Imagine living in a world where books are banned. Where no one is allowed to read, or learn from books...
This is the vision and premise of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. In a world that has gone mad, it centres on the war between censorship and freedom of thought. The protagonist, Guy Montag is the local firefighter, and he lives in an isolated society, where the totalitarian Government have tried to control independent thinking, by banning books.
The Government believe that people should be happy and carefree, and that books have a bad effect on them, by giving them ideas. They feel that the people are better off learning culture from their giant, wall to wall televisions that the Government is in control of, therefore, feeding the people all kinds of propaganda. It is the trivial information that is deemed important, and good, but knowledge is frowned on as the evil in society. People must all be similar, in order to be happy, at least, this is what they are led to believe. Independent thought is bad for a perfect society. But many people have a different idea of utopia, and it includes reading books. Rebels fight against the destruction of their beloved booked, as they horde them in their
homes, and it is the the duty of all firefighters, to seize and burn all books they find. Firemen are seen as heroes, who rid the world of the ever creeping scourge of intellectuals and free knowledge. Bradbury turns the tables, and instead of firefighters, fighting fires, they start them, with books...lots of them.
So Guy Montag, spends his time burning books and goes home each night to his pushy wife, who, although she has wall to wall TV's all over the place, wants even more, and nags at him to work even harder in his already stressed life. Then, after Montag meets and talks with his young neighbour, Clarrise, he starts to experience a crisis of faith. He starts to secretly hide books around the place, he thinks there must be something in them, after all, there are people willing to risk reading them, and seem to believe in what they read. But his nagging wife reports him, and he goes on the run so that he doesn't get himself arrested. This leads to Montag joining up with a gang of like minded people, and they commit themselves to learning whole books to memory, preserving the knowledge the only way they can.
The title comes from the temperature at which paper burns, 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and in my opinion, is about the best work Bradbury ever managed to come up with. And that says a lot, considering he has managed a staggering 500 or so of assorted books, poems and plays. Fahrenheit 451 was originally published in 1950 as a short story, and was entitled, 'The Fireman'. It tells a cautionary tale of people so wrapped up in their wall to wall TV's, that they don't notice or care about issues happening for real, like poverty and warfare. None of 'that sort of thing' matters to these TV junkies, who just want more and more trivial, meaningless things to watch, in their perfect little cocoon worlds. Everyone is busy doing nothing, and thinking nothing.
There will always be those that want to feel secure in their little world, and have no worries or risk to their lives, and will grab that at any cost, and with the help of the regime, they are easily coerced into a neat little pattern. But there will also, always be those that value freedom above all, and will fight tooth and nail for it, at any cost, and this is the main plot of the story. People trading freedom for security is a very interesting idea. Books have a very big impact on us and our lives, and we generally take it for granted they will always be with us. But what if something like this could happen? What if some catastrophe happened that took away all our books? How would we cope with that?
Bradbury tells us in this book, censorship will result in the destruction of society, and we can never close our minds to the truth and to knowledge. This is a warning of what a totalitarian Government could do to a world, and the idea stems from WW2, when Hitler burned books across Europe to prevent the distribution of knowledge.
The sad thing is, if we examine our world more closely, we can see, that as we rely more and more on technology as the way forward, people will be reading less books than they used to. In this day and age, where people are always thinking big brother is watching them, and out to get them, this book fits in perfectly, and considering it was written in 1950 is even more remarkable. Bradbury's story is censorship to the extreme, and if you read this book, you certainly won't forget about it. It's quite a chilling tale.
So did I like this novel? Yes, I liked it a lot. I always enjoy a 'what if...' senario to dig around in. Fahrenheit 451 is an enjoyable science fiction classic, even after all this time. What didn't I like about it? Well, the main problem for me, was the book is under 200 pages long. This is a very short novel, and surprisingly, it only has 3 or 4 chapters. What about character development? There wasn't much in the way of development, the story rather focused on the plot, than the characters. So your overall opinion? I liked this the first time I read it, many years ago, and I liked it just as much this time. Fahrenheit stands up to it's advancing years very well, in fact, I will say it is a remarkable piece of writing, and a clever idea. Who could have come up with the idea of Firemen starting fires, rather than putting them out? Grab a copy now.
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one of those books every one has heard of ,but i personally have never read, will remedy that now, thanks for a superior review
bandcamp 28.04.2005 03:17
I was forced to read and write about this book when I was 13/14 and despised it. How ignorant I was. More recently I've began to appreciate it more and more, especially with the politics and selective news reporting going on just now... great review . M x
silver40 08.01.2005 00:33
I read this book many years ago and I think you have captured the essence of the story. Dave
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen ... more
don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place whe...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
InFahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't ... more
put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place wher...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
InFahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't ... more
put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place wher...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen ... more
don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place whe...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Nov 2nd, 2004
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