Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
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Book Reviews of Fahrenheit 451
Book Review: To Burn Books or to Read Books? That is the Question!
Summary: 5 Stars
+++++
(Note: this review is for the book "Fahrenheit 451: The 50th Anniversary Edition" published by Del Rey in 2003.)
This particular book has five sections:
(1) The actual novel by Ray Bradbury that was first published in 1953 (165 pages).
(2) An "Afterward" written by the author in 1982 (7 pages).
(3) A "Coda" (a section that reinforces the novel's conclusion) written by the author in 1979 (5 pages).
(4) An interview with the author in 2003 entitled "A Conversation with Ray Bradbury" (11 pages).
(5) "About the Author" or a brief biography of Ray Bradbury, born 1920 (1 page).
This novel is a dystopian science fiction novel. (A "dystopia" is any society considered to be undesirable; the opposite of a utopia.) It is set in a world where books are banned and burned and, as well, where critical thought is discouraged. The novel's title refers to the ignition temperature of paper. (The ignition temperature is the temperature at which something catches fire and burns on its own.) For paper, this temperature is 451 degrees Fahrenheit (or 233 degrees Celsius).
What's eerie about this novel is that, even though it was written more than fifty years ago, it seems to be predicting what is beginning in our society.
The novel itself is divided into three parts. (There are no chapters.) These parts are entitled:
(1) The Hearth and Salamander
(2) The Sieve and the Sand
(3) Burning Bright
There are only five major characters in this novel:
(1) Guy Montag: is the protagonist of the story. He is a "fireman" (or more precisely a book burner) who realizes that the world is wasting away because people live only to be entertained. Montag eventually begins collecting books by stealing them instead of burning them.
(2) Mildred Montag: Guy's wife whose only purpose in life is watching television. She is very unhappy (but doesn't realize it).
(3) Clarisse: the unusual girl who lives next door to Guy. She refuses the entertainment of society and is a free thinker who enjoys the outdoors and family conversations. She informs Montag that there's more to life than burning books and watching television.
(4) Captain Beatty: the fire chief for whom Montag works. He is the villain of the novel.
(5) Faber: a retired English professor. When Montag needs help understanding what he reads in his stolen books, he turns to this professor.
There are a few minor characters in the novel. The most significant are a small group of "outlaws." Their crime: being scholars who read books in the past.
This novel might be considered a social commentary that predicts what may happen in the future. Some themes that run through it are as follows:
(1) the use of fear to control
(2) the dangers of indifference
(3) the dangers of censorship
(4) the importance of free speech
(5) the importance of the individual.
The afterword is interesting and is where Bradbury talks about his love of books and writers. As well, he revisits some of the main characters in this novel.
The coda explains how some publishers have tried to censor some aspects of this novel. This got Bradbury very angry and he states, "There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."
In the interview with Bradbury, many intriguing things are discussed. I found Bradbury's critique of the 1966 movie based on this novel interesting. I learned that a new movie based on this novel will be coming out soon. I also admire Bradbury even more when he states, "Reading is the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization."
Finally, the cover of this book is of special significance. It is the original cover of the 1953 hardcover book showing a person covered in printed paper with books (presumably that he's/she's read) at his/her feet. The person and the books are shown set ablaze.
In conclusion, this is a short, fascinating book that really makes you think about the future of society!!
(Originally published 1953; this particular book published 2003; 3 parts; main narrative of 165 pages; afterword; coda; interview with author)
+++++
Book Review: Fahrenheit 451: There is a Fire in All of Us
Summary: 5 Stars
FAHRENHEIT 451 is a grim yet thought-provoking novel of a dystopian future. Other novels that show a bleak future--1984 and BRAVE NEW WORLD come to mind--focus on what their authors see as the root cause of the implosion of human values. Ray Bradbury envisions this implosion as a gradual process of extreme cultural homogenization that, in the words of the novel's antagonist, Fire Captain Beatty, reduces 'everyone to the consistency of paste pudding.' Whatever it is that stamps one individual as different from another, the society of FAHRENHEIT 451 ruthlessly if not mindlessly grinds down and out that uniqueness that once marked a creative thinker.Guy Montag is a fireman who likes his job, which is to start fires and not extinguish them. He burns books to ashes, and then burns the ashes, as his firemen's slogan boasts. He sees nothing wrong with that, and at the start of the book, he is not unlike nearly everyone else in his acceptance of the Way of Things. Yet, Bradbury hints early on that Montag's mind and soul are ripe for a literary infection that is just as contagious as the Black Plague ever was. He meets a young girl Clarisse, who insists on asking him questions whose apparent nonsensical purpose is really meant to probe the paper thin layer of protection that Montag had built up over the years. She asks him if he is happy. She asks him if he has ever looked at the moon. With these seemingly innocuous questions, she infects Montag with the forbidden desire to know the 'why' of things. By the end of their first meeting, Montag now knows that his life has been a cotton candy lie. For the first time in his life, he can see that the society in which he lives is dedicated to the ultimate communistic ideal: each citizen is encouraged to reach only to a preordained level. To attempt to reach beyond that lies the swift punishment of the flamethrowers and the Mechanical Hounds. After only a few days, Montag is now stealing and reading forbidden books. The plot is not what sells the book or what has made it required reading on most college and high school campuses. The lure of FAHRENHEIT 451 is the manner in which Bradbury weaves the threads of present day trends of soap operas and quiz shows into a quilt whose collective and stifling weight crushes individualism just as surely as Orwell's Big Brother does in 1984. Bradbury uses a number of symbols (fire, books, the salamander, the Phoenix) which allow the reader to view a troika of social elements that contained within themselves the promise of death to the Thinking Man. Bradbury creates a triangle of public school education, technology, and interpersonal relations, all of which are perverted to create a society whose primary function is to use one's brains as minimally as possible for unthinking personal pleasure. The school system drills learning by rote in children's minds. No books are need for that. Technology provides huge televisions so that the stars of these shows interact with an audience to the extent that true human relations are shunted aside for a fake television 'family.' Personal relations of family and friends are then limited to inane conversations of the type that we here in the real world see on our tv commercials. Montag sees his wife Mildred as bad off as any of her equally brain-dead friends. He tries to infect her and them with the same teasing questions about the Meaning of Life that Clarisse used on him so successfully. To his horror, Montag learns that they are immune to the germ of curiosity. He cannot change his society, though he tries mightily by plotting with a former college professor named Faber to plant forbidden books in the homes of firemen. He learns that since he cannot change society, he must leave it.
One of the best parts of the book is the cat and mouse game that Fire Captain Beatty plays with Montag. Beatty is seen as a man who once had been infected with the bug of individualism, but had since 'cured' himself and now is determined to cure Montag. Their extended dialogue is one of the great literary dialogues between oppressor and oppressed. Beatty explains how his society came to be and Montag learns that somewhere along the line, the process went horribly wrong. By the novel's end, the reader can only hope that the literary virus of infection will never meet its cure. For Ray Bradbury, this cure was not very far away. For Guy Montag, the cure was even closer.
Book Review: There must be something in books
Summary: 5 Stars
Books are dangerous. They're full of ideas that make people think about the world, feel passion, and perhaps act out. That's not good for society; it causes conflict, uprising, and interference with the status quo. People who read and think scare people who don't, so most citizens have happily given up the right to decide what to think about and now let the government fill their brains with constant loud mindless entertainment. This managed input has equalized society; nobody feels inferior to anyone else and there's no conflict anymore. Dull minds, constant entertainment, and conformity make society run smoothly.
Guy Montag works as a fireman. He burns books at night while his wife sits in her parlor and listens to inane media shows at high volume. But Clarice, the teenager next door, is different. Her family sits around and talks. They discuss things and they laugh with each other. Guy wonders what they talk about as he watches his wife talk to the strangers on TV and pop sleeping pills...
Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 presents a possible frightening future in which intellectual pursuits and nonconformity are deemed dangerous and subversive. It's been more than half a century since Fahrenheit 451 was published and we've seen censorship laws actually become looser over the years and the advent of the internet has brought on the current "information age." But that doesn't make Fahrenheit 451 irrelevant because it's about much more than literary censorship. It's about freedom of speech and individual rights. It's about thinking for ourselves and what might happen if we let the government tell us what we can see, hear, or own.
Fahrenheit 451 resonates with me on so many levels. First of all, it's just superbly written. I love Bradbury's intense style which translates especially well on Blackstone Audio's version read by Christopher Hurt (sample). Here he describes the show that Mrs Montag watches all day:
A great thunderstorm of sound gushed from the walls. Music bombarded him at such an immense volume that his bones were almost shaken from their tendons; he felt his jaw vibrate, his eyes wobble in his head. He was a victim of concussion. When it was all over he felt like a man who had been thrown from a cliff, whirled in a centrifuge and spat out over a waterfall that fell and fell into emptiness and emptiness and never -- quite -- touched -- bottom -- never -- never -- quite -- no not quite -- touched -- bottom ... and you fell so fast you didn't touch the sides either... never... quite... touched... anything.
The thunder faded. The music died.
"There," said Mildred. And it was indeed remarkable. Something had happened. Even though the people in the walls of the room had barely moved, and nothing had really been settled, you had the impression that someone had turned on a washing-machine or sucked you up in a gigantic vacuum. You drowned in music and pure cacophony. He came out of the room sweating and on the point of collapse. Behind him, Mildred sat in her chair and the voices went on again...
Second, I share Bradbury's ardent passion for knowledge and learning. The thought of lost information, burned books, mindless entertainment, meaningless small-talk, conformity, and intellectual malaise makes my stomach twist. I don't believe that we're in danger of the anti-intellectualism that Bradbury posits, but still his ideas get me riled up.
Third, I'll admit that I'm a rebel at heart. While I recognize that obeying laws and paying taxes are a necessary part of living in a well-functioning society, I feel mostly distrustful and suspicious when the government increases taxes, takes over more functions in society, tells us what to believe, and tries to revoke constitutional freedoms. In this context, Bradbury's possible future doesn't seem so impossible anymore.
I'm pleased that my school district assigns Fahrenheit 451 in its middle-school curriculum, though I find it a bit ironic that some publishers have edited the language to make it more "suitable" for teenagers.
Book Review: The Third Great Dystopian Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" is one of his finest works. It was first published in October of 1953, and then serialized in the March - May issues of Playboy magazine. The novel originally began as a short story "Bright Phoenix", though that was not published until 1963, and from there it was lengthened into the novelette "The Fireman" which was published in February of 1951 in "Galaxy Magazine". It is a novel of a dystopian society, and stands along with George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" as the best early examples of that type of work.
Though it is easy to find similarities between "Fahrenheit 451" and the other two books, there are some key differences between them. In the earlier two works, the State appears to be the controlling force. We see this in the education centers in "Brave New World" and every aspect of the society in "1984", but in this work the society seems to have evolved from this through a change in social norms. People are judged by the number of wall sized televisions they have; books and intellectuals are spurned and eventually considered harmful to society. One should be happy, so news of the war is all in the background, and even the attempted suicide, or someone's death are mentioned in only in passing quickly and then the focus is back on happier subjects. People spend more time being entertained by a program called "My Family" then they spend interacting with their actual family, and for some children are a nuisance, so they are either not had, or if one has them they are sent off and only seen for short periods.
One of the most effective parts of this short novel is the way he incorporates the feel of the society into his writing style. One of the key descriptions of the life which the hero, Fireman Guy Montag, is living is noise. He can't think, because of the noise of the televisions his wife has on, and it is apparent that he didn't even notice this until he met Clarisse McClellan, a free-spirited teenager who has moved in next door with her parents and her uncle. His conversations with her are different, they require thought, and there is time for him to think because they happen outside of the noise of life. This noise continues and gets worse when Clarisse disappears from his life, but she has helped bring forward his natural curiosity. The noise continues, and as Guy deals with his wife, her friends, his boss, the mechanical hound, the other firemen, the signs of war, an old professor acquaintance, etc. This noise is felt by the reader two, as Bradbury throws this mix together, though leaves it clear enough that the reader picks up on what is really going on.
This noise is there through the first two sections of the book, and into the third section where at last Guy is pushed over the edge and commits the most desperate of acts, and by doing so he frees his mind. From then on, Guy is able to focus on the situation at hand, his being hunted, his escape, and his desire to save the thoughts and words of the books he has been destroying for so many years. He is able to discuss and think about the war and about Clarisse, his wife Mildred, and his actions; even though those are mostly sad and disturbing thoughts. The reader also feels the noise pressure is lifted, though he is certainly in danger.
This is a tremendous book, though very short as far as novels go. It is not simply a rewrite of "Brave New World" or "1984". Those works were produced first, and those authors are often given more literary merit while Bradbury is too often thought of as a writer of speculative fiction. Those works teach us to be wary of the government becoming too powerful, while this work teaches us to be wary of our own laziness and the anti-intellectual movement of our society through entertainment such as television. This work also teaches us to be tolerant of those who are not like everyone else. This work was selected to receive the Retro Hugo in 2004 for novels written in the year 1953.
Book Review: Makes more sense as time goes on, amazing novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Truth be told, I read this book in my high school days and probably didn't appreciate it as much as I could have. I remember thinking it was an above average read, but I didn't have a strong appreciation for the novel's depth. Bradbury's message didn't strike me until I recently picked up the book again years later. Reading this novel again, I was wowed and amazed about the events I had missed with my first reading. The underlying message about the dangers of losing one's self amid conformity came ringing forth, and the idea of fire burning as a metaphor for burning away existence stuck with me. Bradbury's work became a profound experience for me.
Set in a dystopic world, Montag works as a firefighter whose job it is to burn books, as they are held as dangerous materials. When Montag meets his neighbor, Clarisse McClellan, she wakes him up to the world he exists in by asking him a simple question: "Are you happy?" Montag, as if in a trance before, begins wondering why books are thought to be such a deterrent to society, why he should be burning instead of reading, and why society runs the way it does. He identifies an uncomfortable unhappy feeling, and takes steps to try to get to the bottom of the vast emptiness he has lived with. Beatty, Montag's boss, begins to identify the guilt Montag feels about his job, as Montag at one point feigns being sick, and tries to philosophize about why the world exists the way it does. Beatty's basic premise is that books make people think, and bring about all sorts of "nastiness": emotion, tears, feeling, rebellion, and power. He states that the world is better conforming to systematic enjoyment and collective thought because it is, in his words, less dangerous. Montag has a life-changing moment when their fire crew is called out to burn down a woman's house; the woman refuses to go, and is burned up along with her books, and Montag feels responsible for this. Montag befriends a man named Faber, an ex English professor who he remembered from a year earlier hiding a book while at a park. Where Clarisse wakes up Montag to his life, Faber is the key to Montag's full reawaking, and taking action towards his new ideas. Faber gives him the tools to know that there are people out there who believe in reading and thinking. Montag vows to never burn again. Beatty eventually suspects that Montag may be collecting books on the side, and eventually the call comes for Montag to burn his own house down. From here, Montag has a dilemma about whether to follow his boss' orders, or try to escape somehow. Without giving too much away, Montag is on the run as a fugitive as the chase is being broadcasted live as police attempt to hunt him down. From here, we are left to try to find out whether he will escape the police, and, if so, where he is heading.
Fahrenheit 451 is one of those rare books that becomes more powerful and poignant as time goes on. As much as the story is about dystopia and the ills of censorship, it goes beyond this. It is also a book about the pitfalls of society devoid of conscientiousness, individuality, reason, or uniqueness. When we get to the point where we lose our voice or our ability to think, our existence becomes empty and meaningless. Perhaps even more startling or tragic is the notion that citizens may not even realize that society has become this way, or that THEY have become this way, as is the case for the main character, Montag, who happily burns away house after house, book after book, and lives a rather systematic life as a fireman, with a wife who is more machine than spouse, a product of the times.
Some compare this book to 1984, and with just cause, as both depict the isolation caused when individuals have little to no control in thought or living. However, Fahrenheit 451 feels less dark and gloomy than 1984, and seems to have an optimistic outlook, so I find it a little more enjoyable.
Fantastic book! One that has deserved every bit of praise it has received.