Review: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fahrenheit 451 is my classic sci-fi read for April 2018. I listened to the audiobook edition, narrated by Tim Robbins.

Perhaps Bradbury's best-known novel, Fahrenheit 451 was published toward the end of the McCarthy era. Set in a dystopian America, on the verge of war and rebellion, in which media has overtaken public thought, books have been outlawed and firemen, rather than putting out fires (which no longer routinely occur) set them- burning books and the buildings that illegally contain them. The story opens with Guy Montag, a fireman, going through the motions of his life. He begins to deeply and unsettlingly question his life after seeing a woman commit suicide by dying in her house, as her books burn. But an encounter on the way home from work also affects him. Montag meets young Clarisse McClellan, an unorthodox thinker who eschews the current fascination with technology and media and questions society and the life they are living. She asks Montag if he is happy and the answer silently reverberates through him, because he is not happy, not by a longshot. Clarisse is the diametric opposite of Montag's wife Mildred, who is obsessed with media and technology and who has entire walls in their home covered with large screen TVs. The continual barrage of senseless media has left Mildred shallow, unhappy, and dependent on sleeping pills. Montag's fall from grace, his starting to read and seek understanding of the books he is supposed to burn, forms the core of the novel. His choices cost him his marriage, his home, yet also grant him freedom, both intellectual and physical, once he escapes the city.

This slim novel, 160 pages in length, is divided into three parts: "The Hearth and the Salamander," "The Sieve and the Sand," and "Burning Bright." This is a good book for discussion in school settings, as its section breaks allow for great discussion establishing the context and milieu of the era in which the book was written and examination of the present-day effects of technology and censorship. Even the recent fears of nuclear weapons, thanks to the tension with North Korea, echo fears from the era in which Bradbury wrote this novel. Bradbury's rejection of the McCarthy era zeitgeist in this book was and remains controversial. Bradbury himself massaged the core theme of the books in the decades following its publication, saying it was less about censorship than the dangers of technology. Frankly, he seems to be have been right on both accounts, especially when we look at the manipulation of facts in social media, and the attempts to distort and suppress information about things like climate change, environmental safety, and women's reproductive health. This book has occasionally (and rather hilariously) been censored (bad language!) or even banned (omg, they even burn Bibles!). The bad language in this book is so mild it's risible. As for the burning of religious texts, clearly, anyone banning this book never actually read it, as, at the end, we see Montag joining a rebel group who have memorized entire books, including the Bible, to preserve them for future generations. Granger, leader of the group, has memorized Plato's Republic.

While I can't say that I felt strongly emotionally engaged, I was certainly intellectually engaged by the novel. I was struck not just by Bradbury's brave (for the day) statements about censorship, and allowing technology to distract us from reading and learning from books, but also by his prescient descriptions of that technology, such as flat-screen TVs and earbuds for listening to media (music, tv, etc). (Remember, he wrote this in 1953!) His description of Montag's perception of distance and isolation from people due to technology, even in his marriage with his wife Mildred, also echoes present-day concerns about the social isolation effects of cellphones and social media and lack of in-person connection due to use of that technology when with companions.

(Spoiler)*[The scientist in me was deeply annoyed by the description of what is clearly intended to be a nuclear event when the city is bombed at the end of the book. Montag, Granger and the others weather the thermal wake of the explosion from outside the city, but there seems to be a total lack of understanding about the subsequent radiation fallout effects which would certainly have killed Montag, Granger, and all the other "living books." Sigh. (hide spoiler)]

HBO is (I shudder to think of this) adapting Fahrenheit 451 for television. Oh, the irony, right? Imagine all the great changes they will make.





*Spoiler:

The scientist in me was deeply annoyed by the description of what is clearly intended to be a nuclear event when the city is bombed at the end of the book. Montag, Granger and the others weather the thermal wake of the explosion from outside the city, but there seems to be a total lack of understanding about the subsequent radiation fallout effects which would certainly have killed Montag, Granger, and all the other "living books." Sigh.


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