You’ve probably heard of Fahrenheit 451, and you may have already read it. If not, then go read it. The first time I read it was around two years ago, and I loved it, but I wasn’t really catching some of the things Ray Bradbury was talking about, I was just enjoying the story. That’s how it goes for me. I try not to analyze books too much on the first reading since I just want to enjoy them, but on my second reading I picked up so much I hadn’t known, or may have forgotten the first time around. And that’s what makes the second reading of some books for me arguably more enjoyable than the first. And reading Fahrenheit 451 again has set in stone how perfect it is.
In Flames
Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future world where books are illegal. If caught with books, an alarm is raised and firemen burn your house down. Since all houses are now fireproof, firemen don’t stop fires, but start them. Guy Montag, our hero, is a fireman, and after a watching a harrowing display of a woman burning with her books, he questions what the hell the world has come to, just like any hero of a dystopian story. Even before that he meets a girl called Clarisse who enlightens him on the simple pleasures of walking, staring and being. People in this world are made to enjoy themselves whenever possible. Why take a stroll on the roadside when you can drive cars a hundred miles an hour down highways and stare at the stretched out billboards? Why read when you can watch endless TV shows in your parlour walls? Montag’s wife, Millie, is an entertainment junkie. Her ‘family’ exist in the parlour walls, and she doesn’t much care for the ‘important’ things in life. She doesn’t care about Montag’s wages when she asks him to spend about 2K on a fourth parlour wall. When Montag objects, she replies with: ‘it’s only two thousand.’ There is a giant chasm between Montag and his wife, and he begins to realize that they don’t really know each other.
Ray Bradbury, to me, speaks out about all our distractions that beg for our attention. Writing these days can be tricky when YouTube stands idle with more entertainment than you can possibly imagine, and everybody gets distracted by anything. TV gluttons can find pretty much anything these days, and there is more than enough of any kind of entertainment to keep you occupied. And when you’re done, you move on to the next big thing, and again, and again. Knowledge is golden, that’s another thing I get from the book. With books no longer in print, and runaway copies are promptly found and burnt, soon the society in Fahrenheit 451 will never know anything else more than what their favourite TV shows are. Nobody will talk to one another, and nobody will care much about anything else. Millie’s friends, Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowles are good examples of this. Mrs Phelps hates children and questions why anyone would have them, while Mrs Bowles says she gave birth via caesarian section twice and sees her children about three times a month. There is no intimacy between her and her kids. They exist purely because she let them, other than that, they are nothing more than faceless children belonging to somebody else. Therefore, making them somebody else’s problem.
Ray Bradbury, to me, speaks out about all our distractions that beg for our attention. Writing these days can be tricky when YouTube stands idle with more entertainment than you can possibly imagine, and everybody gets distracted by anything. TV gluttons can find pretty much anything these days, and there is more than enough of any kind of entertainment to keep you occupied. And when you’re done, you move on to the next big thing, and again, and again. Knowledge is golden, that’s another thing I get from the book. With books no longer in print, and runaway copies are promptly found and burnt, soon the society in Fahrenheit 451 will never know anything else more than what their favourite TV shows are. Nobody will talk to one another, and nobody will care much about anything else. Millie’s friends, Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowles are good examples of this. Mrs Phelps hates children and questions why anyone would have them, while Mrs Bowles says she gave birth via caesarian section twice and sees her children about three times a month. There is no intimacy between her and her kids. They exist purely because she let them, other than that, they are nothing more than faceless children belonging to somebody else. Therefore, making them somebody else’s problem.
Different Worlds
Fahrenheit 451 often sits in the same family with two other well-known, iconic dystopian books: Brave New World and Nineteen-Eighty Four. Having read them all, I’d say either Fahrenheit 451 or Brave New World is my favourite. I need to read Brave New World again to make a definite choice, but they are both phenomenal reads with amazing stories. Nineteen-Eighty Four is a great book, but it never really grabbed me. Not sure why, it just didn’t. I’ve read it twice and the first time had me speechless since I’d never read anything like it, and then I read the other two and preferred those much more. I love dystopian stories, but I don’t know when another as good as Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World is going to come along. I loved the first Hunger Games book, but the other two didn’t gel with me. The first, though, is excellent.
Futures as dark as these seem a long way off, and maybe they won’t ever exist. But, knowledge is power, and dangerous when placed in the wrong hands. Knowledge, or morbid curiosity, gave birth to the atom bomb, and all sorts of dastardly devices we would be better off without. There is a great metaphor at the end of the story that mirrors phoenixes and humanity. The phoenix dies and rises again from its ashes, and humanity is apt to repeat its mistakes time and time again. And when the city is blown up by nuclear weapons, it all made sense. We do make the same mistakes again, and we kill each other over knowledge that may or may not be real such as biblical scripture. And are we no better than Ray Bradbury’s firemen – burning knowledge that we don’t think somebody should be reading or sharing?
Songs of the Week:
Futures as dark as these seem a long way off, and maybe they won’t ever exist. But, knowledge is power, and dangerous when placed in the wrong hands. Knowledge, or morbid curiosity, gave birth to the atom bomb, and all sorts of dastardly devices we would be better off without. There is a great metaphor at the end of the story that mirrors phoenixes and humanity. The phoenix dies and rises again from its ashes, and humanity is apt to repeat its mistakes time and time again. And when the city is blown up by nuclear weapons, it all made sense. We do make the same mistakes again, and we kill each other over knowledge that may or may not be real such as biblical scripture. And are we no better than Ray Bradbury’s firemen – burning knowledge that we don’t think somebody should be reading or sharing?
Songs of the Week:
- 'Jesus of Suburbia' by Green Day
- 'Late Night' by Foals
- 'Milk & Black Spiders' by Foals
- 'Stepson' by Foals
- 'Moon' by Foals
- 'Darling, Are You Gonna Leave Me?' by London Grammar