Dear Clarisse of Fahrenheit 451
Happy Valentine’s! Hope you’re happily smiling from your angelic throne in the sky – that’s where those evil government fellas sent you via the Hound after they learnt of your childlike innocence in Fahrenheit 451, against the automaton world of robotic non-thinkers they hoped to induce with their wretched devices.
It’s hardly easy to find a good book. It’s even harder to meet a gal of your level of innocence and wonder at the world – in a time where curiosity is the new cliché and I-phones and I-pads (and the big ‘I’) dominate the marketplace and minds of youngsters by the billions.
How’s Guy Montag? Is he a changed man now? You in heaven may best answer this question. But of course, Montag has ceased to be a fireman, bastard burner of books, and instead fled and roaming the world to that secret city of those Well-Read Erudites he chanced upon hiding in the forest away from the Hound and those accursed government fellas. I can safely and happily knight him now as a sacred Preserver of Books (he ‘swallowed’ the Bible!).
Clarisse, how I long also, for a companion that is of your innocence and intellect: someone who for me has all the time in the world –for passions, pursuits, conversations; anything but virtual interaction on Whatsapp/Facebook. I’m hardly an avid on-liner, but Traveler of Thoughts and Emotions.
You represent hope and clarity for me in Fahrenheit 451. I can just imagine your pale white face with its ever-surprised and observant eyes gazing down at your feet as you trace some leaf-strewn (and butterfly-led) forest trail in search of flowers. Or you twirling a dandelion stalk beneath your chin – in charming and contemplative sweet repose, dreaming of otherworldly fantasy.
The world tells us to chase our dreams this modern era. Yet often, those dreams portrayed by the media are tiring: Idol of singing contests, fashion, a masters degree in whatever, some godforsaken massmedia populated and propagated dream (condo) we work our asses till the grave to achieve it. These ever-soul-consuming dreams are just NOT feasible. They, are dream- and soul-killers. And yet you, brimming angel of simple fantasies and child-ish delights, find pleasure in a flower. That, is indeed uncommon in today’s internet-infused era.
I wonder if you bear malice at the evil folks who sent you to Heaven. But perhaps you aren’t angry – just sad that such inner-childhaters exist. Ray Bradbury was spot-on when he prophesied, in Fahrenheit 451, year 1950, of a future world obsessed with Seashells, television parlors, and elongated billboards. These things are now called music players, I-pads and Youtube advertisements. Yet we’re also damned blessed and fortunate that Ray had had the fantastic sense to create you, Clarisse McClellan, enamoring and reminding us child-lost, work-besotted folks that Dreaming, is an utmost necessity in life. It is the one necessity beyond daily dollars, business-minded mannerisms and aimless otherly pursuits, to keep our curiosity-starved brains and spirits going. It is the one necessity to keep me from falling back into a dreaded routine of work, work and work again.
And therefore, you are a much-needed creation, Clarisse; a much-loved and endeared apparition that I have kept with me throughout these galloping and tiring years, enriching me again, and yet again, reminding me to look at the flowers, fields and birds; yet most of all, flip the pages of you open once more should I need to sit down quietly and dream.
Best of Valentine’s to you in Heaven
(say Hello to St. Cupid for me, and ask him if he's replaced his broken arrow)
Dan Tan
Happy Valentine’s! Hope you’re happily smiling from your angelic throne in the sky – that’s where those evil government fellas sent you via the Hound after they learnt of your childlike innocence in Fahrenheit 451, against the automaton world of robotic non-thinkers they hoped to induce with their wretched devices.
It’s hardly easy to find a good book. It’s even harder to meet a gal of your level of innocence and wonder at the world – in a time where curiosity is the new cliché and I-phones and I-pads (and the big ‘I’) dominate the marketplace and minds of youngsters by the billions.
How’s Guy Montag? Is he a changed man now? You in heaven may best answer this question. But of course, Montag has ceased to be a fireman, bastard burner of books, and instead fled and roaming the world to that secret city of those Well-Read Erudites he chanced upon hiding in the forest away from the Hound and those accursed government fellas. I can safely and happily knight him now as a sacred Preserver of Books (he ‘swallowed’ the Bible!).
Clarisse, how I long also, for a companion that is of your innocence and intellect: someone who for me has all the time in the world –for passions, pursuits, conversations; anything but virtual interaction on Whatsapp/Facebook. I’m hardly an avid on-liner, but Traveler of Thoughts and Emotions.
You represent hope and clarity for me in Fahrenheit 451. I can just imagine your pale white face with its ever-surprised and observant eyes gazing down at your feet as you trace some leaf-strewn (and butterfly-led) forest trail in search of flowers. Or you twirling a dandelion stalk beneath your chin – in charming and contemplative sweet repose, dreaming of otherworldly fantasy.
The world tells us to chase our dreams this modern era. Yet often, those dreams portrayed by the media are tiring: Idol of singing contests, fashion, a masters degree in whatever, some godforsaken massmedia populated and propagated dream (condo) we work our asses till the grave to achieve it. These ever-soul-consuming dreams are just NOT feasible. They, are dream- and soul-killers. And yet you, brimming angel of simple fantasies and child-ish delights, find pleasure in a flower. That, is indeed uncommon in today’s internet-infused era.
I wonder if you bear malice at the evil folks who sent you to Heaven. But perhaps you aren’t angry – just sad that such inner-childhaters exist. Ray Bradbury was spot-on when he prophesied, in Fahrenheit 451, year 1950, of a future world obsessed with Seashells, television parlors, and elongated billboards. These things are now called music players, I-pads and Youtube advertisements. Yet we’re also damned blessed and fortunate that Ray had had the fantastic sense to create you, Clarisse McClellan, enamoring and reminding us child-lost, work-besotted folks that Dreaming, is an utmost necessity in life. It is the one necessity beyond daily dollars, business-minded mannerisms and aimless otherly pursuits, to keep our curiosity-starved brains and spirits going. It is the one necessity to keep me from falling back into a dreaded routine of work, work and work again.
And therefore, you are a much-needed creation, Clarisse; a much-loved and endeared apparition that I have kept with me throughout these galloping and tiring years, enriching me again, and yet again, reminding me to look at the flowers, fields and birds; yet most of all, flip the pages of you open once more should I need to sit down quietly and dream.
Best of Valentine’s to you in Heaven
(say Hello to St. Cupid for me, and ask him if he's replaced his broken arrow)
Dan Tan