The burning question...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was first printed in 1953. Bradbury wrote this sci-fi book about censorship in 1941. My new classic paperback edition cost $6.99 U.S. at the local big-box store chain.

Plot: I don't like to give away details okay…so I'll be skimming…The rules changed in this futuristic society, and it's the firemen who burn books. It's against the law to own or hide books. Firemen arrive at reported libraries with tankers full of kerosene and light the books and the homes of the book owners on fire. This usually takes place at night to provide a good show for the onlookers. The society creates televised "families" which include the viewer in the show by way of a programmable black box. These TV families are even called "the family". Justice is delivered on the spot by the Hound, a robotic dog equipped with the ability to track, capture and dispatch its victim in one fell swoop.

Ultimately, Montag arrives at a crisis. He takes books from fires and hides them in his home. He witnesses a burning in which the owner of the books is still on the scene and refuses to leave them to the Firemen. She, soaked with kerosene, lights a kitchen match herself. This is Montag's wake up call. "What is it about these people and their books," he wonders. He steals yet another book, this time the words Holy Bible are on the cover. Montag wanders home with this book under his belt, hides it in the duct work of his home, and then attempts to deal with the guilt of seeing a person die. He attempts to enlighten his wife with the contents of a book. Mildred shrieks and thinks her husband has gone mad.

Finally Montag turns on his society and on his role in it. Montag, forced to run from the city, finds a home in the wasteland outside of the city with other educated Harvard/Yale types who take him in and watch as the city is blown to bits in a techno-war that lasts three minutes. As the dust settles, these wanderers with the books inside their heads make their way toward the remnants of the city.

Characters:
Montag--a fireman who is the protagonist of this story.

Millie--Montag's wife and antagonist at times.

Beatty--the firechief who is also an antagonist, but who Montag murders at a fire scene.

Faber--an old dis-enfranchised college professor who helps Montag escape from the city by means of a bullet telephone ear-plug.

Clarisse--the young sixteen year old girl who makes Montag think about his job as Fireman.

Opinion:
In my view this is a must-read book. While some of the characters are flat, they are meant to be flat. The plot is full and meaningful. This is a quick read with many phrases and sentences that stick in one's mind for a time to come. While some of the technology is quaint and different that what really exists now. Some of the themes of drive-by terrorism, wall-to-wall entertainment, think-stoppage, and speedier and speedier vehicles drive home a point that not all techno-progress is useful or helpful. The sadness and isolation felt by Mildred within the confines of her twin bed marriage and her artificial family only serves as an explanation point to the meaninglessness of her life. She is the saddest most pitiable case in the book.

There is a happy ending is it could be called that. Montag lives on to remember what he read from books. He is cradled by a hobo group of educated college types who hope to assist those who survived the war as they rise from the ashes of their city like the Phoenix bird of mythology.

I highly recommend this book to all readers. I wish it were required reading in high school literature class, but there is some questionable language in the final chapters of the book, so who knows…