Friday, April 4, 2014

A 20th Century Classic

I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for the Back to the Classics Challenge. I started this book a month ago, but it was only the threat of an overdue library fine that motivated me to finish it. The story is about a futuristic dystopian society where books are outlawed and firemen burn not only books, but the homes of people who try to hide them. By the way, a “dystopia” is an undesirable community often characterized by a totalitarian government, an abuse of technology, and a general decline in society. A good example is the society from the Hunger Games where the government forces randomly selected children to participate in an annual fight to the death. Many dystopias involve robots, because robots are seen as the ultimate dehumanizing element of a society, and Fahrenheit 451 is no exception. The book-burning firemen are aided by “The Hound,” an eight-legged robot dog who can sniff out books and impale their owners with his poisonous fang.

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953 when the fears of McCarthyism, the Cold War, and a nuclear holocaust were at a peak. People were switching over from listening to the radio to watching TV, and with all new forms of technology, doomsayers predicted the decline of intelligent thought. I probably would have enjoyed this book more if the story had not been drowning in irony, symbolism, metaphors, allegories, and sometimes just general ranting and raving about the ills of society. Thank goodness the world did not turn out the way Bradbury predicted (except for the flat-screen TVs – that part I like).