Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Read for: Banned Books Week
First of all, can I just say that I think it’s truly ironic that a book about books being illegal is banned?! I had no idea what this book was about when I first picked it up except the whole dystopian future thing. It seems pretty common for dystopian future books to be banned or at least challenged, doesn’t it?
Anyway, in this novel, written in the 1950s and set sometime after the turn of the century, firemen are no longer employed to fight fires, their new task is to start them. At the firehall they receive alerts that tip them off to the presence of books and off they go to burn down the house of whomever was hiding the books.
As the novel begins, Montag a fireman, enjoys starting fires but as he is walking home from work one day, he meets a young girl and what she says causes him to question what he has always thought. This girl actually plays a small role in the novel but is the catalyst for Montag to change his entire way of thinking and acting. She has a huge impact on him.
I don’t generally enjoy books in this genre and this was no exception. However, I can see the value in them, if that makes sense. And this one in particular was actually quite accurate in some ways. Montag’s wife was the epitome of everything that was wrong with their society. She had these little seashells that she wore in her ears and they were constantly playing news and ads and who knows what else. Remind you of anything? The other thing she did was spend the day in front of her wall sized televisions (3 walls, and she was saving up to do the fourth wall) watching other people live their lives. It reminded me a lot of reality TV. One night she invites her friends over to watch some TV with her and one of her friends says this
“I plunk the children in school nine days out of ten. I put up with them when they come home three days a month; its not bad at all. You heave them into the ‘parlour’ (what they call their TV rooms) and turn the switch. It’s like washing clothes: stuff laundry in and slam the lid.”
I have to admit, I’m guilty of doing this sometimes. In fact, just last week I was counting down the days until my oldest would go back to school because he was driving me crazy!
It’s creepy how well Bradbury was able to see the future. However, he didn’t foresee the internet and I think the internet is so important today in the sharing of information. As we’ve seen, it’s becoming harder and harder for governments and other authority figures to suppress the spread of information.
Although, as I’ve said, I didn’t really enjoy this book, I can understand it’s importance and appreciate Bradbury’s cleverness. And I definitely don’t think it should be banned or challenged. The only people who would want this book challenged would be people who support the suppression of information.
