Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

                               

  I came to know about this book  (Fahrenheit 451) from an article   in  another book  ‘The View from the Cheap Seats’  by Neil Gaiman.  Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury  (1953)  is about  a time when  books are outlawed and  firemen are engaged to burn books. It was written ,not long  after  Nazis burned books , and eventually human beings.   McCarthyism  brought political repression in America. This brought censorship of  literature and art. These anxieties permeate the novel.

                             Bradbury  called the Los Angeles fire department and asked them  at what temperature  paper burned. Fahrenheit 451 , somebody told him   from the Fire department. This gave Bradbury the  title for his book. It did not matter if it was true or not. It is a book about  how we as humans begin by burning books  and end by burning people.

                    Its first film version   by Francois Truffaut  came in 1966. The second  film version   by Ramin Bahrani   came in 2018. Guy Montag  , a fireman whose job is  to burn books  and people who keep and read  books ( in stead of preventing things from  fire)    is the protagonist  of the book. There are powerful , kerosene –spitting flamethrowers  which are used to torch books.

               But after spending some time in burning books ,  Montag begins to question  his  job  and  beliefs and turns against his mentor and boss , Captain Betty  . He starts keeping and reading books. In a turn of events which bring fire men to his house , Montag kills his boss Beatty, two firemen and also the robotic hound. The rest is the story of Montag’s   running and escaping from  the  government , its helicopters , its media and its hounds.

                                         Censorship,   Internet , television , technology and    social media  are the real challenges to books  and to serious thought. Do people still care about physical books? In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury was warning us  about the threat of mass media  to reading , about the  flooding of digital sensations that could substitute for critical thinking. 

            This book  seems frighteningly relevant even today , about 67 years  after its publication. The mechanical Hound of the fire department , armed with a lethal hypodermic , escorted by helicopters , is ready to track down  those dissidents  who defy society  to preserve and read books. It is a  prophetic account of  civilization’s enslavement  by the media , drugs and conformity. It gives an uncanny insight into the  potential of technology. The questions Bradbury raises remain as valid and important today as they were when the book was written.

         This book is  a classic taught in high schools across America  , though  it appears more a book for  grown ups. This book was a winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. I recommend you to read this book.