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Fahrenheit 451
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May BOTM - Fahrenheit 451
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This is my first Ray Bradbury book, and I am only a few pages in, and I am already enjoying it. The writing style, the sentences feel so laden with clues regarding several things that might be revealed as I proceed further. A few sentences have caught my attention:"They walked on again in silence and finally she said, thoughtfully, “You know, I’m not afraid of you at all.” He was surprised. “Why should you be?”“So many people are. Afraid of firemen, I mean. But you’re just a man, after all. . . ."
Why would anyone be afraid of a fireman? Even in a world with fireproof houses, where the job of a fireman is to burn books, why would it be a reason for fear? Is there more to a fireman's role that burning books? I am sure we will learn the answer as we read further.
"Of course I’m happy. What does she think? I’m not? he asked the quiet rooms. He stood looking up at the ventilator grill in the hall and suddenly remembered that something lay hidden behind the grill, something that seemed to peer down at him now. He moved his eyes quickly away."
These lines seem to be spoken by someone who is not happy and yet is in a state of denial. What could be the possible reason of his unhappiness. Also what was the mysterious thing behind the grill that the fireman wanted to evade?
"The when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second, with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it has to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darknesses, but moving also toward a new sun."
In the above lines, the clock is described as something that tells you about the prevailing darkness and at the same time as a reminder that it is not permanent. The girl's face has been compared to this clock. So is this girl a reminder that it is a dark time, but it shall soon pass?
"It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon has set."
"He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy."
Why do you think the author used these lines to describe the room? Is it because the fireman is stuck in an unhappy marriage? Is his wife possibly the reason for his unhappiness?
I will continue adding my observations as I read further. I would love to know about what you were thinking while reading these lines in the book. 😀
Mod
Em*bedded-in-books* wrote: "seeing your enthusiasm, feel like giving it a re try. I had read it a long ago and don't remember much other than giving up as I got bored of it."😁 Go for it!
In the next few pages, we get answers to some of the questions and there are so many new questions to be answered now, We realize that there is something wrong with Mildred, but we are not able to exactly put our finger on it.She had a sleeping pill overdose that almost killed her, and yet she did not remember taking so many pills. Curious isn't it. Considering that she could have died, the next morning, her responses were way to normal. All she could think of was that she was hungry. Something doesn't seem right, Was it a suicide attempt? If yes why? And why didn't she remember anything? Or was she lying?
"How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in. It's only two thousand dollars"
'Breaking the fourth wall' is a performance convention when the artist acknowledges the audience. In the above lines, Mildred wants the fourth wall to be replaced by a TV. Could it be an allusion to her interest in getting away from reality? Could 'this reality' be a reason for her suicide attempt? Also, Mildred's share of scripts, something was strange with those as well. Her lines were - "I think that's fine" and "I sure do!". Is this script a way to condition women to not say no to anything. Is dissent looked down upon in this world?
"I am, very much in love!", he tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face."
Why do you think that the fireman could not conjure up the face?
Next we are introduced to a cruel game that firemen play with the mechanical hound and chicken or rats. I am relieved to know that Montag does not partake in animal cruelty, whatever the reason be.
And once again we read about the mysterious item hidden behind the grill in Montag's home. Now we know that it is possibly some sort of contraband item that could get him in trouble.
Did you all figure out a different angle to it?
Merely 28 percent into the book, I am at the end of Captain Beatty - Montag conversation at Montag's place, and I can already feel the reason why this book is one of the several books that were/are banned in countries.Is it only me who feels that my reality is not very different from Montag's?
At this point in the book I have a deep sense of contempt for Mildred. She sounds very superficial. Captain Beatty, on the contrary sounds well read.
There are plenty of quotable lines:
"More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize, organize and super organize super super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience."
"With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers... instead of examiners, critics, knowers and imaginative creators, the word intellectual, of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar".
"We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone MADE equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against".
"Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it... Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag".
"Don't we keep them moving? Don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these".
I enjoyed the conversation and it's time for me to reflect on these quotes. I wonder if anyone else feels the same way about these quotes
Eager to know your perspective!
😀
I finished the relatively short book, and I found it to be ahead of its time. For all of us book lovers (assuming everyone in this group), it really is a criticism of the "dumbing down" of society with television, and other mass media (and now social media and internet). Beatty brings up some interesting points about why books can be harmful, but basically said it was the people's choice in the beginning, many of whom were offended because of "political correctness".
He doesn't delve too much into sports, which implies being competitive, which he claims society doesn't like because of equality. Also, he doesn't mention whether this is a socialist/communist society where everyone is equal, as opposed to the competitive nature of capitalist society.
Interesting reading!
At 47% on my Kindle, I am at the end of Part 2 of the book. In the last few pages, our boy Montage almost had a mental breakdown trying to make sense of everything wrong in the world. He came to a conclusion that books could save him and others around him. He is questioning things. "Why" behind everything is more important than ever for him.
He manages to find a reluctant ally in the form of an old professor, Faber. And when it seemed that he has managed to fool captain Beatty, an alarm was raised.. The address - Montag's house.
Did Mildred rat him out?
Did Captain Beatty see through Montag?
Is this an untimely end to Montag's revolt?
This post marks the end of Ray Baradbury's Fahrenheit 451 novel. I must admit that I did not enjoy Part 3 of the novel as much as Part 1 & 2. For me, Part 1 was all about knowing the world, Part 2 was about figuring out what was wrong in the world and Part 3 was about remedial actions. If by the end of Part 2, Montag was almost at the edge of mental breakdown, the process had reached completion by Part 3. In Part 3, most of the actions happened in Montag's mind. I felt that Monrag's sense of reality had blurred and was overlapping with his imaginations / thoughts. This made it confusing for me to read. The present was overlapping with his past. I'm not sure, why did he keep thinking about Mildred, even when he had admitted multiple times that he would not feel sad if she died, is still a mystery to me. I guess, he had genuinely loved Mildred, even though she could not reciprocate the emotions. The war also seemed to be external and internal. Montag's past was at a war with his present. Things that he had thought he had forgotten were revealing themselves during this war.
The entire novel was thought provoking and rich with allusions. Strangely enough, contrary to popular opinion, for me this book was not as much about Government censorship of books as it was about mankind's willing surrender of thought provoking classics to mass appealing magazines and comics. This is a cautionary tale of us being thin skinned about criticisms and using burning books/posters to oppose an idea rather than intellectually opposing that idea with facts and figures.
Ray Bradbury ends the novel with hope of nation building and resurrection of mankind with a biblical allusion from Revelations 22:2 -
"And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bore twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
Overall, I am happy that I read this book.
FAHRENHEIT 451
Blurb:
"Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. 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 then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people did not live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known."
So, grab your copy and join in!
P. S. The book is available to read in the public domain on Archive.org / Open Library.