Hi I’m Liv and welcome back to the Waterstones
vlog. So today I am going to talk to you about
a very special, intriguing little book that
I read recently and absolutely loved and that
is Tinderbox by Megan Dunn.
So Tinderbox is a narrative nonfiction book
that looks at a time in Megan Dunn’s life
when she sought to rewrite Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451 from the perspective of its
female characters but it turned into more
than that.
It's a sort of diary of her journey of trying
to rewrite this book while figuring out her
career as a bookseller as Borders the bookshop
was going into administration and liquidation
here in the UK and over in New Zealand where
she has also lived and is from.
It’s a book that really got under my skin
somehow, Megan Dunn’s prose is so fresh
and absorbing; she’s self-deprecating in
there, she is realistic, she is funny, witty.
It’s a really interesting insight into the
act of creation and writing, what it takes
to write a book - particularly when you're
writing a book from a source text and a much-loved
source text such as Fahrenheit 451.
It’s also a really interesting look at literary
culture in the way that we as readers receive
books and engage with the literary world.
There is a lot of talk of her time in bookshops
both dealing with customers and books that
come in and obviously as a bookseller little
bit biased those bits were just really quite
interesting, very on the money, funny, made
me laugh, recognised a lot in there but I
think even if I wasn't a bookseller it is
a really interesting insight into the world
of bookselling.
Throughout the course of Tinderbox Megan Dunn
takes us through this creative process of
her trying to rewrite Fahrenheit 451 but she's
also trying to get to know the book again.
She's trying to reread it but ends up just
watching the Francois Truffaut 1966 version
of the film which I haven’t watched yet
but I have picked up a copy of since reading
Tinderbox. So she ends up watching this film
and is looking at the differences between
the original book, the film, and the subsequent
stage plays that have been put on of F451.
And it’s really interesting to look at Fahrenheit
451 in the realm of literary adaptations and
the thing that Megan was noticing were characters
allowed to live in the film and then in the
stage play that initially Ray Bradbury was
very hesitant towards those changes and actually
in the introduction to the new version of
Fahrenheit 451 which I shall put here he mentions
how initially when the film was made in 1966
he was very resistant to those changes but
actually when he watched it and got to realise
Francois Truffauts’ vision of his text he
actually reconsidered and then the version
of the stage play that Ray Bradbury then went
on to write he actually allowed the same characters
to live and tweaked things a little bit.
So it’s a really interesting look at a source
texts, adaptations, how you can reinvigorate
a text for the modern era but how some of
these texts are as timeless and as popular
as they are because they say something to
ask across time
Obviously a very interesting element of 451
and the key thing Megan Dunn was keen to explore
was the masculinity of Fahrenheit 451 and
that the only real two female characters are
supporting characters. We have one female
character who is sort of the catalyst for
change in the way the main character thinks
and then the other character is his wife and
is a supporting character and is one that
he has to kind of work to change her mind
and things go from there so it is quite interesting
to look at.
I will confess I had actually not read Fahrenheit
451 before I read Tinderbox and that was something
that I actually found really interesting while
I was reading Tinderbox because it was like
I was learning about the book from an outsider's
perspective and it actually then gave me a
new appreciation and a new desire to read
Fahrenheit 451.
It had always been a book that was on my periphery.
As a bookseller as a big reader it’s always
one of those that you kind of think you should
have read and I hadn’t got around to it
but when I finished Tinderbox I went out and
bought a copy of Fahrenheit 451 and I sat
and I read it. And I had this new appreciation
of it because everything that I was reading
I had a little bit of context for from Megan
Dunn and her explorations into the background
of Ray Bradbury's writing and also just a
more critical awareness. Now that's not to
say that Fahrenheit 451 can't be and shouldn't
be enjoyed as a book in its own right it really
can it is fantastic book a very interesting
read particularly now very prescient - still,
that's the enduring nature of these books
but that's also why they are so rife for wanting
to reinterpret them as Megan Dunn wanted to.
The other reason this book takes a little
bit of a turn is that Megan Dunn went up against
the Bradbury Estate as to whether or not she
was allowed to reinterpret this text and was
essentially given the no-go so this book became
a slightly different thing - instead of being
a rewriting of Fahrenheit 451 it became this
diary of trying to do that, of exploring,
of thinking about her time as a bookseller,
how she interacts with literature, with literary
culture.
It's just such a fascinating book it is so
rich with ideas and with passion and with
creativity. It is something so different,
a work of narrative non-fiction that deconstructs
the notion of creativity and it just really
got under my skin.
As I say Megan Dunn’s prose is fresh, it
is vital, it is knowing, it is innovative
- there something about this book that will
just get under your skin
If you haven't read Fahrenheit 451 and you're
wondering now which way should I read them
I can recommend the way that I did it I mean
it may not necessarily be the right way but
it really worked for me. It was so interesting
reading a book about a book that I haven't
read and then reading that book and getting
something from it there.
If you have read Fahrenheit 451 then I absolutely
urge you to go and get copy of Tinderbox,
it will stretch your sort of understanding
of Fahrenheit 45, give you a new approach
and it's just something so fascinating.
So yes, Tinderbox by Megan Dunn is a really
intriguing look at Fahrenheit 451, the nature
of creativity, adaptation, literary culture
- something that will get under your skin
Her prose is so readable I cannot wait to
see what Megan Dunn does next and I know that
whatever it is I'm going to go and get a copy
because she's just got such a beautiful way
with words that I can't wait.
So go and get yourself copy of Megan Dunn's
Tinderbox and I shall see you next time on
the Waterstones Vlog, bye.
