Fahrenheit 451 Book and Movie Review

Tim Wick

I feel as if I should be doing extensive research before writing a review of this book. Fahrenheit 451 is one of the pillars of modern science fiction literature and Bradbury is widely considered one of the greatest in the field. To offer my opinions on the novel fifty years later seems almost too little too late.

The book, for those of you that have neither read it or had it described to you, is about a futuristic society where books are against the law. They are burned by firemen and their owners are sent to be "reconditioned". The novel follows Guy Montag - a fireman - as he makes the journey from one who destroys to one who wishes to preserve.

The reason I feel like I need to do research is so I can describe with greater clarity the world of censorship in which Bradbury lived. This book was originally published in 1950. At the time, book burnings were common. We would like to think of ourselves as more enlightened, but we had 4 book burnings in the United States in the year of 1998 alone. I will grant that is less than 1950, but to see that we still choose censorship of ideas over good parenting is to see that Bradbury's novel has not lost it's dramatic punch.

We live in a world where school boards still regularly ban Huckleberry Finn because it uses the word "nigger" despite being a novel about coming of age and learning that race is not what defines a human being. That there were people in the book who did not believe this and continued to use a derogatory reference to black people only helps to show Huckleberry Finn's transformation. Yet this book is banned because it might teach children to use the word "nigger" and that would be bad. Yes it would, but that is not what our children would learn from the book. What they learn from the banning of such a book is that some thoughts, ideas and points of view are bad and should be burned from our souls the way they are burned out of the world of Fahrenheit 451.

In our discussion about this book, someone mentioned that a relation had refused to allow his children to read The Chronicles of Narnia because one of the books was entitled The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. He felt that his children should not read books about witchcraft (though he had not even read the books himself). He would be surprised to learn, I think, that that series of books was written by a minister and religious philosopher to help teach children about the bible. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is merely a thinly disguised retelling of the passion of Christ. How can such a thing be considered dangerous? In my opinion, that parent should be ashamed of himself. I have no doubt he is not.

Last years Dogma was attacked by the church because it was anti-religious despite the fact that the movie was attacking the dogma of religion while embracing the concept of it. The most vocal opponents of the film had, of course, never seen it.

In the afterward to Fahrenheit 451 that was written by Bradbury in 1982, he talks about people wishing to censor the book by removing such offensive words as "hell" and "damn". He refused on the grounds that it didn't make much sense to censor a book that was an attack on censorship.

So does it come as any surprise that this book resonates as much today as when it was written - perhaps even more?

Take any book that offends someone. For instance, let's start with Mein Kampf by a little known politician Adolf Hitler. Without a doubt this book is offensive to many (perhaps even most) people. Let's remove it from the shelves, then, so they won't be offended. Let's pick something else - say a book of Picasso's art. He painted nudes you know. We can't have our children looking at that so away it goes. The Encyclopedia mentions Picasso and Hitler. It has to go as well. And so it continues, until the libraries are empty.

These are the libraries of Fahrenheit 451. Barren. Devoid of anything that might offend anyone. All this censorship was done to make sure that no-one got upset any more. They are drugged with television and "fun parks" so they fail to notice they are no less miserable than they were before, only less offended.

To read this book and the stories above frightens me. How close are we to such a world? Closer than we think. Just a few laws passed by the wrong people could start us down this road. So the next time you read a book that offends you, or one that you don't enjoy, just tell your friends not to read it. Don't tell them it should be taken off the shelves.