Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

"We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam."

This story takes place in a futuristic world where books are banned and burned. Guy Montag, whose job it is to burn the books, is about to become an enemy of the state.

I'm having a hard time thinking critically about this book. It wasn't a difficult read, it was scary in certain places, and I found it deeply enjoyable (sometimes classic lit can drag on), and relevant to today's societal and political problems. Yet the review doesn't come easy.

Guy Montag lives a life of normalcy. He gets up and goes to work everyday, lucky enough to have a job he enjoys. He comes home to his wife, Mildred who spends her days watching tv. Watching television has become a favorite hobby of the people of this dystopian society, their house installed with three wall-tvs, and Mildred begging for a fourth. She's the epitome of this 'perfect' society. She's been brainwashed into thinking she's happier this way, glued to her programs, but she can't remember her past (you know, that thing that shapes us) and is even unaware of her recent suicide attempt that suggests her subconcious is decidely unhappy.

Montag gets new neighbors, the McClellans, and with them comes his meeting and eventual friendship with Clarisse, who represents what society should be, or at least what it used to be. She's full of questions, ideas, and stories. She seeks knowledge when she's not supposed to and almost as dangerously, she remembers. Her friendship breaks through Montag's inculcated state, pushing him into an intellectual awakening from which there is no return.

This review comes on the wings of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the somewhat fishy cancelation of Stephen Colbert, the firing and rehiring of Jimmy Kimmel, and an interview in which President Trump announced that he'd like to silence any media that criticizes him. There are people in this country who think the violation of our First Amendment Rights is, and should be, the normal. And in this book, it is the normal. No one may read, people should believe what the governnment wants them to belive, and they should fill their days with 'fun' like watching tv or playing sports and no matter how obedient its the citizens become, the government remains at war with its own people.

I usually try not to include politics or current events in my blog to avoid conflict with my readers, but the idea of silencing people because they disagree with you or are too well read is horrifying to me. And the threat to free speech in today's real-life society has become very real. Now maybe you disagree with me, maybe you believe that Trump doesn't have the power or the inclination to remove books he finds disagreeable from public consumption, and maybe your right and I'm overreacting. That's fine. You have a right to your opinion but in order for your opinion to be true, you have to let me keep the right to mine.

Ray Bradbury paints a portrait of a world in which the people have no right to think critically. No right to be unhappy. No right to read. And any violation of the new world order leads to a swift and televised execution. This is a world in which the main character goes from hunter to hunted. And in my opinion, this book lives up to its 70+ years hype.

And I'd like to use this post to remind you of this: