Fahrenheit 451
By 
Ray Bradbury

“Fahrenheit 451” is a story set in the future at a time when the world has turned itself upside down.  The main character is a fireman, Guy Montag, who, like his fellow firemen, execute their roles unerringly and without the slightest emotion.  Except the firemen of this day do not put-out fires, they set them.  The fire departments of the future are charged with burning books, and the homes of people who harbor them.  Books are outlawed because should people read, whether it be the classics or contemporary thought-provoking manuscript, they might actually have thoughts.  Thoughts which lead to action and ultimately to disrupt the balance of power and control.

On one particular evening Guy is walking home from a burning and meets his neighbor, Clarisse.  Clarisse is a teenage girl with a surprising knack for getting under Guy’s skin and causing him to think.  To think about nature, society, and books.  One thing leads to another and Guy finds himself squirreling away books secretly, hiding him in the air vent of his house.  This is the beginning of a treachery and revolt for which there is no returning for Guy.  

Juxtaposed to this drama is Guy’s vapid wife, Mildred, who’s only ambition in life is to stare at television programs on monitors that wrap around their entire living room.  The television feeds the illusory sense that all is well in the world.  Of course, the content is controlled by the authorities who feed the audience a diet of treacle to anesthetize and subvert.  Television has replaced books, conversations, and thinking.  
Mildred becomes aware of her husbands’ criminal activities and turns him in resulting in the confrontation with the fire chief, Captain Beatty, Montag’s boss.  Beatty is surprisingly well read and clearly has an astute mind.  But it is twisted for the purposes of Big Brother.  I don’t want to spoil the face-off between Guy and Beatty, but suffice to say it results in Guy’s fleeing from authoritarian control.

Ray Bradbury wrote this book in 1953.  It was immediately after World War II, when Nazi’s burned books to control what people read and thought.  It was a time of the cold war and the Red Scare.  It was the beginning of the television era; and, it was a twitchy time, that clearly influenced Bradbury and other authors.

Although written some 70 years ago “Fahrenheit 451” is as prescient today as it was then.  The book calls-out mass media as indulgent drivel with the intent of reducing interest in reading.  Replacing it with subtle, and not so subtle, themes of political correctness…small steps towards thought control, speech control, and censorship.  It was, and is, a commentary on our disaffected generation which shouts-down the rational thinking man because they confront their morally corrupt preferences and habits.  At times it feels as if our world has been handed-over to the inmates to run the asylum.

 
If you are the slightest bit frightened by the trends of our times then you should read “Fahrenheit 451”.  Not because it will make you feel better.  It won’t.   You should read it because it will validate your concerns.  Perhaps enough to stand with Guy Montag.