Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

My first attempt to dystopia! Look at me, aren’t I all grown up! I know you are probably thinking I’ve been living under a rock or something but I have somehow managed to avoid dystopia like 1984 and Brave New World. I did read The Chrysalids in school but that’s as far as I went. So this was a shock to the system, really. I will be honest, I was never great with Science Fiction neither mostly because it takes me ages to visualise things, so vague descriptions of future technology really baffle me. That’s what happened during the first pages of Fahrenheit 451 where he describes technology like the walls and a mechanical hound etc. Then I just decided to ignore the mechanics of the technology and just roll with it and it worked like a charm!

In my view this book is about degradation of culture and censorship. I cannot say I felt for any of the characters. The majority of the female characters had hardly any redeeming qualities. Only one was pleasant in her own way but it felt as if she was Glinda from The Wizard of Oz randomly placed in dystopia! All the properly thinking characters were male. And if you want to argue that the old lady with the books in the beginning was a “thinking character” I would argue that fanaticism does not mean thinking person no matter who’s side the fanatic is on. In terms of male characters, the protagonist develops hugely in the course of the story. He starts off like a blind puppy and slowly starts using his brains to decide for himself. It’s as if you can see all the stages of development on a human in the course of two weeks. From ignorant child, he turns to stubborn child where mother (in this case the Status Quo) is always right, to angry teenager, to adult. The metamorphosis is captivating.

It really isn’t the plot that drives this book. It’s the thought process behind it. In a world where human life has absolutely no value, you find yourself anguished by the absence of books and in my eyes that’s exactly the link: the result which is the lack of respect for life and the cause which is the censorship of free thinking which is what books represent.

I never thought I’d say that but I found this book quite upsetting actually. It affected me in a way I never expected it to. I always respected knowledge, reading and free thought and I never attempted to imagine a world without them. The writing, which was very powerful throughout didn’t really fully describe that world, but it described it enough for the reader to fill in the gaps. The most brilliant part about it has to be the ending. Who would have thought that a book on a dystopian society on the verge of collapse could end with some, albeit limited, optimism?

Enjoyed it: Was I meant to?

Read again: I think I’m going to have to. There is just so much in this book…

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