By: Ray Bradbury
Synopsis
Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. 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 then 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.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly dissapears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.
My Thoughts
I’m not sure how I made it this long without reading this book, but here we are and I finally read Fahrenheit 451. This novel was a lot shorter than I expected, but it was very thought provoking. I felt this book was especially poignant right now with the current rash of book bannings and the disdain for experts and higher education. The story also resonated with me because I felt it captured the importance I myself have always placed on books and knowledge.
Bradbury has a way with words. I can feel Montag’s confusion, desperation, grief, and finally, his determination and resolve. Following along with his awakening (so to speak) was stirring and somewhat emotional. He uses a lot of metaphors and allusions, sometimes a little too much. However, this did not diminish my enjoyment of the story.
I connected with Clarisse. She liked to ask questions and think about things, which is why she was eliminated. Conformity and sameness are encouraged, and anyone that is different is removed. Clarisse’s appearance was brief, but she was the catalyst to everything that happened afterwards.
I found it interesting that the captain called Montag a “snob” for reading poetry when he himself was frequently quoting literature. It was very hypocritical and I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
The story is centered around book burning, but it is ultimately about keeping the masses mindless and happy, and thus easier to control. The overarching theme is about not thinking and that ideas are bad. Books are just the vessels that contain ideas, and they were demonized because people might read them and think or ask questions. This is why they did not have sociology or philosophy in schools. They only had basic memorization and lots of sports. Keep the kids busy and not thinking. As with the children, it was important to keep the adults mindlessly entertained, so that they thought they were happy. Constant noise and talking. People were talking all the time, but no one was having actual conversations or listening. This is why Montag was so entranced with Clarisse’s family sitting around the table having actual conversations. All this empty noise was why the silence of the countryside was so overwhelming to him at first.
The ending is left open and allows the reader to ponder the narrative. I really enjoyed this novel, and it left me with a lot to think about.
These are just my thoughts. What are yours?
