This is a beautiful book. It astounds me that I did not read it earlier in life !!!
Fahrenheit 451 is a very short read, yet the societal values described in its pages seem just as relevant today as when this book was written in 1951.
“Live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ASS.”
Summary
The book describes a society where books are banned, and an agency known as Firefighters are tasked with going around and destroying books with fire. It follows a firefighter named Guy Montag, who starts having an epiphany that his actions might be wrong. He is finally pushed off the edge when he learns of his neighbor's death.
Bet I know something else you don’t. There’s dew on the grass in the morning.
I’m antisocial, they say. I don’t mix. It’s so strange. I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn’t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this.
Guy Montag starts reading books he has secretly stashed away and realizes something is missing in his life.
He starts questioning society, which leads to a turn of events from which there is no coming back.
Takeaways
Here are my three takeaways from this book
- A society engrossed with the ‘family.’
- Well-laid plans can change quickly
- The dangers of not speaking up
A society engrossed with the ‘family.’
The story is set in a future where televisions have evolved to take over entire walls of the living room. Wealthy people often have all four walls covered with moving pictures - also known as Parlor families - people that constantly talk. These walls can be upgraded and personalized - so that the characters on the screen say your name. Society in the book has become so engrossed and captivated by the ‘walls’ that they have lost interest in books.
Note - This technology is a fantastic, forward-thinking vision, given that this book was written in 1951.
In the book, Montag encounters Professor Faber, who helps him understand how to understand books -
It’s not the books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the ‘parlor families’ today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisons, but are not.
This is one of the main messages in this book. Television has dumbed down the intellectual content that people once received from books.
Facts are distilled for entertainment.
News of wars is ignored.
Given a vast variety of choices (as it is available today), most people will prefer non-intellectual content.
Well-laid plans can change quickly.
Guy Montag and Professor Faber make a long-term plan to ‘fight the system.’
However, Montag’s epiphany moves along faster than intended and unfurls his psyche.
Montag cannot contain his emotions when dealing with his wife’s friends and has an outburst that causes his wife and her friend’s to out him. His fire chief forces him to burn his own house the next day. This is where this book kicks into a fast pace - when facing arrest, Montag has to act quickly and ends up killing his fire chief.
I did not see this part of the story coming.
The whole plan that Montag and Faber dreamed up has changed. It’s probably for the best, as Montag escapes the city, only to see the city later destroyed by an atomic explosion.
The dangers of not speaking up
Civilizations have been fraught with people who have chosen to remain quiet when they see injustices.
This book is most likely a protest of the communist witchhunts and book censorships ramping up in the 50s. However, this message has been just as relevant every decade before and after the writing of this book.
Faber
I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself. And when finally they set the structure to burn the books, using the firemen, I grunted a few times and subsided, for there were no others grunting or yelling with me, by then. Now, it’s too late.
Grainger
[“]Come on now, we’re going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them.”
Audiobook
I highly recommend the audiobook version narrated by Tim Robbins, as he does a great job conveying this book's depth, message, and emotion.