Mark Twain once said that a classic was “something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” As I listen to what is said about Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I get the sinking feeling that it fits Twain’s definition of a classic.

When discussing Bradbury’s novel, people invariably talk about it as a great protest against censorship. Well, yes, it is that. More importantly, it is a warning against apathy and complacency.

Set in a future where books are outlawed, Fahrenheit 451 tells the story of Guy Montag, a fireman whose job it is to burn any books that are found. Eventually, Montag gives in to his curiosity and reads one of the books he was meant to destroy. Montag’s life is transformed by his rebellious act and he becomes a defender of the written word.

Those who have actually read the book will remember that Bradbury placed the blame for the book ban squarely on the shoulders of the public. He wrote of special interest groups rallying against books they considered offensive until people turned away from reading for fear of offending anyone. Then the government placed a formal ban on books to keep people from being disturbed by them, to eliminate conflict, and to keep everyone “happy.” There was no public outcry, with people turning to “seashells,” earbuds that play a constant stream of sound, and giant video screens to keep themselves from having to think to hard about anything.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fahrenheit 451 is a favorite target of would-be censors. They claim it contains “obscene” language, even though it contains nothing that can’t be said in a PG-rated film. It has also been called anti-Christian, a charge I find puzzling as one of the books Montag saves is a Bible–he even commits several books of it to memory.

Bradbury said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 to prevent, not predict the future. Maybe if more people actually read the book, it wouldn’t seem so eerily prophetic to those of us who have.

I originally wrote this for The Tiger Print. It is reprinted with permission. ( )

I’m not sure why it took me thirty years to finally read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, but I finally got around to it this week (with a push from Cal State Long Beach). The upside: I would have loved this book when I was in high school. The downside: I’m reading the book fifteen years too late.

Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a not-so-distant future where all books have been banned and owners of printed materials are criminalized. In this future society, it is the duty of fireman to burn books and arrest anyone in possession of books; however, one such fireman (named Guy Montag) has a moral awakening that forces him to reevaluate his profession and his beliefs. As Montag’s character grows and develops over the course of the novel, Bradbury takes the story into broader philosophical implications – and the book culminates in an unexpected, dramatic finale.

While I respect Bradbury for taking a political stance with his writing (especially with science fiction, a genre that is frequently apolitical), the execution of his important message gets muddled in the disjointed narrative. Rather than focus on one key issue (book-burning, atomic war, the dumbing-down of culture, etc.), Bradbury tries to cover too much ground – and the book suffers for it. Because of this, Fahrenheit 451 is like the pesky little brother of George Orwell’s 1984: like Orwell, Bradbury tackles a dystopian future in which freethinking is suppressed… he just doesn’t do it nearly as well. Whereas Orwell crafts a narrative that is cohesive and fleshed-out, Bradbury rushes through his novel and doesn’t really do justice to any of the themes that he tackles.

That being said, it’s kind of eerie how much of Bradbury’s “science fiction” story has become reality since its publication half a century ago. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury describes a future in which the population has become “dumbed-down” through “reality” TV and manipulated by corporations. Because of these sophisticated subjects, Fahrenheit 451 is best suited for a high school audience – young adults who have a deeper understanding of society’s flaws and who can recognize the correlations between the future version of North America described in Bradbury’s novel and our own dysfunctional world. Hopefully, high school readers will recognize the importance of books and reading – without several “atomic wars” and the widespread burning of books. ( )