Despite appearing on many a summer reading list, I haven’t read Ray Bradbury’s classic work Fahrenheit 451 until now, at the ripe age of 28. The dystopian tale is worth the hype and I admittedly feel sheepish, as if I have been lurking under some sort of rock (albeit a fairly large rock as I am 5’11.)
Inspired by a 1933 photo of German soldiers and civilians burning books, Bradbury claims that the novel is not a commentary on censorship as widely thought (http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/), but rather a criticism made towards television’s tendency to essentialize without analysis, making it a more appealing yet deadlier alternative to literature.
Nonetheless, it’s hard not to read censorship as a major theme, particularly since the image that inspired Bradbury was indeed depicting an act of censorship. Personally, I see Bradbury’s novel as any bibliophile’s horror story: a metacognitive metaphor: a good book about the destruction of good books.
The pleasure derived from reading Bradbury’s work only intensifies its theme. I read Fahrenheit 451 as I would have as a young reader—in a breathless, uninterrupted gulp. It reminded me of my younger fifth grade self, staying up far too late into the night but waking content in completion and contemplation of a book; slightly drowsy and drunk off books for the rest of the day; falling in love with the power of books.
The work itself is beautifully crafted in both form and content—a Zoroastrian could not capture the dangerous beauty of fire better. Bradbury is wonderfully descriptive yet my favorite passages were in stark language as with this passage which depicts Montag’s response to the never-ending fleet of bombers tearing through the sky:
“Jesus God,” said Montag. “Every hour so many damn things in the sky! How in hell did those bombers get there every single second of our lives! Why doesn’t someone want to talk about it! We’ve started and won two atomic wars since 1990! Is it because we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world? Is it cause we’re so rich and the rest of the world’s so poor and we just don’t care if they are? I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much?” (71)
Eerily, I, like Montag, frequently hear jet planes roaring across the sky as I live between two active military bases as my country fights simultaneously in two wars. Previously, I had blocked them out, rendered them harmless white noise until I began reading the novel which suddenly intensified their noise and frequency. I never thought before who was in the planes or where they were headed much like Montag rarely questions his own orderly life in the first third of the novel. This in many way sums Fahrenheit 451, people, not books are dangerous and if a book holds any danger it is in the fact that it compels the reader to examine the unexplored, often uncomfortable corners, of his or her mind.
Inspired by a 1933 photo of German soldiers and civilians burning books, Bradbury claims that the novel is not a commentary on censorship as widely thought (http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/), but rather a criticism made towards television’s tendency to essentialize without analysis, making it a more appealing yet deadlier alternative to literature.
Nonetheless, it’s hard not to read censorship as a major theme, particularly since the image that inspired Bradbury was indeed depicting an act of censorship. Personally, I see Bradbury’s novel as any bibliophile’s horror story: a metacognitive metaphor: a good book about the destruction of good books.
The pleasure derived from reading Bradbury’s work only intensifies its theme. I read Fahrenheit 451 as I would have as a young reader—in a breathless, uninterrupted gulp. It reminded me of my younger fifth grade self, staying up far too late into the night but waking content in completion and contemplation of a book; slightly drowsy and drunk off books for the rest of the day; falling in love with the power of books.
The work itself is beautifully crafted in both form and content—a Zoroastrian could not capture the dangerous beauty of fire better. Bradbury is wonderfully descriptive yet my favorite passages were in stark language as with this passage which depicts Montag’s response to the never-ending fleet of bombers tearing through the sky:
“Jesus God,” said Montag. “Every hour so many damn things in the sky! How in hell did those bombers get there every single second of our lives! Why doesn’t someone want to talk about it! We’ve started and won two atomic wars since 1990! Is it because we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world? Is it cause we’re so rich and the rest of the world’s so poor and we just don’t care if they are? I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much?” (71)
Eerily, I, like Montag, frequently hear jet planes roaring across the sky as I live between two active military bases as my country fights simultaneously in two wars. Previously, I had blocked them out, rendered them harmless white noise until I began reading the novel which suddenly intensified their noise and frequency. I never thought before who was in the planes or where they were headed much like Montag rarely questions his own orderly life in the first third of the novel. This in many way sums Fahrenheit 451, people, not books are dangerous and if a book holds any danger it is in the fact that it compels the reader to examine the unexplored, often uncomfortable corners, of his or her mind.
