Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

A terrible thing happened to me while reading this book. It turns out my copy had about 125 pages of history and critical analysis of the book in the second half. So you can imagine my surprise when I turned the page over around 150 pages in and the story was suddenly finished. Probably a good idea to read the Table of Contents in the future, but I like going into books completely blind. All I knew about this book was it was considered a classic, and the plot had to do with burning books.

On that note, here is a summary:

The story takes place in a dystopian future where books have become outlawed. The rationale for burning books was explained by one of the “fireman” as necessary to help equalize everyone in society. He uses an example of kids in school, where one student knows the subjects really well and makes everyone feel bad. This society believes that true happiness is achieved when everyone is on the same playing field, and no one can make anyone else feel bad about what they know or think. They also believe that everyone would be happier if they simply removed any chance of complexity, confusion or free thinking (which would lead to complexity/confusion) from peoples lives.

Instead of books, people in society are hammered with constant advertisements wherever they go. Everyone also has rooms where all the walls are TV’s and they get state sponsored entertainment that keeps them tame and occupied. All of these distractions minimize the need or desire for thought or real human emotions.

Fireman are the people in charge of burning books, and firefighters in the classic sense, no longer exist.

The main character (Montag) is a fireman himself. One day while walking to work, he stumbles into a young girl who seems to be full of life. She seems to be very observant of the world and of others and asks a lot of questions about Montag. One question she pointedly asks Montag as he is leaving is “is he happy”.

At first, Montag is annoyed at the accusation that he is not happy, but he soon realizes that perhaps she is right, that he is not happy. Shortly after this realization, Montag finds his wife unconscious in her bed after swallowing a bunch of pills. He calls emergency and her stomach is pumped. When his wife wakes up, she does not remember that she took all the pills. Montag is sad about this as his wife is so removed from reality that she doesn’t recognize her own unhappiness. We learn from the medical staff that overdoses like his wife’s happen all the time, and they simply pump the stomach and move on.

We learn shortly after that the girl that Montag met was struck by a car and killed. There is an implication that the government killed her, as her and her family had been on a watchlist due to them likely not complying to society’s standards. However, getting hit by a car is not an uncommon experience. Later in the book as Montag is running down a street, a random car full of teenagers attempts to run him over and kill him for no reason. This is further evidence of society’s degradation as people are so desensitized to reality that the act of murder doesn’t really impact them.

After the situation with his wife, Montag begins questioning the status quo in society and longs to break out of it.

At work shortly after, Montag and his crew are called to a house to burn some books. The owner of the books refuses to leave the house as she states she would rather die with her books, then live without them. The fireman torch the house and she ends up getting burned alive. Montag is deeply impacted by this.

Montag smuggled a book out of the ladies house and brings it home. It turns out he has done this a few times as he has a few books hidden in a ventilation shaft in his house. He hid the book he stole recently under his pillow. Montag was feeling ill after watching the lady get burned alive, so he stayed home from work the next morning. As he was laying in bed, the fire chief visited his house to make sure he was ok (and likely because he suspected Montag smuggled a book out). While the chief was over, Montag’s wife was helping him with his pillow when she felt the book underneath, and tried to conceal her surprise in front of the chief.

While there, the chief tells Montag that many fireman have snuck books home from burn sites, which he considers to be natural. His only expectation is that within 24 hours, they return it to the fire station to be burned. When the chief leaves, Montag shows his wife his books and she is distraught. She does not agree with him collecting books and starts slowly destroying them while Montag is out.

Montag’s desire to understand these books escalates to the point that he contacts someone he met years ago as a fireman who he knew smuggled books, but did not turn in. They end up connecting and devise a plan to try and disrupt society, such as planting books in firemen’s houses. The friend gives Montag an earpiece that they can communicate to each other with, as the friend is an old man and refuses to leave the house out of fear of being caught.

Montag returns home to find his wife and some friends over, loudly enjoying the nights entertainment in the TV room. Montag snaps a bit, and tries to quote a book to them to get them to stop being so blind to reality. In his ear, the friend is pleading with Montag not to say anymore as he will get himself arrested. Montag finally comes around a bit, and tries to save the situation by bringing out a book and incinerating it, but the women leave.

Montag then goes back to the firehall with a book to hopefully appease the chief that he did the right thing and returned it to be burned.

As they are at the firehall though, they get another call for a raid. Montag joins the crew, but is shocked as the firetruck arrives at his house. It seems that the chief knew he had more books and it’s likely one of the women at Montag’s house reported him. The chief orders Montag to burn his house down. Instead, Montag lights the chief on fire and makes a run for it.

He barely makes it out of town in an intense chase with the government which was being live broadcasted to all citizens. The government refused to allow people to watch them lose their man so as they were using their dogs to follow Montag’s scent, when they realized they lost him, they just went another direction and attacked a random stranger who happened to be walking by. They made sure not to zoom the cameras in too close to his face so there was not evidence it wasn’t Montag. They killed that stranger and broadcast to everyone that they got their man.

As Montag is walking further into the country, he runs into a group of people who turn out to be similar to him. We learn of an entire secret society who have devoted themselves to memorizing the great works. People are assigned chapters of books to commit to memory, so that one day, they can be part of rebuilding society.

As it turns out, society is at war and as Montag is talking with the group he just met, and atomic bomb is detonated on the city he just escaped from, destroying it completely. The book ends with Montag and his new acquaintances heading back towards the city with the goal of rebuilding it with volumes of knowledge they have committed to memory.

Thoughts:

My end of book mishap aside, I thought the book was pretty good. The atomic bomb blowing up the city at the end seemed fairly out of left field and contrived. I don’t think it compares to a book like 1984, but its also a lot shorter, so it can’t develop the plot as much.

This book also reminded me a bit of a movie called The Book of Eli. In the movie, Denzel Washington navigates a post apocalyptic world as he protects a book (we later learn to be the Bible) from being destroyed. Society thought they destroyed them all, but in a big surprise twist, we learn that Denzel is blind the whole time (despite beating a ton of people up and dodging deadly weapons), and has a braile version. I think the book ends up getting destroyed, but in a one-two punch of surprises, Denzel has committed it to memory. He recites it at the end for someone who gets it to reprint.

To be clear, Fahrenheit 451 came out long before the movie, it just happens I saw the movie first.

— After writing the paragraph above, I was just reading a bit more about the Book of Eli and it turns out some theorize it was meant to be a sequel to Fahrenheit 451. The post apocalyptic world is a result of the atomic blast. And the main character used to be a fireman. Seems likely to me, but who knows. I don’t remember the movie being that great overall either.