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(This review may contain mild spoilers, but then again, you've had 58 years to read it so I don't feel particularly guilty about spoiling it)
This is one of those books that I feel needs no introduction. Everyone knows Fahrenheit 451, and the significance of the number. This is one of those books that will always be relevant. Every generation will probably feel like it's "more relevant now than ever before", just like the quote on the front of this edition says. I picked this copy up as part of a second hand book haul I treated myself to on my birthday, from a wonderful second hand bookshop that has now, tragically (and ironically) burnt down.
(As a side note, this was incredibly heartbreaking. I've been going to this bookshop for over 15 years. Family members have worked there in the past, it has a place very close to my heart. 400,000 books, including irreplaceable pieces of history have been lost. There's a gofundme page to support the staff here, where you can also read more about the incident)
In the not-too-distant future, in a world where books are illegal, firemen don't put out fires any more; they start them. The firemen, Guy Montag included are responsible for burning books, and the houses that hide them. Montag is happy in his job and his life, never questioning the devastation he wreaks, or his loveless marriage to Mildred, who spends all day obsessed with her television "family" . Until, that is, chance encounters with an eccentric young girl, Clarisse, and an old English Professor, Faber, leave him questioning everything he knows. Is it true that in the past, people weren't afraid, and books enriched the world? Could the future be the same?
It always takes me a hot minute to get used to Bradbury's writing. It's rich and intense, for sure, and his storytelling, and ability to paint a picture are excellent. Sometimes though, it's just a bit...much. Metaphors often run on for that little bit too long, and by the time you reach the end you have to scan back to the beginning of the paragraph to remind yourself of what's actually happening. I didn't find it as bad in Fahrenheit as I did in the first Bradbury book I read - Something Wicked This Way Comes, but I'm not sure if that's a difference in the writing itself or if I'm just gradually becoming more attuned to Bradbury's voice. It's short and compact, clocking in at less than 200 pages, but still manages to create an involved story. I definitely would have liked more exposition/detail though, so many things that would be so interesting to learn more about are brushed over - couldn't Montag's journey of self discovery also have included him becoming even more aware of the wider world around him, not just the world of firemen? Although I'm not sure if I would have liked more time with Montag, he isn't a particularly likeable main character - Clarisse and Faber are far more interesting, and it's a real shame that they are used only as vehicles to drive our protagonist to self awareness, only to be afterwards discarded.
I already knew the basics about Fahrenheit before I dived into it. I knew about books being illegal, I knew about the the firemen and the burning. What I didn't know how it all came to pass. I was expecting some sort of huge event, a massive proclamation that drew a line in the sand, where everything was normal before, and a dystopian nightmare afterwards, but it wasn't like that at all. As Montag's boss, Fire Chief Beatty tells it, it was gradual. Attention spans waned, instead of whole novels, people wanted tabloids, summaries, snap endings. Life was immediate, the populace gravitated towards short term gratification. TVs got bigger and bigger, until they filled an entire wall, then two, then three, then all four walls of your living room, blasting constant, shallow content into your eyeballs and earholes 24/7. Intellectualism and education became the pursuit of snobs, and no one wants to feel stupid when confronted with something they don't understand. The masses were placated with loud, bright, meaningless trash, while the government quietly became totalitarian, but who cares, because nothing outside your own personal bubble is important.
We may not be at the illegal book phase yet, but it's easy to draw parallels, even from almost 60 years ago, with today's society - particularly social media, the unending content streams, and the constant, short, get-to-the-point style of news reporting. Summarise it in a minute, in 30 seconds, in 15. Click-bait headlines, slacktivism, the now infamous declaration that the people are "sick of experts", politicians elected on appearance alone, all of it springs to mind with this book in your hand. Although the initial message of the book was a warning of television taking over literature, the themes of immediate gratification and censorship remain pertinent - Bradbury unwittingly captured a future several decades more distant than the one he was originally looking towards.
However, there is one big part of this book that I can't really get on board with. It would be remiss of me to write a review on Fahrenheit 451 without addressing the Coda at the end of the book, an addendum, added to later editions where Bradbury goes on a rant about censorship of his own books. Without the Coda it can be interpreted that the minorities that must be appeased by the initial book burning and censorship that turns literature into "a nice blend of vanilla tapioca" are minorities of thought compared only to society as a whole - after all, the examples given include "White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin? Burn it." and "Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.", white people and Big Tobacco, not exactly the underdogs of any story. Without the Coda, the outlaws in the woods, all old college professors, claim that they don't want the knowledge stored up in their heads to mark them out as any better than anyone else, and we believe them.
However, I feel like the Coda changed the whole tone of the novel for me, not necessarily in a good way. While he does, rightfully, argue against his book being censored and summarised without his permission, the post script also reveals Bradbury's true colours - fiercely opposed to all political correctness, which he thinks will destroy free speech, and a belief that books are superior to all other forms of media. Knowing this, it's hard now not to see some bigotry and elitism bubbling under the surface, and for me the novel became less about the risks of apathy, and more about the dangers of political correctness - something that Bradbury confirmed in later interviews. There's nuance in the arguments for/against censorship and political correctness. A grey area too vast for me to cover in a book review, but the bitterness in the Coda definitely tainted what came before.
While I'm not going to hold this book up on a pedestal, I've always disagreed with lauding classics simply because they're "classics", I would still definitely say that this is an important read that everyone should tackle at least once. At least it won't take you long, and it certainly leaves you with a lot to consider afterwards.
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