Fahrenheit
451
Ray Bradbury
What did I expect going into this book? I knew it had
something to do with book banning and burning but I didn’t know much else.
Overall, it’s a really good story, well told in terms
of plot and use of language. It’s a bit strange because it feels dated to the
time it was written, 1953, due to some of the terminology or ideas – the wives
who stay home and just watch T.V., medicating themselves with sleeping
pills, and how almost everyone is smoking.
At the same time, it feels terribly relevant today
with the imagery of people watching reality television and sports instead of
engaging with each other or giving themselves time to think about and research ideas.
I started listening to the book on audio and I think
that may have been a mistake. Fortunately or unfortunately, it is read by Ray
Bradbury himself. In a way, it’s nice to have the author, and such an iconic
one at that, reading his own work. But it’s really terrible listening to him.
His speech is not clear a lot of the time and it’s just unpleasantly taxing
trying to follow what he is saying while I’m driving in the car. I don’t
recommend the audio. I got the ebook on Kindle but his voice was kind of stuck
in my head by that point.
It was a shorter book than I expected. Only 46,118
words, I found out later. Even the audio was only five discs. There was a sixth
disc in the container but the book ended on the fifth disc.
The main character, Montag, is a fireman. But fireman
don’t put out fires in this place and time. They are called only when a stash
of books is suspected. They go to search out and burn the books, houses having
been made fire proof. The people who live there are either sent to an insane
asylum or jail.
The premise is that the ideas contained in books just
make people depressed and confused. But getting rid of the books doesn’t seem
to have helped as the suicide rate continues to rise.
Montag has his world shaken up by his own wife’s
possible attempted suicide. Did she mean to take all the pills or not? Also,
the appearance and then disappearance of a young woman who asks a lot of
questions, Clarisse. But we keep seeing Montag look at a vent grill in his
house, and something is hidden there. Apparently Montag has had questions for a
while.
As I said, it’s a fast read, strong on action and some
interesting imagery, and a whole lot of questions. I definitely would recommend
it and am glad I read it.
"Those who don't
build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents."
"So that's what I am."
"There's some of it in all of us."
"So that's what I am."
"There's some of it in all of us."
