A Review Of Fahrenheit 451

This book is about censorship. It is about a society in the future where, for the sake of simplicity and ease, the government has set up a system where all books are burned. Books cause too much thought, consideration, and reflection. Better to keep things stream-lined, fast-access, straight-forward. Guy Montag is a 'fireman' whose job it is to burn books. The fire-department doesn't put OUT fires (all houses in this futuristic society have been FIRE-PROOFED), but STARTS them wherever someone is discovered to have a library. Long story short Guy becomes curious about what the books may contain, and, by his actions, raises a few red flags at the fire department. The government tries to hunt him down and kill him, but he escapes into the countryside and meets some men who carry the books in their heads (they have memorized them). He decides to join their little community, they travel like hoboes from town to town, and will pass the books on to their children.

I really liked this book. Ray Bradbury is like a poet. It is very well-written. The words have a phosphorescent sheen. My favorite part is when Guy first escapes the city, and is floating down the river in the country, soaking in the silence and the space. It really reminds me of the feelings I had when I was on my bike getting out of Savannah, and got further and further out into the country, and the quiet of the place seemed to settle into and relax my mind. He captured the feelings of my road journey better than even I caught them myself. Something about danger and independence and freedom all rolled into one. Out in the wide-open spaces of the country where nature rules and you don't see any other people.

There was very little I didn't like about this book. If there was anything, it was maybe how implausible the whole plot seemed: why would the government really burn books? In general they're pretty harmless. How could the fire department continue to operate year after year? The books would eventually all be burned, or at least business would slow down. Finally, how do men like Faber (who knows a lot about books, and about those who carry the traditions in their heads) operate, and how many of them are there? It's a little bit of a far-fetched plot, but it does bring up some interesting questions. People today like TV, internet, and radio. They like their information fast, and they don't like to have to analyze it themselves. They just want to be entertained (like Montag's wife in her television chamber), and don't want to think. It's a shame, but I don't think we're in any grave danger of reaching the day when we become like the society in this book. Bradbury must think that human beings would be as dumb as brutes in order to be deceived into believing reflection is bad, useless, and to buy into the conspiracy that they needed a Fire Department to burn all the books, as if THOUGHT were a thing to be avoided at all costs. They fear thought; thought is the enemy. This is an unrealistic scenario. For people will always enjoy reflecting. They'll always enjoy thinking for themselves; they don't want others to do EVERYTHING for them. For that is what I think this comes down to: thinking for yourself is like DOING for yourself; if you don't want to THINK for yourself, you mi'aswell just let the government do EVERYTHING for you. Have you no independence? Have you no pride? It's a warning. A far-fetched one, but a warning, nonetheless. I once came up with a thought that I thought summarized my whole philosophy: THINK FOR YOURSELF. We are in danger of having our freedoms taken from us, but what we must do in order to keep them is as simple as THINKING FOR OURSELVES. YOU must do this independently. No one else can lift you up by your own bootstraps. YOU must do it yourself! The danger of not thinking for ourselves is that soon we'd have others spoon-feeding everything to us. In Guy Montag's world, everyone just watches TV and sleeps. This dull, mindless entertainment serves as a life. It brings up a question concerning the relationship between entertainment and independence. To be truly independent, I guess, one must make one's OWN entertainment.

That's what I liked and didn't like about this book. All in all, I thought it was really good. The implausibility of the plot can be forgiven because it provokes thought on the subject of independence, which is (independence) I believe necessary for true happiness. The writing itself is extraordinary. It dazzles and pops. I would recommend this book, if not only for the superb writing, then also for the idea that we all need to think for ourselves in order to avoid slipping into the catalepsy that Bradbury describes in Montag's wife at the beginning of the novel.

This book would go well with The Giver by Louis Lowry, 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.