I am glad that I did not read the three dystopian novels – 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 – as a young adult, because the intent and content of these books would have been wasted on me. I recently read Fahrenheit 451 and was amazed at the prophetic vision of Ray Bradbury. I could not only appreciate the novel in the context of our world today but also in the perspective of global history, which I was not so fully aware of in my early years of education and reading. Through this blog post, I not only want to revive the awe that I felt on reading the vision of Ray Bradbury, but also want to exhort readers to study this (and the other two dystopian novels) in the light of today’s world of proliferate digital media.
Fahrenheit 451 published in 1953 is set in a future when the written word is forbidden. “Fireman” Guy Montag, enjoys his duties as a professional book-burner. He never questions his profession, until he is introduced to the wonderful treasure of books, of sharing, of talking and listening by a young girl, who tells him of a time when books were legal and people did not live in fear. Montag begins stealing books marked for destruction and meets a professor who agrees to educate him. When his pilfering is discovered, he runs for his life, only to seek refuge in a community of individuals who memorize entire books so they will endure until society once again is willing to read.
Ever since I read this book, which was two weeks back, I could relate Bradbury’s vision to the things and activities around me and I was astonished by the emerging parallelism and similarity. For instance, the other evening, NDTV was airing a debate on banning of books. Sitting in front of the TV, I instantly recalled Fahrenheit 451 with its central theme of censorship, and I was compelled to reopen the book, and read the following lines, in which Captain Beatty explains the premise of book-burning – “Don’t step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchant, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy.”
The entire book is filled discussions that are coming true in our modern world. Ever thought about social media induced self-reclusiveness and television-addiction; Ray Bradbury envisioned it in these two lines: “Let you alone! That’s all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?”
What about modern curriculum and grade-based expensive education, with students cramming up text books and competing for the highest percentile, but not able to appreciate the value of good writers and books; Ray Bradbury prophesized that this world will soon see Intellectuals as an insane minority – “With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,’ of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.”
Overwhelmed by knowledge at your fingertips, rushing to Wikipedia to gather trivia, sapping up “breaking news” by the minute, foot tapping to chart-busters that are heard today, gone tomorrow, addicted to soap operas and “reality” television and flimsy fashion; Ray Bradbury clearly perceived it all as if he was walking amidst us today – “Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”
Bradbury also took a satirical but true view of modern political society. He envisioned the fallacy of political promises and social utopia – “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.”
The book is an intelligent parody on state-run monopoly, and manipulation, foolishly covered and relayed by the media, and the modern man’s quest for fun and entertainment at the expense of other people’s pain and folly. It is the ultimate reflection of a material world where lack of knowledge and pursuit of entertainment leads to subservience to the vile and the irrational. Like Huxley’s Brave New World, Ray Bradbury has imagined a world were gratification reigns supreme and human beings live in self-assured indulgence.
Though, I personally feel that Fahrenheit 451 was inspired by the book burning by Nazis and the use of words for propaganda, Ray Bradbury has himself suggested that the book was not intended as a story about government censorship but about how television and deluge of information destroys interest in reading, particularly good literature. To quote from an article published in 2007 in LA Weekly, “Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” “Useless,” Bradbury says. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” Bradbury sees television as “opiate of the masses”. It is also interesting to note that in an age when most American houses had “box” black-and-white televisions, Ray imagined the contemporary “walled” model that incessantly transmits family dramas.
Fahrenheit 451 is on the list of “banned books.” Like the opposition to Orwell’s 1984, the opposition to Fahrenheit 451 seems to grow as the depicted society grows too similar to our own. As the truth of Bradbury’s prophetic vision unfolds between us, we can only wonder how long “firemen” will continue to put down fires and not start them!
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