The Pot & The Kettle
- At June 27, 2004
- By Bob Howe
- In Blog Posts
15
This letter ran in Sunday’s Washington Post:
Bradbury vs. Moore
Sunday, June 27, 2004; Page B06
Style’s June 4 Names & Faces column reported that novelist Ray Bradbury is upset about the title of Michael Moore’s new documentary, “Fahrenheit 9/11.” He says that the filmmaker “stole” the title from his novel “Fahrenheit 451.”
Is this the pot calling the kettle black?
The titles of several of Mr. Bradbury’s greatest books are “stolen” from works by other authors, in a manner far more direct than Mr. Moore’s allusion-to-but-not-complete-appropriation-of the Bradbury title.
Cases in point: “Something Wicked This Way Comes” (William Shakespeare); “I Sing the Body Electric!” (Walt Whitman) and “Golden Apples of the Sun” (William Butler Yeats).
ANNIE HUDSON
Austin
couscous1021
Yeah, I don’t know what to make of Mr. Bradbury. He mentioned somewhere that he wants to avoid litigation, he simply wants Moore to be a “gentleman” and “give him back his book”. Pretty nervy.
admin
I think it was who said the best description of Bradbury was “poor old.” I concur.
shunn
Yeah, the guy’s pushing 90. He’s wrong and he’s being an ass, but it’s hard to take him too seriously.
Of course, I heard some popular right-wing radio pundit crying about how Michael Moore is dishonoring the grand old well-beloved author. Uh-huh. Like you guys have been reading him religiously since 1942.
Anonymous
I remember thinking when I heard the title of the film: “Hmm… Ol’Bradbury is gonna be pissed.” I’m glad he didn’t let me down 🙂
Bill
admin
Yeah, you could just see Sean Hannity reading Fahrenheit 451 and nodding his head in agreement: “Yeah, burn all the books…”
admin
Please, writers steal titles from one another all the time. Do a google search for the title of a popular book, and I’m sure you’ll find three others with identical titles.
shunn
451: The combined IQ of the Hannity & Colmes audience.
shunn
Bring it on
I’m hoping Anne Tyler tries to kick my ass for The Accidental Terrorist.
admin
Re: Bring it on
Exactly: kick your ass all the way to the bestseller list.
shunn
Green Shadows, White Whale
This only just occurred to me tonight in a dinner conversation, but I’ve come up with a better example than any cited in the New York Times letter for why Ray Bradbury is full of prunes.
Every title Annie Hudson cited is a title borrowed directly from another author’s text. That’s not the case with Fahrenheit 9/11, which is a play on the title of a Bradbury work. But has Bradbury ever written a book that plays on the title of someone else’s book?
Consider his 1992 fixup novel Green Shadows, White Whale, which is a lightly fictionalized account of the young Bradbury’s sojourn in Ireland working on the screenplay for the John Huston movie Moby Dick. Compare it with the Peter Viertel novel White Hunter, Black Heart, which was published in the ’50s and which presented a lightly fictionalized account of Viertel’s experiences in Africa working on the screenplay for the John Huston movie The African Queen.
Now come on. Under Bradbury’s logic, Viertel should be kicking his ass from here to Mozambique.
shunn
Re: Green Shadows, White Whale
Sorry, meant Washington Post, not New York Times.
shunn
Re: Bring it on
From your mouth to God’s ear.
admin
Re: Green Shadows, White Whale
Now come on. Under Bradbury’s logic, Viertel should be kicking his ass from here to Mozambique.
Good point. Of course that just leads us back to the conclusion that Bradbury has become an irascible crank, more to be pitied than clubbed to his arthritic knees with a frozen tuna.
admin
Re: Bring it on
Yeah, ’cause if god’s listening to anybody, it’s me.
shunn
Re: Green Shadows, White Whale
Oh, yes, of course. Any ass-kicking mentioned here is purely figurative, as in “Bradbury kicked Moore’s ass in the press.”
But who knows? Maybe Bradbury was a complete gentleman and called up Viertel back in ’92 and said, “Hail, good fellow, I’d like to make the title of my next book a reference and homage to one of yours. Do you mind terribly? No? Very good, very good, thanks so much, you’re a peach.” Seems odd, but could have happened that way.