Think of the Actors Who've Never Had a Chance to Play Shakespeare

Andrew is listening to a recording of The Fireman, the novella Bradbury reworked into Fahrenheit 451. It already contains the fire chief's speech emphasizing what most people (including Bradbury sometimes) forgot about the story -- that reading had died out well before the government officially banned all books, though I remain irritated by the inference that it was largely "minorities" taking offense that got books banned one at a time until publishing and reading died out.

What gets me, though, is how much sympathy I have for Mildred, the fireman's wife, in this version. She's portrayed as dimwitted and conventional, of course, but being ordered by her husband, with threats, to read is not going to change that; and when, at the ringing of the telephone, she promptly breaks off into chatty conversation about the evening's tv, she's not being emotionally shallow so much as doing what she needs to do to deflect suspicion.

Basically I started to hope that if/when she finally did pick up a book, it'd be Betty Friedan and she'd be moved to dump Montag and go make a life on her own (actually Montag would probably be happier without her around anyway.)