Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Review

January 7th, 2007 by admin

My local library has a program each year that encourage everyone to read and discuss the same book. They make a bunch of the selected book available so several people can check it out at the same time. This year’s book is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. It’s the 50^th anniversary edition of the book which was first published in 1953.

I didn’t know what to expect when I read it. I picked it up just because it was part of this year’s reading program. I figured it had to be a decent book because it’s the winner of a National Book Award.

Guy Montag is the main character of the book. He is employed as a fireman, but a fireman in this book that is set sometime in the future is not a person who puts out fires but a person who starts fires. All houses have been fireproofed so there is no need for people to put out fires.

Books have been banned because it causes people to think too much. Instead people learn from their televisions. Watching TV is a highly interactive process that, in many cases, has taken the place of friendships with people. People save to purchase wall-tv’s for their living rooms. Guy and his wife Mildred have three walls and Mildred really wants the fourth one. But each one costs $2,000 which is one-third of Guy’s yearly income.

The book starts with Guy at a fire and describes the pleasure he gets from burning books. He enjoys spraying kerosene (the fire hoses spray kerosene to start the fires instead of water to put them out) and watching the pages of the books crackle, sizzle, and burn up.

After leaving work that night, he meets one of his new neighbors, Clarisse. She’s only seventeen but seems to know much of a world that allowed people choices and allowed them to read books. Clarisse asks Guy if it was true that firemen once put out fires rather than start them. Guy laughed and said no, that houses have always been fireproof.

Clarisse goes on talking to Guy and tells him a story about her uncle. She said her uncle was once jailed for two days for going too slow on the highway. He had been going 40 miles per hour.

It’s a strange world that Guy lives in. Houses no longer have porches because that encouraged people to sit around and relax and talk. Instead people are now encouraged to go to fun parks and always on the go and doing something because then they aren’t thinking about things. Billboards are now 200 feet long because cars drive so fast it’s the only way to be able to read them.

Guy and Clarisse soon don’t talk any longer because Clarisse has disappeared. Guy realizes she is dead. He starts thinking about his life, his job as a fireman whose duty it is to burn books and the houses they were hidden in, and about books themselves. He suddenly finds himself wanting to look inside one. Major events unfold from that defining moment in Guy’s life.

The book is disturbing to read because it describes as world where the lawmakers have enforced a high level of censorship and control over people’s lives because books are no longer a part of them. It’s a world of unrest and unhappy people who think nothing of killing themselves to escape it. But, while the book is disturbing it is also thought provoking. How much censorship should there be? Should people be allowed to read and see whatever they wish?

The edition of the book I read, the 50^th anniversary edition, includes an afterword by the author where he describes how he wrote the book. He said he realized he was writing an actual dime novel when he wrote it in 1950 because he typed the book on a typewriter in the basement typing room at the University of California in Los Angeles where 30 minutes of typewriter usage cost 10 cents. It is where the author raced against 30 minute increments getting his novel typed out. It cost him nine dollars and eighty cents in dimes to finish the first draft which was originally called The Fire Man but was later changed to Fahrenheit 451.

If you’re looking for some light reading while sitting in front the fireplace or while on the beach, don’t take this book along. But do read it sometime. While you may agree or disagree with many things in the book, it will likely get you thinking. While reading the book you will be engaged in Guy’s struggle with himself to figure out what is right, what is wrong, and what he should do – the right things or the wrong things.

My rating (0-10 smilies): 8 ☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☻☺☺

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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Review

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