Fahrenheit 451

Title: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

Pages: 158

Genre: Dystopian Fiction

Synopsis:

“Fahrenheit 451- The temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns.”

Guy Montag is a fireman. 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 when 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, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

(from Goodreads)

My Thoughts:

I really liked this book. In my opinion, this is the best Dystopian Fiction that I read since 1984. I definitely liked this book better than Brave New World.

From beginning to end we are with our main character Guy Montag. We see him at the beginning thinking he had a good job with an okay life until he meets Clarisse and he slowly realizes how boring and bland his life really is. One of the best things that I love about this book is exploring Guy Montag’s mental state as he slowly realizes that he doesn’t enjoy the life that he is currently living and begins to think that books should not be destroyed (Guy Montag is a fireman and in this society, the firemen burn books). Guy Montag is the best character and is definitely the most well-rounded character.

I also like the battle of ideology in this book between Guy Montag and his boss Captain Beatty. Guy Montag realizes the importance of having books, while his boss Captain Beatty who hates books due to unpleasant content and contradicting facts and opinions.

Even though this book teaches about the importance of books, I also liked its anti-nuclear war message. I feel like this is a less talked about part of the book, everybody seems to focus on the book burning and saving the books but not the anti-nuclear war message. Throughout the book, there is talk about war possibly happening and the threat of nuclear apocalypse hangs over throughout the entire novel. It definitely helps build the tension in the novel, as in addition to Montag escaping the society that he’s living in, he has to survive a nuclear war.

If I have one criticism of this novel is some of its lore. In one part of the novel, Montag briefly mentions that they survived two atomic wars. I know it’s a small thing but this one line got me asking several questions such as: How is there any sort of society left after two nuclear wars? How is anything growing? Wouldn’t there be a lot of radiation out there along with other problems that arise from Nuclear Wars? I get that this was made in 1953 but knowing what we know now about Nuclear Weapons this small part of the novel did not age well.

If you are a book lover and want to root for a person trying to save books and preserve literary and cultural writings, this is definitely a book I recommend. This is definitely one of the better dystopian novels that I have read and one that I think I will revisit someday.

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