# Fahrenheit 451

![Book cover of Fahrenheit 451](/books/covers/fahrenheit_451.jpg)

by [Ray Bradbury](/books/authors/ray_bradbury/)
Awards: [Hugo](/books/by-award/#hugo-award)
★★★☆☆

## Review

_Fahrenheit 451_, by Ray Bradbury,
is a classic novel about the homogenization of mass media and our collective
flight from intellectual challenge. It follows Guy Montag, a fireman who burns
books for a living, as he slowly realizes he must stop.

I first read _Fahrenheit 451_ when I was just beginning to choose sci-fi books
from the library for myself. I loved Bradbury's
take on censorship and the importance of free media and free thought. I went
on to read everything Bradbury wrote. I saw it as a
companion work to Orwell's _1984_ or Huxley's _Brave New World_. It felt very advanced, a book that
showed you instead of telling.

### The Message

But Bradbury would be the first to tell you his book isn't
about government censorship, not the way I read it as a child. It's obvious
now that it is a screed about unchallenging culture, about the massification
of media through TV and radio, about how all the rough edges are filed off
until no one is offended but no one has to think. Bradbury
was truly prescient about one thing: people don't want to be challenged. But
he misjudged where that would lead. Modern social media, which replaced mass
media, doesn't grind things into the same bland paste for everyone; it
sections people off into bubbles where their friends repeat back exactly what
they want to hear.

Rereading it now, Bradbury's writing is much
simpler than I remember. _Fahrenheit 451_ is a series of vignettes in which Guy
Montag experiences the world and slowly wakes from his dogmatic slumber.
First, he burns books and remarks on how much he loves the fire; next, he
meets Clarisse and realizes curiosity and friendship have vanished from the
world; then, he returns home to find his wife dying of an overdose. A book is
a collection of small scenes stitched together, but how those scenes relate is
what makes a novel, and that is where _Fahrenheit 451_ is weakest.

Some of my favorite books have structures that reinforce their themes. [_Hyperion_](/books/hyperion/) nests six tales inside a pilgrimage allowing its theme---the new
order replacing the old---to play out six times at different scales. [_Use of Weapons_](/books/use_of_weapons/) runs its two timelines in opposite directions, one following
its protagonist's latest missions forward, the other exploring backwards
through his past until the mystery of his origin is revealed. _Absalom, Absalom!_ tells the same story over and over through unreliable
narrators until the meaning changes, showing how the past isn't known; it's
constructed. Even [_Echopraxia_](/books/echopraxia/), which has a simple structure, repeats its
themes and images, giving the reader a chance to assemble a picture the
narrator can't. Bradbury's vignettes are
individually effective and memorable, even deep, but isolated from each other:
each arrives, makes its point, and exits. The arrangement is so simple it
makes _Fahrenheit 451_ feel didactic.

### The Imagery

But despite the simplicity of the structure, Bradbury weaves
in vivid imagery. Fire dominates: people are torches, blazing through life;
Montag's false smile melts like a candle; words blaze into minds as if stamped
by fiery steel; women have sun-fired hair and blazing nails. Water is the
antithesis: Clarisse, who begins Montag's journey away from burning, drinks in
the rain, and Montag imitates her after she runs off, letting the water in.
Her eyes are shining drops of water reflecting Montag back at himself. The
autumn leaves around her are a dry rain. When he last sees her, she talks
about the dew.

In the end, Montag's baptism in the river breaks fire's hold. He bathes, puts
on Faber's clothes, and emerges a new man. When he encounters the hobos in the
wilderness, he discovers their fire is no longer threatening but life-giving.
It's the culmination of the book's phoenix metaphor: Montag's transformation
out of the flames foreshadows civilization's.

Not everyone accepts this transformation. Captain Beatty, Montag's superior,
is a fascinating character because he had the same opportunities Montag did
and refused them. He constantly quotes literature to attack Montag's ideas and
expose the contradictions in books---the perfect foil for the ex-professor
Faber. He has read widely and still sides with the simplified society, still
chooses to burn. In the end, that tension is probably why he commits suicide
by flamethrower.

### Lineage and Legacy

_Fahrenheit 451_ reminds me of a few other works. The Hound, which is neither
fully robot nor fully animal, is the clear precursor to the slamhound in [Gibson](/books/authors/william_gibson/)'s [_Count Zero_](/books/count_zero/) and the rat thing in [Stephenson](/books/authors/neal_stephenson/)'s [_Snow Crash_](/books/snow_crash/). The televised chase of Montag, with
the whole city watching, is like King's _The Running Man_.
The subway blasting ads presages [Philip K. Dick](/books/authors/philip_k_dick/)'s work. The way a book can be
preserved because the human mind retains more than it knows is the same way
Neuromancer reconstructs places from human memories in [Gibson](/books/authors/william_gibson/)'s
[_Neuromancer_](/books/neuromancer/); using humans as storage devices is an early version of the
data carriers in _Johnny Mnemonic_.

One scene has stuck in my head for decades: the radio orders every citizen to
open their doors and look outside to catch Montag, and everyone does. That's
the power of Bradbury's simple writing. I look
forward to re-reading the rest of his works soon.

## Reviews that mention _Fahrenheit 451_
- [_Count Zero_](/books/count_zero/)
- [_Snow Crash_](/books/snow_crash/)

## Related Books
- [_Hyperion_](/books/hyperion/) by [Dan Simmons](/books/authors/dan_simmons/) --- ★★★★★: Hyperion is Dan Simmons’s masterpiece. It is the first book in his Hyperion Cantos. It follows seven pilgrims as they travel to the Time Tombs on Hyperion to petition the Shrike. Along the way, each tells their own story, weaving together history, myth, and prophecy to tell of the impending downfall of man.
- [_Use of Weapons_](/books/use_of_weapons/) by [Iain M. Banks](/books/authors/iain_m_banks/) --- ★★★★★: Use of Weapons is the third novel in the Culture series by Iain M. Banks. It tells the story of a man called Cheradenine Zakalwe, who works for the Culture’s Special Circumstances division.
- [_Echopraxia_](/books/echopraxia/) by [Peter Watts](/books/authors/peter_watts/) --- ★★★★★: Echopraxia, by Peter Watts, is the second book in the Firefall series, unfolding at roughly the same time as Blindsight. It follows parasitologist Daniel Brüks, who gets unwillingly dragged into a conflict between multiple transhuman factions, travels to the Icarus station orbiting the sun, and eventually back to Earth.