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
