Fahrenheit 451: A Novel Paperback – 10 Jan. 2013

I have been re-reading some earlier SF classics, - most recently, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.Bradbury may not be writing such well crafted complex characters as some heavyweight literary SF writers like John Wyndham or H.G.Wells, and the plot of this itself may even be a bit sparse or creaky, but my goodness, I am shocked and chilled and awed by how much of today's culture Bradbury was predicting 60 years agoReality TV where we all become content not only to watch others living, rather than living ourselves, but, no doubt, the next step arriving very soon where our TV becomes interactive and we ourselves yet inserted as bit players in the soaps we watch, or software that inserts our names into live TV, so that the TV talks directly to us, with announcers addressing us directly. Then we can live even less.He seems to have mainlined into the fact that we have dumbed culture down, his description of the way people talk to each other so that actually they are not talking about anything at all seems unnervingly like the and then he said, he was like, it was, you know, like, it was, yeah, no, know what I mean? You hear these conversations all around, more and more being said without any meaning:`People don't talk about anything'...'They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else'He predicts also the worst excesses of PC speak, and puts his finger neatly on the button of our expectation of happiness as a right, our inability to come to terms with the fact that pain and suffering are a real part of embodiment, of living in a world of matter. The best, the justest, the fairest society will not be able to end our personal suffering`Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these'I was shaking my head in amazement at the accurate identification of our can't be still, can't reflect society which settles for circuses (never mind the bread) and drinks, drugs, medicates, and buys its way out of having to acknowledge that pain is an unavoidable part of life itself - we will grow old (if we are that lucky) we will have to manage the loss, at some point, of those we love, and we too will die.There is more - a society which cannot deal with complexity, with the fact there may not always be an obvious right and an obvious wrong, and this too, we cannot bear. One of the great challenges are situations where whatever action is taken, it will not be without some great cost, and yet we have to take some action. How do we live without the comfortable and childish security of a world which is black OR white, but confusingly, and therefore far more challengingly, ever more subtle complexities of both:`If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none'.And, seeing ahead to the vapid game show, where factual knowledge gives us the illusion we have intelligence and wisdom`Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so full of facts they feel stuffed, but absolutely brilliant with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving"He talks also about our inability to bear silence - everyone cushioned from the world by their own blare of noise wall to wall music piped into our heads, children plonked in front of the pabulum TV, learning early to be passive not interactive, - even the fashion for elective caesarians on non-medical grounds.What makes this book so powerful still is the fact that so much of its dystopian vision is the way our lives actually are; not in fact so much `science fiction' after all, rather a sociological analysisI had forgotten how good this was - much more than the shocking concept of burning of books by an authoritarian society, bent on infantilising its peoples, targeting literature as an enemy because literature (unless purely escapist) encourages thought, and presents us with complexity, debate and challenge.

Fahrenheit 451by Ray BradburyI have seen the acclaimed 1966 movie 'Fahrenheit 451' directed by Francois Truffaut many times. But this is the first time I have read the original novel by Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012),who was one of the most celebrated science fiction writers of the 20th century. His 1953 novel 'Fahrenhit 451', was set in a dystopian America, in which ignorance is enforced by law and firemen burn books. The title refers to the temperature at which paper burns.There are a number of surprising differences between the movie and the book. What was not a surprise was Bradbury's beautiful poetic prose. Here is the book's breath taking beginning."It was a pleasure to burn.It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning."The most obvious differences between the film and the book are the least important. The movie is set in Britain and not America and there is no nuclear attack. And there is no robot for hound in the movie. They just end no have the special effects to make it look real then. A prop hound was made for the film, but the director thought it looked rubbish and it up to much time to get it ready for each shot, so it not used.Howeber, the big difference is the central problem. Which is why do firemen burn books. In the movie all books and all reading as been banned. No one seems to be able to read. Not so in the novel. The problem is people can still read certain things."Comic books" "Technical scientific journals" and "trade papers" are still read. There are even rewritten history books. What is banned are novels, politics, philosophy, religion, and poetry. There are no books that will make people think. Any book that could possibly upset anyone for any reason must be burnt. Can you see where this is going.When Montag, the book's central character witnesses a women choose to go up in flames with her library, he has a crisis of conscience. The Fire Cheif Beatty, gives him a pep talk. And he tells Montag how they got to be where they are;"Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade-journals...Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of “facts” they feel stuffed, but absolutely “brilliant” with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy...I hope I’ve clarified things. The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we’re the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dyke. Hold steady. Don’t let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don’t think you realize how important you are, to our happy world as it stands now.’There you have it the road to dystopia was not hammered with a iron fist, but gently laid with the gloved hand of market forces, mindfulness, and the right to happiness. It sound all too plausible and prescient.After Montag breaks with his conditioning, he joins a group of social outcasts called "The Book People". In order to preserve the literature and wisdom of humanity each Book Person commi

The description of everything is way to long, the concept is great , the writing is abstract, may of been the styler back in the 1950s.

Read this book, it is important. It shows a fictional future rooted in a present that is uncannily familiar- especially seeing as it was written in the fifties.