Farenheit 451

‘Fahrenheit 451: the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns.’

Hard to believe this classic sci-fi novel was published in 1953. Ray Bradbury was an award winning and prolific American writer, mostly of sci-fi, mostly short stories but also a few full-length novels, of which this is one.

As the novel opens, we find ourselves in an unnamed city in a future post-literate society, where stupidity and dumbing down are applauded. This society has evolved as a place where people are mindlessly watching inane television programmes on their massive surround wall screens, listening to, and obeying the government in all things. A society where people are kept in a state of unthinking stupidity. Here Guy Montag is a fireman. But a fireman with a difference. His job, and that of all his colleagues, is to seek out and destroy that most illegal of all things, the source of all discord and unhappiness: the printed book. And whenever an alarm comes in reporting a cache of illegal books, Guy and the others jump on their fire engine, the Salamander, race to the location, pump kerosene onto the property and then set it ablaze with their flamethrowers, burning both books and sometimes the owners as well.

When the story begins, Guy is starting to feel a little uneasy about his job. This uneasiness is exacerbated when he meets the neighbour’s 15-year-old daughter, Clarissa, who with her family are free spirits, thinking for themselves, reading where and what they can. Guy compares this existence of light and laughter with his own; a wife who does nothing but watch her shallow ‘family’ on the screens, who overdoses without knowing why, and who ends up reporting him because he does not conform. Before long he is on the run from his former colleagues, the police and the general mind numbed population. What follows is an exciting tale of Montag escaping and meeting the ‘hobos’, old people who keep books, not in their pockets but in their heads.

My verdict
This book is very well written. The story is gripping and the prose is extraordinary. And the atmosphere which Bradbury has created, of this repressive society of the future, is really unpleasant and threatening. Using powerful language and imagery he describes the firemen and their work and brings to life the Salamander, flamethrowers, red and black, the mechanical hound, and the Salamander asleep with kerosene in its belly, and much more.

The city is an unspecified place at an unspecified time, which adds to the tension, as does the very end when the war comes and the city is bombed: “The city rolled over and fell down dead. The sound of its death came after”. What an image!

Farenheit 451 was written at the height of the Cold War and the McCarthy era, and was inspired by the Nazi book burnings of the 1930s. Over the years since it was published, it has been banned many times and in many places; most notably Apartheid South Africa and through the Bible Belt in the United States of America. Ray Bradbury’s novel may have been published 71-years ago but it’s still a powerful story and deserves nothing less than 5 Stars.
Review by: Freyja, Oundle Crime