Throwing books onto the fire
Today I saw The Day After Tomorrow. I am rating it as pure Entertainment. Nothing wrong with seeing the movie (once that is:-)). There are some cool effect that are worth watching, and a mediocore storyline. Basically a typical Hollywood weather movie, with the American president, the Statue of Liberty, and American flags all over the place:-).
The movie however touched a subject few of us have been discussing lately. Burning of books! Not too long ago we heard about a scheduled book burning which was supposed to be a cultural event. I remember being really offended by it and it seemed like I wasn't the only one. I was brought up to respect books and treat them well. I love to read books, discuss books, own books.... I guess you could say that I have a mild book fetish:-D I tend to want to own more books than I am able to read. And I see nothing cultural about burning them.
Not all books are equal in my mind. Some books are a lot more sacred than other (I am sure some of you remember my Bible blog entry, that got few people upset;-)). Some books should respected because they are masterpieces, others because they have cultural value (eg. the Bible), and other because they are simply entertaining. All books should be honored with some level of respect. Simply because someone put a lot of work into writing them (well maybe not all them, but most).
In the movie they end up burning books to survive the freezing cold brought on by iceage. The funny part was when one of the character had the exact same reaction as some of us, shouting out: "You cannot burn books". This is however the only instance that justifies book burning in my opinion. I guess books wont do you much good if you are dead.
I have to admit that I do remember instances where I have hated books enough to wanna burn them. Remember a certain love and hate relationship with my Algorithm book. Oh good I hated that damn piece of torture machine... but I still had to admit that it was a book that contained a lot of information... just not well explained information. I did the unspeakable with that book, I used a highlighter to mark useful pieces of information!!!. I never write in books, so I guess that was the best I could do to dishonour the damn piece of sh#&%.... (excuse my language:-D).
I still own my Algorithm book and I wont ever burn it. Well, except if iceage suddenly starts... then I can promise you that it will be the first book I throw onto the fire:-).
Subtitling
Personally, the biggest impression I got from the movie was the sub-standard subtitling. Even though I try to avoid reading it (since it was in Norwegian) I couldn't help it. It was so horrible that I am actually thinking about getting a refund on the ticket price because of it.
But on the burning books thing--well, what else are you supposed to burn if you are in a big building made of stone? Okay, I probably would have started with those chairs, but after that there's only the books left.
Besides, I do know a couple of books that I think I would enjoy burning. But other than that, I'm a collector, so I prefer to keep my books forever...
\\//
Subtitling and Burning Material
I am not sure if I simply didn't read the subtitles or if my Norwegian is poor enough for me not noticing....:-).
The chair and table would probably have been a better burning material. The books probably vapourized pretty quickly. I don't think I would have hesitated too much burning library books though since those are usually torn and filthy. But my own books are my "babies". Those are sacred:-)!