Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 changed Dennis Wilson’s life. So it made sense for him to take the opening slot in this year’s Big Read.
Wilson, a teacher and recently returned Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique who now tutors kids at Elm City Prep, was the first person to read aloud at the library’s main branch Saturday at the first of many public Big Read events in coming weeks. Through these events, Greater New Haven will read and discuss a book together, as a community.
Saturday, Wilson was pleased enough to explain the power of Bradbury’s prose. But, first, he wanted to take his turn to read.
So, gather round, children of all ages, and close your eyes. Imagine Wilson’s deep bass, a voice so James Earl Jones — sonorous, you feel you’re practically in a sanctuary of reading, as he intoned the opening paragraph of Bradbury’s novel of a dystopian future, when all reading is banned and books systematically burned:
It was a pleasure to burn It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black.
“I remember reading this,” Wilson said, after finishing his five pages and passing the reader’s baton, as it were, to these other eager participants,
“It was in the middle school library of the Catholic school I attended. Actually, it was an earlier Bradbury short story, ‘The Sound of Thunder.’ I had never liked reading before, was really bored by it. But something about his prose … his language seemed so free and uninhibited, and I was launched.”
Scroll ahead many years, as they say in the sci-fi lit, and Wilson has become an English major and is graduating from college. He’s the designated speaker for his class. And the high-powered commencement address is to be given by whom? That’s right, Ray Bradbury.
“So I modeled my speech on themes in Bradbury, especially people’s disconnection from each other. [Note: Fahrenheit 451‘s hero Guy Montag’s turning point occurs when he slowly realizes his personal anomie and disconnection is caused by a non-reading society.] I feel Bradbury’s so on point for us today; even with the Internet, or perhaps because of scientific advances like that, we are definitely disconnected. He was timely.”
So, at the commencement, Wilson was looking forward not only to the speech but to meeting his, it’s fair to say, reading and intellectual hero.
However, even heroes get ear infections. Bradbury called Wilson’s college the night before and canceled for health reasons. Dennis Wilson wondered if his speech would still work, if, in Bradbury’s absence, it was still pertinent.
“I did give it, “he recollected, “and it went over well nevertheless.”
He’s not had another opportunity to meet Bradbury. But the writer’s influence directed his major, and, in addition, likely led him to the Peace Corps, where Wilson taught English, and into his current career; he hopes to teach in a New Haven high school next year.
In the meantime, he has well launched the 2008 edition of the Big Read for New Haven.
An initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, and co-presented by the Connecticut Library Consortium and as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, The Big Read this year for the first time reaches out to Greater New Haven, with marathon readings occurring in some 19 nearby towns.
At the downtown branch, the next activities are Thursday, May 15 at 5:30, a teen night of games, and, one supposes, some reading as well; and Saturday, May 24, at 2, a screening of the documentary on the making of the film Fahrenheit 451 (with the wonderful Oskar Werner as Guy Montag). For a full listing of Big Read events, click here.