From the Bookshelf of On Paths Unknown…

Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

Start date: December 27, 2015

Finish date: March 30, 2018

Discussion: CENSORSHIP vs FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Why we're reading this: To discuss relevant issues of censorship.
[close] To discuss relevant issues of censorship.

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 3 topics — 124 comments total

CENSORSHIP vs FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Fahrenheit 451 Part 3 : Burning Bright
By Traveller · 40 posts · 30 views

last updated Feb 11, 2016 12:18AM

Fahrenheit 451 Part 2: The Sieve and the Sand
By Traveller · 13 posts · 10 views

last updated Jan 19, 2016 08:55AM

showing 3 of 3 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Feb 18, 2012 Paul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: end-of-world-dystopian-apocalyptic

Brief and easy to read dystopian novel that has not dated as much as it might have, given that it was written almost 60 years ago. Bradbury's dystopia is remarkably prescient, given that TV is dominant on four walls in a room with reality shows the most popular. The story is well known; Guy Montag is a fireman, and firemen now are responsible not for putting out fires, but for burning books, which are now banned. Montag begins to see another way of thinking and rebels.
Bradbury described this tal ...more

28 likes · Like · see review

Dec 30, 2020 Dillwynia Peter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For me, Fahrenheit 451 tackles two themes: censorship and conformist banality. The 1950s US was not all happy times for all: if you actively sought the American Dream of home and car ownership, and that home overflowing with modern gadgets then you would be happy. Challenging that conformity made you unhappy and in the government & society morals, a threat. While the masses were scrabbling for this dream & accidentally creating a new class of American - the business magnate – there were others w For me, Fahrenheit 451 tackles two themes: censorship and conformist banality. The 1950s US was not all happy times for all: if you actively sought the American Dream of home and car ownership, and that home overflowing with modern gadgets then you would be happy. Challenging that conformity made you unhappy and in the government & society morals, a threat. While the masses were scrabbling for this dream & accidentally creating a new class of American - the business magnate – there were others who challenged this idea. Those of course, often ended up in front of the Un-American Committee, and leaving with shattered careers, especially in the arts and media. Even if you didn’t, it had a ripple effect on the thinkers. America had just fought for Freedom, and within 10 years it was being taken away in a very insidious and passive, persuasive way. I thus consider this novel another within the Anti-American Dream canon.

Fast forward 60 years, and some of the banality predicted here is ramped up. With the introduction of an easy access TV to all, Bradbury was not thrilled by the mash dished up. This is the time of the development of the situation comedy – the sitcom – and although there are some shining lights in the mix (time looks much more favourable on the Lucille Ball franchise and the ground broken, then it was in its day) – there was also a lot of dross. Programmes that are largely forgotten because the premise and plots were predictable and hackneyed. Bradbury predicted correctly that the form would eventually remove actors and replace the cast with the general public – the contemporary Reality TV.

One has to be careful when reviewing past media and art, because there has always been a heavy bias towards mediocre and banal art over those pearls that are with us forever and form part of the canon of Earth culture. Our evidence is in such references as Cervantes in Don Quixote and Austen in Northanger Abbey. Both pillory popular reading of their individual day, with many a reference that is lost to the contemporary reader. Our time shall come when historians will highlight a particular contemporary programme or book and rate it as the turning point in cultural progression. Meanwhile, we are bombarded with banal art, such that we can feel like there is no exceptional works being produced. Thus, it is very easy to read into Fahrenheit 451 that one needs to consume the classics and this will all stop. If we did that, then no one would be reading this novel and getting the messages within. New works still need to be produced to tell us and future generations about the human condition, but only a few shall be passed down, the rest shall be composed and recycled as pulp in the future.

The main characters in this book really gave me a lot to contemplate: Montag, the questioner; Mildred, his wife; Clarisse, the misfit; and Beatty, the Chief Fireman. Persistent defiance often has the effect of causing the conformists to question. Why are you not joining us, the winners? Montag, the fireman, sees this almost every day with people preferring to die with their burning library than be “happy”. He questions, and of course curiosity about why books are banned. This is a common trait/ condition with any aggressive censorship – people want to know what they are missing out on. He discovers books can bring on a range of emotions and thoughts, and this comes as a shock to him, so it is hardly surprising that he turns rebel.

Mildred personifies what happens when one conforms. She is bland, dull, and strangely unhappy – otherwise she wouldn’t be taking sleeping pill overdoses, or just sleeping pills for that matter. Her devotion to her programmes is again nothing new – ratings on the volumes of people who watch a particular programme on their initial airing shows us this; the queues for the latest Apple product or new release film on Boxing Day; or the later Harry Potter book releases. As per those that truly get caught up in the hype, Mildred feels she has a rapport with the “family” on the big screens. How often do fans get sucked in to basically feeling the show is talking to them exclusively? Well, Stephen King wrote a horror novel based on this idea.

Conversely, Clarisse is the misfit and non-conformist. She doesn’t enjoy any of the usual activities society and her peers like. Her family are also non-conformist by not owning a big screen and talking about ideas late into the night. She represents the opposite to Mildred – a free thinker, and what a life immersed in books can lead to; developing ideas and challenging the norm. They disappear one night, leaving the reader unsettled: did they run away from the authorities or were they killed? Beatty hints that they were exterminated.

Beatty is the most challenging character for me. He represents authority, but also has this sly side of obviously being exceptionally well read. He is that stern father figure that represents morals and upholding the laws. It was the quotations that really bothered me. Is he a reformed intellectual? or is he worse: akin to the Nazi intelligentsia that deliberately fostered behaviours that internally they would find repugnant. Dumbing a populace to accept is always an interesting concept; over time the pool of thinking intelligent leaders has to shrink, finally producing an intellectual bottleneck, or a coup from a rebel underground group. That tight control of power is not limitless over time. Beatty is like a seasoned espionage agent: he tries to entice Montag into returning into the fold, but then announced Montag would be arrested – what would that entail I thought? Who would do the interrogating; would it be Beatty? We don't find out, but there is a sense of the disappearances that were so pervasive in communist or militant controlled regimes of the 1950's.

Banality creates callous behaviours. In the efforts to strive to find excessive happiness, the wives of the soldiers show no sorrow towards their deaths. There is no glory in these wars, because they are not acknowledged beyond the “it happened, and now let’s move on” mentality; there is no monuments or memorials, no days of remembrance. In fact, it is more a glossing over of a death, thus removing any emotion that is maudlin or melancholy. A woman quickly becomes re-married to another man to complete the happy homemaking. Although not one to embrace war remembrance, it was interesting to see an adult society completely saccharined. It felt quite disconcerting. The callous nature extends to reckless driving. Hit and run is the norm, to the extent that teens get their licences and go night driving on a spree to see what they can kill. Again, it’s the thrill and excitement and the complete removal of compassion, regret and morals. I could see Bradbury’s logic here – an abundance of “happiness” and other uplifting emotions such as adrenalin rushes creates a sense of wanton selfishness. My happiness overrides your misery.

The final scenes are worthy of thought: Montag escapes the authorities, and an innocent bystander replaces Montag to satisfy the crowd’s taste for retribution. The bombing of the city was interesting. Why? War is conveniently declared and a direct strike hits the city – the same city that Montag is theoretically hidden in. I wondered if the authorities were prepared to destroy an entire city to remove a dangerous dissident. It isn’t far-fetched when you consider what has gone on immediately before – some innocent dweller becomes a victim of the system to conveniently show the community that they are effective in getting rid of society's problems. One dissenter could inspire others to revolt – and this showed me how fragile this system, and thus all authoritarian systems, are. What they claimed to have achieved, and the actuality was not in sync. Something we always see in such states.

This will throw some readers, but I have come to realise I actually don’t like Bradbury’s writing style & plots that drive his concepts. I do love his thinking of society’s behaviours and reactions, and pushing his philosophy to almost hyperbole thus revealing the ugly, insidious nature of contemporary governments, new technology and of course the old Midas story. Careful what you indiscriminately desire, it may not give you fully what you thought you wanted.
...more

26 likes · Like · see review

Sep 29, 2011 Nandakishore Mridula rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewers-against-amazon

No, this review is not about the book. It is about GR and Amazon.

The "firemen" in this novel, who search out and burn books, would have found kindred spirits among the current GR management. Burning books, deleting reviews... what's the difference? It just means that one is scared shitless of the power of the written word.

But, FUCK YOU, AMAZON! You won't win. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword. ...more

15 likes · Like · see review

Jan 05, 2012 Saski rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long time, and in the back of my mind for far longer. I knew I should read it. Yes, you heard correctly, 'should'. And the amount of favorable anticipation I had equaled what one might expect with such a word.

I discovered Science Fiction in jr high, first through Heinlein,then Asimov and Clarke. I was a voracious reader before, but nothing like then and since. I see now how a large part of human experience is missing from those stories, but at the ti ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Mar 02, 2014 Dipankar rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, american, books-about-books

Stunning. This is a book meant exclusively to serve as a retrospection, not just for an individual or a group, but for the entire human race itself. It's like an opportune speed-breaker on an otherwise empty and tempting path, urging the raging, racing humanity to stop, take a step back and just ask himself where he is racing to, is it worth it and is the destination as good as the journey.

The plot is wonderful; using fire as the metaphor for humanity's ever-burning desire to outfox and outmatc ...more

Like · see review

Mar 03, 2014 Gry Ranfelt rated it really liked it

Written about the same time as Geroge Orwell's 1984 this book creates the image of a dystopian society.
Books are banned. Intellectuals have been overthrown. Long live entertainment. Sheer entertainment that is merely a numb sensation than a feeling at all.

Fahrenheit 451 was a fascinating read but a bit confusing in its phrases at times when Bradbury tried to be poetic about its main characters feelings an experiences. He created very physical images of things that turned out to be only in the mi ...more

Like · see review