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Fahrenheit 451
Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian novel that tells of a future where books are illegal and firemen burn them when they are found.
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury tells the story of Guy Montag, who lives in a future where books are not allowed. He works as a fireman, but not one who puts fires out. Firemen in this story start fires. When books are found in a home, they are burned, along with the house they are found in.
Montag's job is to destroy the the printed books, along with the houses in which he finds them. He never questions the destruction his actions produce, and returns home every day to his boring life.
In this society, people pay little attention to nature or even to each other, for that matter.
Montag enjoys his job. He likes to see things "blackened and changed." He likes the feel of the nozzle in his hands as he floods the house with kerosene, anticipating the pretty orange flame after he flicks the igniter.
Until he meets his young neighbor, Clarisse.
Late one night, Montag exits the subway and walks toward his home. He thinks he hears a whisper, or maybe someone breathing. He turns the corner and sees her.
He says she must be their new neighbor. She says he must be the fireman. He smells of kerosene.
He tells her his wife complains about the smell, that you never quite get rid of it. He says it's nothing but perfume to him.
She asks if that's really how he feels about it.
They walk together and continue their conversation. She talks of things not usually discussed. About her family. About her uncle who talks of another time.
Montag tells her she thinks too many things.
As they part, she asks him if he's happy. He laughs and calls the question nonsense.
He walks on toward his home. He's not laughing now. Something about their conversation disturbs him. He's not happy. He admits it to himself. He's not happy. He has only pretended to be.
Montag enters his house to find that his wife Mildred has taken an overdose of sleeping pills. He calls Emergency Hospital.
Two men are working to save Mildred's life. Neither is an M.D. Montag asks why an M.D. wasn't sent from Emergency.
They tell him they get these kinds of cases eight or ten times a night. They say they got so many a new machine was built so an M.D. was not needed.
It seems Montag is not the only unhappy one in this society.
From the back cover
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 the sales page
Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.
Available from Amazon
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I suspect that in today's would (as I write this in April of 2025) some folks would be fine with burning books.
Conservative groups in nearly every state are constantly targeting books about anything they don't want others to read. Especially books about race and racism or individuals of color and books on LGBTQ+ topics. Also books that have sexual references or discuss sexual violence.
One would think these people who complain so much were being forced to read these books themselves. They are not, of course.
They don't have to buy them.They don't even need to look at them. They can leave them in the bookstore. Leave them on the library shelves. They don't need to let their children read them.
But they want to decide for everyone what should and should not be read. They want to take your freedom to choose for yourself what you and your children read. And they have no right to do that.
Let's hope the story told in Fahrenheit 451 remains fiction.
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My book, SAVING KATY, is about a young family split apart when Katy follows her mother into a non-denominational church that turns out to be more like a cult. As Katy's husband learns more about the beliefs of the church, he tells Katy he will not have their children exposed to such teachings. He vows to do whatever is necessary to see that it doesn't happen.
Available from Amazon
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