Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953) - Fiction

An broad review of one of the greatest dystopian novels of all time

How does F451 succeeded in staying relevant our times? F451's ideas are just as poignant today, if not more so than when it was published in 1953. If you're unaware the general premise it's set sometime in a future American city where multi-walled screens have almost literally replaced real families, leisure time is devoted to technology or reckless driving, all university liberal arts programs cease to exist, Jesus has been relegated to just a pretty face on the screen, real human-to-human conversation is discouraged and viewed as odd behavior, all society evolves around finding next best "titillating" experience, and oh yah, books are burned to ashes. Give the setting 100 more years and you'd probably end up close to where Brave New World starts. It's a dark and brooding dystopian piece of fiction, so we can't make a 1:1 comparison between its world and ours. Nevertheless, our technological advances do have some eerie connections with F451 and other Bradbury stories - large screen TVs, the upcoming virtual reality systems, bluetooth ear pieces, and the rising loneliness associated with an increase attachment to our smart phones (see Hayley Tsukayama on Bradbury's tech predictions and Michael Gonchar on tech and loneliness).

The novel has been carried through the halls of time mostly for its ideas, but it contains a decent plot too. The protagonist, Guy Montage is a fireman, but now instead of putting out fires, firemen start them. Books are their main targets, but I wouldn't be surprised if they burn anything which inspires independent thinking. Montag starts thinking, and that's the crux of the novel. If he'd just remained glued to a screen and unobservant of other humans and nature then he never would've gotten into trouble. He meets a some similar minded people along the way and makes a lot of mistakes in his attempts to enlighten some technologically-addicted simpletons - one being his own wife, Mille.

I hope Bradbury's talent for figurative language is never overlooked. Recall from your middle school English teacher (or maybe "Language Arts" teacher) maybe drab lessons about figurative language: metaphors, similes, hyperbole, personification, etc. Through gleeful neglect many of us forget these terms because they were spoon fed to us like like nasty medicine, but Bradbury's use of figurative language digs deep into marrow of his storytelling; walking us through the plot while crafting an underlying narrative. Often times the physical and metaphorical layers compliment each other into a deeper understanding of the novel's ideas and a greater appreciation for language as a whole. This is likely one reason why F451 is so often read in high school English classrooms. One of the many examples comes early in the story when Montag watches two emergency workers use a stomach pump device to extract an excess of pills from his wife's stomach (this was no accident):

"One of them slid down into your stomach like a black cobra down into an echoing well looking for all the old water and the old time gathered there. It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated over the years? It fed in silence with an occasional sound of inner suffocation and blind searching. It had an Eye. The impersonal operator of the machine could, by wearing a special optical helmet, gaze into the soul of the person whom he was pumping out. What did the Eye see? He

did not say. He saw but did not see what the Eye saw" (p. 14).

The personification continues developing more richly and the layers of meaning are evident here. The "old water" and "old time" may symbolize some element of a fulfilling life that Millie once lived. The "green matter" might be the drudgery of her modern life; a drudgery she's ignorant of since her world is seeped through and through with selfishness and apathy. The physical eyes of the "impersonal operator" are layered with the metaphorical "Eye" but because the operator functions in the same technologically rampant, anti-social, and apathetic physical world he's unable to "see" the same reality as the "Eye" can comprehend. My interpretation may not be exactly what Bradbury had in mind, but I'm sure he'd be glad in knowing that someone is wrestling with his language and ideas.

F451 is rife with other multi-sensory and metaphoric language. Another example is when Montag experiences being in a darkened countryside for the first time:

"The land rushed at him, a tidal wave. He was crushed by darkness, and the look of the country and the million odors on a wind iced his body. He fell back under the breaking curve of darkness and sound and smell, his ears roaring. He whirled. The stars poured over his sight like flaming meteors" (p. 143).

Of course land does not "rush you" and neither does it overcome you like a tidal wave, and odors don't "ice" your body either, but the metaphors stick and our understanding of Montag's experience deepens. Some critics complain about Bradbury's clunky style. I'm not arguing that F451's dialogue is always perfectly fluid, but his use of figurative language had me re-reading certain passages just for the joy of it.

While parts of F451 read like poetry others are more akin to philosophy or sociology. Numerous conversations between characters take place that are ripe for real-life discussions. There are topics on collective vs. individual thinking, the influence of technology on relationships, and human nature's inclination toward laziness, jealousy, violence, and apathy. I often wrote in the margins of my F451 copy the word "prophet," not in a religious sense per se, but rather's Bradbury's keen ability to speak poignantly to the human condition. This is probably another reason why his works are so often read in high school classrooms everywhere.

There's been a fair share of criticism against the novel too. There's a part early in the novel when the main antagonist, Beatty, explains why books are burned. One of the reasons is minority people's overzealous feelings of political correctness and their capabilities to destroy anything that makes them feel uncomfortable. Even more heat has been directed against a section added in later publications titled the Coda. In this extra section Bradbury candidly adds more fuel to the fire (pun slightly intended) by calling out "dimwit editors" who "licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme." And more contentious he highlights "minorities" who feel they "have the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, [and] light the fuse" on anything they don't approve of. Rather than burn the book right now, I think these reasons like this are exactly why we need to pick it up and read it.

Highest Score - 5 Trophies

Writing: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆

Readability: 🏆🏆🏆🏆

Plot: 🏆🏆🏆

Characters: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆

Overall: 🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆