Monday, May 02, 2005
Wigton Fahrenheit 451
This makes me uncomfortable: Book-burning event ignites controversy at literary festival.
Perhaps it is "purely a pragmatic decision" to burn some excess stock rather than stick it in a landfill site. Admittedly I always find it a bit sad to see a skipfull of books outside a library or 2nd hand bookstore waiting for removal, but I understand dispossing of books must be unavoidable. But to burn them? The imagery and symbolism is just so wrong.
"Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings" - Heinrich Heine
Perhaps it is "purely a pragmatic decision" to burn some excess stock rather than stick it in a landfill site. Admittedly I always find it a bit sad to see a skipfull of books outside a library or 2nd hand bookstore waiting for removal, but I understand dispossing of books must be unavoidable. But to burn them? The imagery and symbolism is just so wrong.
"Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings" - Heinrich Heine
