Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

3/5 rating. 165 pages.

Book #13 of 2023. Read April 27, 2023.

This book tells of a dystopian future where everyone is completely involved in technology, no one interacts or cares about other people or nature, and there are “firemen” who burn books.

Obviously it’s probably cliche and pessimistic to say that some of Ray’s worst ideas in this book have come true, but I see some of these in today’s world. While they certainly haven’t completely taken hold of everyone, there is much too little regard for the people around us, with everyone way too involved in their phones or other entertainment to care about anything else. This is echoed by Guy Montag (the main character)’s wife and her wish to be more and more entertained at the expense of nearly anything else.

Guy’s fire-chief introduces the all-to-apropos idea that books and films became obsolete because people didn’t want to have to put in the effort to think and wanted everything boiled-down to a short snippet – you might almost call it a “short”, or “reel” or a “TikTok”…

The first 3/4’s of this book were between a 4 and 5 rating, but as is too often true, I thought the ending was rather dull. I absolutely loved the ideas (besides the ending) as I hate the way that we have become enthralled with everything but the present moment and those people and nature right in front of us. There is something said in here about the idea that it’s not books themselves that teach us and lead us to important findings, but how we interact and process them. As a huge reader, I think the ease of falling into TV, TikTok, or the next trend takes us away from “Deep Work” and interactions with the people and things that matter most in this world.

And for that, I loved this book by prompting this response, even if the story itself fell off. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic for a reason, and Ray wrote a true – beautifully short – masterpiece.

Quotes:

“We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”

“Montag, you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. 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.”

“But that’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.”

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