Fahrenheit 451, also known as "The Fire Man"
Written by: Raymond Bradbury
Who?: You should know this already. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouShouldKnowThisAlready]
Genre: Dystopian Fiction, Drama
Publisher: Random House
Dedication: Don Congdon
Year: 1953
Length: 201 pages
For your eyes only
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It was a pleasure to burn. Such an auspicious greeting the book presents us with. Fahrenheit 451 is a book of magnificent grace and horror all at the same time, and giving keen insight into an atrocious and almost unfathomable dystopia that the book reveals to be not that far away if human kind is willing to stray far from reason. The book is a first person narrative of Guy Montag, a 'fireman' in alternate history 1994 United States in an unspecified large metropolitan center, and his life over the course of about a week as he goes from his position in thinking life could be no different than it was, to a strong advocacy from the horrible things he actually did as his job as a fireman. Firemen do not put out fires, but in fact set them up in the book. Their sole purpose is to be on call to burn and destroy books and written literature (Paper ignites at 451°F, which is actually a underestimate by the author, off by about 300 degrees). The motive behind what one would think to be a completely foolish and unwise act is that "all books are of fictitious or fallacious nature devoid of anything useful... ..philosphers arguing and going nowhere, or otherwise giving humankind justification for rash or ludicrous thought. Romeo and Juliet are not real, end of story", hence all Shakespearean works are done away with. It is a crime to be in possesion of books, and if you do, the Firemen are called to your home, they burn your residence and you are arrested to rot forever in a cell.
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The story begins with Guy describing him finishing up from work, coming back to the fire station after spraying down a house with a heaping helpful of kerosene and harsh words from his comrades. Upon retiring and beginning on his journey home, he meets a provocative young girl named Clairisse who with her young and naive thinking brings Guy to a point were he begins thinking "Since when could the world have this much depth?". She easily provokes his mind for probably the first time by asking "Are you truly happy?". The world in which he lives is almost Anarchic, complete with highway signs reading 'Minimum speed 70mph' and only shown in schools are the most modern of random pieces of old film and recent action movies filmed in what remains of Hollywood, apparently. He goes home and due to a bomb going off, he is knocked unconscious and recuperated some time later by some fellows with some kind of medical gear that replace all of his blood in a few minutes.The bomb near his home is caused by a bomber in a war which no one is ever informed much of because there is no time inbetween the commercial breaks of everyone's favorite mind-numbing drivel on televisions [called Wall-screens in the book, probably not unlike projectors]. A subject which easily introduces Montag's wife Mildred. There is a simple excerpt that describes her perfectly:Later in the book it demonstrates her devotion to the televisions greater-so when she watches a show she refers to as "The Family" (which apparently Jesus Christ is a member of the cast, but has become a novelty character and none of a symbol/deity of a religion), which at that Montag asks her "If the family really loves [her] or if it cares if [she] exists at all".Chapter 1 said:
Guy is dispatched the next day to another house and the woman residing within maintains a notable collection of books, a small library. Once the kerosene was evenly dispersed against her wishes, the old lady interrupts and procures a match, as dangerous to all the inhabitants as a bomb in the instance. She ignites herself and the building as if to martyr herself on behalf of literature, the event greatly puzzles Montag for some time, all the while troubling him. He for so long had been exuberant and loving of setting things on fire (I imagine him as the face behind the Pyro in TF2, and the characterization fits quite well), and now he felt guilty of murder or somesuch, no one had ever protested so much as to give their life for books before to his eyes. Rooting through some investigation files regarding suspicious persons that may/may not have books, Guy finds, and them meets Faber, a cowardly old man who is old enough to remember the olden days when books were the bane of ignorance and stupidity.
[img_inline caption="Guy and Cheif Beatty, the incarnate advocacy for the Political Correctness of No Books. Scene frame from the 1966 film Adaptation." width=400]http://rosenblumtv.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/fahrenheit451.jpg[/img_inline]
The two talk to each other and Guy discusses that he wishes to bring down the horrible system which maintains the ideals of the destruction of written knowledge. Faber declines, but then agrees quickly as Guy threatens to tear apart a copy of one of the rarest books on the planet in Faber's possession; a complete Bible. The day after, Montag goes to work for the last time in his mind, making up that the day would be a sabotage of the functions of the fire men, and then would run away from the anarchic existence of the city and his unloving wife. Out of suspicion, the fire chief assigns the crew to burn Montag's house, which Montag is forced to do so. Upon this ending, The chief taunts Montag and he sets him on fire, burning him to death. Montag escapes the city away from the pursuing firemen forces and a robotic hound, out to a small grouping of hobos; College Professors, Doctorates and University teachers, exiled due to their knowledge of the world previous the anarchy and hatred of books. They describe themselves as Book covers, themselves all having memorizing entire texts and written by particular authors to ensure the works cannot be destroyed unless they are.The city is bombed flat by a large carpet-bombing and almost nothing remains, and the book ends with the group beginning a trek into the great unknown with great amounts of wisdom in their minds to bring the world into an intellectual rebirth.
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The themes developed upon in the story are haunting in their ability to implicate what a horrid place the world may become if without predicate knowledge to nurture the human race, it delves unhappily but gaily into a world of entertainment and escapism from which it eventually does no want to return, until it realizes it is not actually joy that all of situations are presenting or simulating.Quite a demonstrative quoth of society of that age, and how Montag rebels against it all to an anti-resolution by the end.Chapter 2 said:
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All in all regardless of what you have read or what you like, this is a book like 1984 or Lord of the Rings which has to be read if you want to have backing in good literature, or to just get a good thought process going on human nature, and how easily the balance of knowledge and entertainment can be upset.
Get it from your Local Library, To-day! If they don't have it, something is wrong with your library.
Get it from your Local Library, To-day! If they don't have it, something is wrong with your library.
