Fahrenheit 451

Greetings, all. I thought I'd let things settle down a little bit after my Cluetrain review, and try something slightly safer. :-) It never ceases to amaze me how, in an age where we use the phrase "that's so yesterday!" without flinching, the best lessons are those from "long ago." Book burning has been a hallmark of our century, although we certainly did not invent it. From the blatant actions of the Nazis to the self-censorship of the post-WWII age to today's filtering fights, the struggle to express ourselves has never ended. Come the middle of this century, at a time when the status quo was as strong as it has been in recent memory, a man with a story reminded us of something that Thomas Jefferson expressed two centuries before, that a little revolution now and then is a good thing. That revolution may generate some uncomfortable instability, but in the end we as a society are better for it. Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury pages 179 publisher Del Rey rating 10/10 reviewer Jason Bennett ISBN 0-345-41001-7 summary Although written in a "calmer" era, F451 still resonates with us today as uncomfortable views continue to be repressed.

The Scenario Since this is fiction, I'll keep this short to avoid giving away the story. Imagine the Jetsons in a time where owning a book is illegal, in a society dominated by mindless media. In other words, it's set in the present, as the present could be. Ok, I'm exaggerating, but not as much as I'd like to be. In this time, houses have been made completely fireproof, and therefore the firemen don't stop fires -- they start them, by burning down houses containing contraband (books). The rationale is quite simple: Books are divisive. There's always someone complaining, or feeling attacked, or generally unhappy that someone else knows something he shouldn't. But there's no need to repeat what Bradbury has so eloquently expressed.

Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? [Giant list of every possible philosophical group] The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! ... 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. [italics mine] ... Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright'.... And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? ... And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely... [firemen] were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mine, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges, and executors.

Jon Katz, fifty years early. Be afraid.

What's Bad? I'm supposed to tell you what's bad about a classic of science fiction written around the time of my parent's birth? Yeah, right. I gave it a zero above for a reason: there's no way to rate this. Is this a better book than, for example, Cryptonomicon? In terms of influence and longevity, certainly. Will you like it more? Go find out for yourself! It's short!

What's Good? The best books are the ones that last, the ones with the timeless lessons that speak across the ages. I felt this way with my first review for Slashdot, of The Mythical Man Month, and I feel the same now. Fahrenheit 451 expresses the issue just as well today as it did when it was written. Cyberpatrol, the CDA, and peacefire may have been decades away, but that only makes the lesson all the more poignant. In addition, there are more recent addenda in this edition written by Bradbury himself that relate some of what has happened since the original publication. All in all, a satisfying and poignant read.

So What's In It For Me?

A needle that will prick your heart, and a voice that will speak to your soul.

Purchase this book at ThinkGeek.

Table of Contents

• Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander
• Part Two: The Sieve and the Sand
• Part Three: Burning Bright
• Afterword
• Coda

Comments

F-451

[BWS]

I have to agree that F-451 is one of the best books that I've ever read. Along with ClockWork Orange, 1984, Animal Farm, and numerous others.

Too bad the younger generations are now growing up and reading too much crap. I mean, Shakespeare is all good and stuff. But how many Shakespeare books should a person read in school before its declared enough? 5? 10? All?

The reason why the teachers never mention these books is that they never read them. They don't want students to know something they don't. They don't want their students to learn new stuff.

I say, we should make reading one of those classic books [above] mandatory reading in schools.

The ISO 9000 compliant version is "Celsius 283"

[georgeha]

to make it match SI units.

George

dogma

[Golias]

The reason why this book continues to be venerated is because so many people consider it "important". Not for its influence on literature, but because its message that captures the attention of its audience. (Like other "great" science fiction of the 30's-60's, it uses the fictional setting to convey a warning about trends that frightened the author. Brave New World, 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc. were all motivated by politics... The creative vision was a secondary consideration, and it shows. These books were written to make you think, not to make you dream.)

451 has an edge over these other works, in that it preaches to the choir as few works of art ever have. After all, it is a book about how important books are, so the audience (people who read novels) are more apt to be shaken up by this nightmare than the average Joe.

Bradbury claimed that once he had the idea for this book he was able to write the entire book in one sitting. Just like "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis, it is a story that almost writes itself, once the author invents the concept.

Perhaps because it was written so quickly, the narrative really flows. Reading this story makes for a great lazy summer afternoon. If you just recently finished pounding your way through the choppy prose of a William Gibson novel (say, "Virtual Light"), then F.451 is a great choice for something to clear the palate with (before moving on to "Idoru").

Re:dogma

[John Fulmer]

> 451 has an edge over these other works, in that
> it preaches to the choir as few works of art
> ever have.

I disagree. The book has been revered by book lovers, but it's origional popularity was also shared by the general public.

The book was written in a time where wholesale banning of books was still the norm, not just an occasional outrage. F-451 was banned from many libraries itself. McCarthy-ism (sic) was in full swing and anyone 'different' was targeted by society at large and frequenly labeled as a 'troublemaker', 'freak', or 'communist'.

Sound familiar?

There is a short story referenced by F-451, in which a man is stopped by police and arrested for walking for enjoyment, because it was against the norm.

Not only that, but the story was origionally published in a shorter form in a magizine (Harpers?), not in book form.

> Bradbury claimed that once he had the idea for
> this book he was able to write the entire book
> in one sitting.

And he pretty much had to. He was renting a typewriter in the basement of a local library for 10 cents an hour, in a time when he was dirt poor. :)

Re:It's scaaary :)

[Wah]

DeCSS and Napster are the books that are currently trying to be burned. And others. Metaphorical books perhaps, but nonetheless they are bits of knowledge and logic that some people don't want you to have...because it weakens their control. Same story, new century.

--

The new century is in for some nastiness

[PingXao]

In America it's said that people vote with their pocketbooks. I don't see anyone rushing to pledge their fortunes anymore for the idea of liberty. Here's where I see our net freedoms going:

France wants to ban Nazi items.
Australia wants to ban porno.
America wants to ban gambling over the net and drug-related information.
China wants to ban all criticism.
God only knows what Iraq will want to ban when it finally gets its shit together.

It's pretty easy to see where this is all going to end up in a few years. There WILL be some sort of international treaty where all signatories agree to implement and enforce these bans. ISPs will be licensed and audited. Separate licenses will be required for T1 (and other high speed) backbone connections to the net. There's really only a handful of really big nodes in the US and probably the same is true in most countries. MAE EAST and MAE WEST anyone? Add in a dose of protect-the-children and anti-terrorism hysteria and kick it up a few notches with organized crime fears, Intellectual Property wars and BAM! it becomes all too clear. People, i.e. the Governments, will demand this wholesale control over who sees what. And the people who make those decisions will have absolutely no idea what they're doing or talking about. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

We, the enlightened ones, won't be able to stop it. We can't stop the RIAA or the MPAA. We're losing the DeCSS battle on the DVD front. Napster might be doomed, for all we know. The companies that have the money will get their way like dingos in a day-care center and THAT will set the precedents. Once the technical means are in place to impose content filtering on a large scale, then the really radical do-gooders will follow in their footsteps and screw it up but good.

I hate to say it but the Geeks and privacy activists and defense-of-rights groups are going to be left out in the cold like one-legged men in an ass kicking contest. Unless people start taking stuff like liberty seriously.

How close to our world?

[Anonymous Commando]

Some days I get frightened by this world, and how it's starting to converge with the world of F.451...

...every time I see "America's Most Wanted", I think of the scene where the TV tells everyone to go out to the street to watch for Montag...

...in the clutter of banner ads, billboards, infomercials, and sponsorship logos, I hear "Denham's Dentifrice"...

...when my friend buys a big-screen TV, I think of Montag's wife in her "parlour"...

...when I hear about WAVE and profiling, I think of the young girl who moved in next door to Montag...

I could probably think of more, but it's been a couple years since I've read it... definitely will be pulling this one from the bookshelf again tonight.
________________________

Dissenting Opinion

[gus2000]

I strongly disagree that this book is 10/10. To be great, books must have great content and great style. This book has none of the latter. The writing is uninspired, the plot twists are predictable and mundane, and virtually all dialogs are so contrived that they are completely unbelievable. That having been said, I will admit that I have read this book twice. Once in high school where our teacher gave it to us as an example of how an author can start with a wonderful idea and situation and then proceed to completely ruin it. Once again several years later to see if I still agreed with that opinion (and I do, even more so than before).

Here is some more food for thought: if this is such a wonderful and classic book that warned us 30 years ago about the perils of censorship, then why is it that every year that goes by our reality
gets closer and closer to Bradbury's fiction? (hint: it has something to do with the fact that posting opinions to slashdot does nothing to change to world... go out there and do something about it!)

You of course realize...

[Shin Elendale]

This is the exact thing Bradbury was talking about :) He noticed that PC stuff (in this case, ISO correct stuff) was causing a massive wave of fear even then. The book's problem, the fact that most of the characters are zombies, was created because the minorities took over and no one could insult anyone, in other words: imagine a world on happy drugs. Much irony (and yes, I'm misusing that word... I think... errr... now I'm not sure...)

-Elendale (Not to mention it has something to do with my .sig)

Re:Why?

[Ray Dassen]

Why is Slashdot reviewing a book that 90% of the educated population read years ago?

There can be plenty of reasons.

Slashdot is read by many non-Americans. F451 is in all likeliness read by significantly less than 90% of the educated population in, say, Europe.

Books, films, articles etc. like all things tend to fade in one's memory. F451 makes points about the human nature that many feel are extremely relevant to today's and tomorrow's societies. I see no harm in paying attention to such relevant items, even if they're not the latest news.

It's not about censorship though...

[dirty]

Personally I feel that many people have it wrong about Farenheit 451: the book has nothing to do with censorship. Think about it, what's the point in censoring books if you censor ALL books, not just the ones that are subversive to your cause? Farenheit 451 is a novel about what happens when people stop caring and just want their lives to be easy. People don't want to have to think about the things in life that make them upset, so they burn the books. Poetry is sad, books contain controversial ideas. Everyone has their nice TV room where they watch programs that have no plot, where nothing ever goes wrong, and where everything always turns out being happy.

The scarry thing is that present day society is heading right down this path. Look at today's society. People injur themselves due to an action that is entirely their fault, but they sue some company. Why? Because it's easier. It's easier to make company X pay you for your mistakes than it is to admit your mistakes. Parents don't want to raise their children, so they blame teachers, they blame the internet, they blame everyone but themselves.

Farenheit 451 isn't our future, it's our present. Replace book burning with law suit and it's our society.

Re:DeCSS has one use

[Wah]

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws" - Tacitus

Call it what you want, but its still illegal.

All DeCSS does is dump a 4 gig file on your hard drive.

....
--

Re:An excellent book.

[belgin]

It makes a really good comment about political correctness. While it is a good thing, this book paints the nightmare scenerio where free thought is eliminated through the destruction of books and programming of people (with television).

Allow me to append to the bolded quotation: in moderation. The simple problem that the book illustrates (along with various absurdities in the United States today) is a lack of moderation. No I am not talking Karma here, either.

Any special interest group is formed because the people involved share a set of opinions and priorities. When those groups suggest that the general public should or should not do X and give a valid reason, the public should listen, think about it, and usually agree to some extent. If, on the other hand, extremists in those groups are dictating public policies to the public and the public is simply acquiesing, that is the path to problems like F451 examines. Guess which one we are getting in the US? There is one version of zero moderation that we call fascism, and most people seem not to like it. This inverted version of it that arose from more liberal ideologies really just boils back down to fascism with a different coat of paint on it. Instead of starting with a majority and eliminating minority deviations, it starts with a federation of minorities and forging them into a majority that wipes out deviations within, then outside of the majority.

Are we in danger of this in the next year or two? Probably not. But unless people start making decisions based on their own ethics, representing themselves in society, and generally acting as a voice of "reason", they will continue to be trampled by the power of much smaller groups. I am not advocating any particular ideology, but stand up for whatever ones you believe in. As those of us who are not extremists drop out of the political picture in disgust, there are only the extremists left. Extremists come up with extreme solutions to problems. People are getting strange ideas from books? Get rid of the books. People are insulting minorities disproportionally? Make it a special, worse kind of crime that punishes anyone who insults a minority. People don't like Jews and Gypsies? Well, put them in special camps where they won't bother people.

As people complacently ignore political and societal situations, they tend to sit on their duff or pursue their own particular interests. (We /.ers tend to fall into the latter category from what I have seen.) With the TV right in front of them and nothing better to do, these people fall into the complete complacency of a world where nothing affects them. Those who lose themselves into their own interests tend to ignore or forget about the rest of the world unless it directly stomps in the way of their interests.

Who could change things and prevent the powers that control a government from doing the extreme things I mentioned? That middle group that isn't paying attention. Why aren't they paying attention? Because it is a lot easier to go with the flow and do everything according to the "right thing to do" of the moment. Who is keeping them content and uninterested? People who make money from having content and uninterested TV viewers. Hollywood makes such a disproportional amount of money to stage theatres that it isn't even remotely funny. Why would they ever want to give that up?

If people took every good-sounding idea and applied it in moderation, they would have a lot of things get better. When the good idea turned out to be not-so-good, there is a smaller mess to clean up. Oops! Burning books wasn't such a good idea! Good thing we only burned a few thousand instead of all of them!

B. Elgin