Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Blurb:

Nearly seventy years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevant than ever before.

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Review:

One of the trifecta of dystopian fiction, alongside 1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 imagines a world in the distant future (written in 1953) where the governing powers have erased all traces of literature, art and free thinking machinations to render the public unthinking and subservient. Firemen—once tasked with saving humanity from incendiary emergencies—have now become a task force of book burnings and curbing dissension. 

But those aspects merely scratch the surface of what this novel explores. Now, before I can actually write my review, I have to admit that judging classics like this one has always been a tricky task for me. Who am I to say anything about something that has stood the test of time? Plus, to what extent should my modern sensibilities affect my review? Well, I don’t have any answer for the former, but I do have a clearer stance on the latter, which I’ll explain when we get there. So, without further ado, let’s begin—

What I liked:

I guess I’ve been reading way too many modern books, because diving into this one felt almost magical. There is something charming about a more fluid structure of narrative that doesn’t necessarily follow established rules of storytelling. All this to say, Ray Bradbury’s writing was a breath of fresh air, especially given that I haven’t read classic literature in a very long time. The prose masterfully set the atmosphere when needed and abandoned the senses in favor of emotions and philosophy when the book called for it. The smooth, sometimes lyrical, sometimes clinical writing with its occasional resorting to the literary equivalent of cinematic rapid cuts was as thrilling as it was captivating. 

Guy Montag was the perfect protagonist for this story. A man who has always dreamed of becoming a fireman, because that’s what he was raised to be by a fireman father and a fireman grandfather. Our opening scenes have Guy in the middle of a book-and-house burning, a visceral experience that made me want to open a window because of the suffocating smoke of Guy’s victim—criminal as per the law, but really we know who’s in the wrong here. As the story unfolds, Guy slowly begins to interact with dangerous ideas of free-thinking, resulting in a slow at first, and then frantic spiral out of his conditioning. The more he engages with these ideas, the more he begins to see the flaws in the society that he is a part of. 

The plot itself is pretty straightforward, explored in a way typical of classic literature. Everything is business as usual, until an unusual element disrupts the status quo, forcing our protagonist to go on a journey resulting in uncovering harsh realities of the world he lives in. But, every part of this journey is explored without holding back. The book is peaceful in the scant few moments of respite, suffocating in moments of action, and unsettling in moments of inner turbulence. Not once did I feel like putting the book down because I was fully immersed in this dystopian future, constantly rooting for Guy to do something drastic and topple the world powers. 

Now for the ending. SPOILERS (The book has been out for seven decades, but in case you don’t know and don’t want things spoiled):

Once Guy’s actions finally move from dissension to outright anti-establishment, the book becomes a high-paced survival drama. Guy scrambles from one place to another avoiding the Mechanical Hound, trying to make his way to a community which harbors books and readers. During this whole section, which is pretty much all of Part III, Bradbury reflects on the world at large, and burgeoning political tensions which up until now had been in the backdrop. Those tensions finally erupt in a world-ending threat, bombs falling (residual trauma from WW2) and civilization almost wiping out. It is in this section where the relevance of all of Guy’s moral dilemmas and the book’s conflicts come full circle. After all this time, the government that strived to burn books and free thought have crumbled under the crushing weight of their own ill-doings, while the rebels, dissenters, and survivors neatly cling on to the very salvation of civilization—knowledge. As bleak, daunting, and apprehensive as the book has been, the ending is surprisingly hopeful and tranquil. Bradbury’s way of telling us that no matter how hard the struggle, people must uphold what they know is true, for those very efforts will pay off one day. No matter how cruel the tyranny of powers absolute, human resilience will outlive them all. 

I did not expect to close this book with a feeling of lightheartedness and hope, a smile on my face and a sigh of relief escaping me. 

What I didn’t like:

Now, this portion is where things get tricky. The only thing that I did not enjoy about the book is really a product of its time. So, while the criticisms stay, it is important to note that the book was written in a different era, one where this was the norm. You can’t change the past, but ignoring it also won’t help us as a society.

I had only one issue with Fahrenheit 451, and it’s something I also constantly see with Asimov’s writing. The book fails the Bechdel test pretty poorly. The women in the book are all just housewives, dependent on their male partners to provide for their lavish lifestyles. Even Clarisse, the alleged free thinker who sparks the flames of Guy’s dissension, also mostly talks of her uncle. Unless I’m forgetting, we don’t really find out if Clarisse even has dreams of a career. I’m not just pointing this out because I need to include criticisms but because these issues are pretty blatant. Especially when looking at the book from a modern lens.

While its themes are relevant and beautifully explored, that doesn’t pardon the book’s flaws.

Conclusion:

Fahrenheit 451 is a beautifully written warning against thought control. Coming from a country whose government has consistently tried to change history in favor of their political leanings, while living in a world that’s increasingly connected via the internet but spends most of its time consuming content that results in brain rot, Fahrenheit 451 makes me wonder if we’ll ever escape the dystopia of our current times. 

TL;DR:

WHAT I LIKED: Exploration of relevant themes, writing, and ending.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: Sexism as expected from a book from that era.