Why should you read "Fahrenheit 451"?

“It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure

to see things eaten,
to see things blackened and changed.”

Fahrenheit 451 opens in a blissful blaze
- and before long,

we learn what’s going up in flames.
Ray Bradbury’s novel imagines a world

where books are banned from all
areas of life - and possessing,

let along reading them, is forbidden.
The protagonist, Montag, is a fireman

responsible for destroying what remains.
But as his pleasure gives way to doubt,

the story raises critical questions
of how to preserve one’s mind in

a society where free will, self-expression,
and curiosity are under fire.

In Montag’s world, mass media
has a monopoly on information,

erasing almost all ability
for independent thought.

On the subway, ads blast out of the walls.
At home, Montag’s wife Mildred listens to

the radio around the clock,
and three of their parlor walls

are plastered with screens.
At work, the smell of kerosene

hangs over Montag’s colleagues,
who smoke and set their mechanical

hound after rats to pass the time.
When the alarm sounds they surge

out in salamander-shaped vehicles,
sometimes to burn whole

libraries to the ground.
But as he sets tomes ablaze day

after day like “black butterflies.”
Montag’s mind occasionally wanders

to the contraband that
lies hidden in his home.

Gradually, he begins to question
the basis of his work.

Montag realizes he’s always felt uneasy -
but has lacked the descriptive words

to express his feelings in a society where
even uttering the phrase

“once upon a time” can be fatal.
Fahrenheit 451 depicts a world governed

by surveillance, robotics, and virtual
reality - a vision that proved remarkably

prescient, but also spoke to
the concerns of the time.

The novel was published in 1953,
at the height of the Cold War.

This era kindled widespread paranoia
and fear throughout Bradbury’s home country

of the United States, amplified by the
suppression of information

and brutal government investigations.
In particular, this witch hunt mentality

targeted artists and writers who
were suspected of Communist sympathies.

Bradbury was alarmed at
this cultural crackdown.

He believed it set a dangerous
precedent for further censorship,

and was reminded of the destruction of
the Library of Alexandria and the

book-burning of Fascist regimes.
He explored these chilling connections

in Fahrenheit 451, titled after the
temperature at which paper burns.

The accuracy of that temperature
has been called into question,

but that doesn’t diminish the novel’s
standing as a masterpiece

of dystopian fiction.
Dysoptian fiction as a genre amplifies

troubling features of the world around us
and imagines the consequences

of taking them to an extreme.
In many dystopian stories,

the government imposes
constrictions onto unwilling subjects.

But in Fahrenheit 451, Montag learns that
it was the apathy of the masses that gave

rise to the current regime.
The government merely capitalized on

short attention spans and the appetite
for mindless entertainment,

reducing the circulation of ideas to ash.
As culture disappears,

imagination and self-expression follow.
Even the way people talk is short-circuited

- such as when Montag’s boss Captain Beatty
describes the acceleration of mass culture:

"Speed up the film, Montag, quick.
Click? Pic? Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here,

There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out,
Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh!

Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!
Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests.

Politics? One column, two sentences, a
headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes!

In this barren world, Montag learns
how difficult it is to resist when there’s

nothing left to hold on to.
Altogether, Fahrenheit 451 is a portrait

of independent thought on the brink
of extinction - and a parable about a

society which is complicit
in its own combustion.