Saturday, May 14, 2016

Fahrenheit 451

Cover of the 50th Anniversary Edition (2003)

"Fahrenheit 451" (the movie trailer speaks it as"Fahrenheit FourFiveOne").

Originally, I intended to watch the DVD of the 1966 movie of the famous Ray Bradbury book, Fahrenheit 451 but when I was at the library and about to sign out the DVD, I decided it might be nice to read the book too. While I remember seeing the movie (or parts of it) on TV, I don't think I ever actually read the book. So I checked out both the DVD and book from the library.

I ended up only watching the DVD extras so as not to spoil the book. I started reading the book on April 8th and finished it Thursday May 12th. Although it was only 190 pages total, I only read a few pages each day because it is a somber story and I did not want to get depressed. I also wanted time to chew on the ideas and story. I'm glad that I didn't rush through it. Like savoring a fine meal, reading this book was a marvelous experience.

I enjoyed the experience of reading it so much that when I returned it to the library, I signed out the 60th Anniversary Edition (softbound). The summary on the back cover reads:
"Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family." But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn't live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known."
The copy I read was the 50th Anniversary edition (2003) hardback (see picture above). It included a new introduction by Ray Bradbury plus a Forward he wrote in 1993 along with another introduction he supplied in 1966.

Although the book was originally published in 1953, it was an expanded version a short story from 1951 called "The Fireman." As I read the book, I had to pause several times in amazement at the foresight of Bradbury. Montag's wife isolates herself by watching wall-sized TV screens on 3 walls (and is begging for a 4th wall screen). In addition, when not watching TV she has earbuds (known in the book as "seashells") for listening to the radio. There is 24-hour banking via "robot" tellers (i.e., ATMs), and constant barrage of audio advertisements even on the subway. All this cloaks the slide to war.

The novel is ostensibly about book burning but the message really has little to do with physical books. Books are merely placeholders for ideas and ideas are dangerous in a society where everyone is expected to think the same.

I think there is a perception that the books were burned because the powers that be outlawed them. It seems, though, that people got tired of books and gravitated instead toward other entertainments (e.g., "bread and circuses"). What resulted was an "Escape from Freedom". Book burning resulted (I think) from society's desire to keep opinions politically correct and homogenized.

The book has a somewhat happy ending (or at least hopeful). The big bad city is destroyed by war and those that are left to rebuild are (it is implied) primarily the book people that had left the city to escape persecution and death. The symbolism of a more ideal future is presented through a (uncited)  reference to a quote from the Christian Book of Revelation: 
And on either side of the river was a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. [Rev 22:2]
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