Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

Author: Ray Bradbury | Page Count: 227

"And when he died, I suddenly realised I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again..."

Ray Bradbury's masterpiece tells of an unspecified future time when the written word is considered anathema, books are burned for their heretic meanings and too much knowledge is strictly forbidden.

If one man is smarter than another, it makes the other man feel shame and inadequacy. The state doesn't want that. They want everyone to be happy, and to achieve that they must make everyone the same. They want no one to question the equilibrium or to protest against the unfairness of the world that they've help create.

Television is the dominant information medium, a permanent fixture in almost every home, delivering sound and fury but saying nothing and somehow meaning even less. Life for the populace slithers along under a coloured blanket; the colour is grey and occasionally the colour of flame, but only if you try to think for yourself, if you risk going against the established order.

If you dare to own a book and get found out, then the firemen will come and burn it (and your home) because that's what firemen do. It's what firemen have always done, isn't it? Montag asks that question and the consequences of such an independent, suffering thought turn his peaceful and ordered life into an inferno of frightened indecision and instinctual abrupt actions.

It's a dystopian novel, but that doesn't mean it's doleful or depressing. Bradbury doesn't do depressing - he does heartfelt and cordial emotion, tinged with a beautiful sadness that touches a reader's heart in a very special way. You can read an entire page effortlessly because his prose flows like water over glass, but stop and take the time to examine the words and you'll likely be amazed at their strength and subtle power. I'm in awe of how the great man was able to mould the often crudely used English language into something so beautifully moving but understated.

It's a fairly short book but it has many enduring ideas, some of which have the potential to remain with, and influence, a reader forever. If I was to be burned for owning a book, it would be for owning Fahrenheit 451. I own multiple copies, so they'd have to work overtime finding them.