaning into the wall as if all the hunger of looking would find the secret of her sleepless unease there.”

Not just books, but knowledge, in its many forms.
“Walk carefully. Guard your health. If anything should happen to Harris, you are the book of Ecclesiastes. See how important you’ve become in the last minute!”

“When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage”

"For no reason at all in the world they would have killed me" - montag abt driving kids
In this society, where kids go to school attached to screens and come home attached to screens, they do not read, do not build empathy, or the ability to consider diverse perspectives, or even recognize humanity outside of themselves. And maybe it was social acceptance or just asshole teenagers, but we all know, it's probably not.

All his time admiring fire and its destruction, yet Beatty's (arrogance?) blinds him. He fails to consider: this house, full of things, things that torment Montag and have only exacerbated his dissatisfaction into disillusionment, is cathartically burning. Burn the consumption, the parasocial, the constant buzzing, the ode to society, the performance of it all. Let it burn. Let it all burn. (This is my guess)

Capt Beatty is so full of contradictions and keeps dropping little tidbits (other times spewing fountains of literary references). I'm most interested in his role and in finding connections to today. Is it cognitive dissonance alone? Is it dissatisfaction or disillusionment? What caused it? Where are we at risk of cultivating similar antagonists (at this point in time, I'm considering him an antagonist enough)

Oh, Guy, you couldn't have thought this might not happen

The wives "talk politics, to please Guy," but have nothing to say, going into the looks of each man. They vote for an attractive man, but his opponent's loss was a fault of the party, they say: "you just don't go running a little short man like that against a tall man." True to convos of today. Why is your only observation a criticism of looks? No examination of anything in the context. Do you hear yourself?

On the topic of children and not necessarily liking them, just having them for reproduction and function(?)

"I put up with them when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlow' and turn the switch. It's like washing clothes; stuff laundry in and slam the lid" -- and now the kids can't go 10 minutes without the ipads or they'll scream

Guy: "When do you suppose the war will start? I notice your husbands aren't here tonight"

Mrs. Phelps (Millie's friend): "Oh, they come and go, come and go... The Army called Pete yesterday. He'll be back next week. The Army said so. Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home. That's what the Army said. Quick war."

The bells are ringing too loudly

like what are you watching. millie is entirely unphased, the shock factor gone. while ray may be thinking of flipping through channels, it's just like scrolling short-form media. ai slop. old children's shows vs. the overstimulating new. and what an effect it has.

"Abruptly the room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds; it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish ate red and yellow fish. A minute later, three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars... bashing and backing up and bashing each other again"

The way the war is just in their periphery. it barely gets 2 lines when it's mentioned. Every once in a while, they're like oh hey. a bomber flying over. and then they just carry on with empty convos or distraction that's not actually perceived as distraction. brilliant, dear author. guy hears, "'we have mobilized a million men. Quick victory is ours if the war comes...' Music flooded over the voice and it was gone.'

F: "Patience, Montag. Let the war turn off the 'families.' Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge."
G: "There has to be someone ready when it blows up"
F: "What? Men quoting Milton?..They will only gather up their stones to hurl at each other... Go home. Go to bed. Why waste your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel"

Well, if this isnt THIS convo again

'The whole culture's shot through... Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You firement provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but it's a small sideshow indeed."

metaphor from faber I love: 'books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. they're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal'"

Faber: 'there, you've said an interesting thing without having read it!'
Guy: 'but it came off the top of my mind!'
Faber: 'all the better. you didn't fancy it up for me or anyone, even yourself'

to think, to be, for no one else, not even yourself. a thought need not be packaged to hold value. esp not in a time when even sentences are giftwrapped and attached to hashtags.

*Q: how does deceiving sincerely factor in

the constant Denham's Dentifrice ad as mindless consumerism and media saturation 👌

G:But we've plenty of off hours
F:Off hours, yes. But time to think? If youre not driving a hundred miles an hour..youre..sitting in some room where you CAN'T ARGUE w/ the four-wall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is immediate..It tells you what to think and BLASTS it in. It MUST be right. It SEEMS so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusion YOUR MIND HASNT TIME TO PROTEST, 'what nonsense'

"You're a hopeless romantic...It's not books you need, it's some of the things that were once in books...No, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it...old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself...There is nothing magical in them (books)...The magic is only in what the books say" - Faber