Fahrenheit 451

[MolotovCocktail]

Has anybody here ever read this book by Ray Bradbury? In a nutshell, its basically about some person who lives in a society where books are burned and people learn only through television. The main character is a book burner. The name of the book was inspired by the temperature at which paper sets on fire.

 

[Foxbat]

The ignition point of paper is around 842 degrees fahrenheit. The remark about 451 being the temperature books burn was used as a selling point for the book. I don't know why Bradbury didn't just call it Fahrenheit 842.

Still, whatever the reason for the title, it is one of my all-time favourite novels. A joy to read...which makes the subject matter of the novel all the more ironic

 

[YOSSARIAN]

The ignition point of paper is around 842 degrees fahrenheit. The remark about 451 being the temperature books burn was used as a selling point for the book. I don't know why Bradbury didn't just call it Fahrenheit 842.

Still, whatever the reason for the title, it is one of my all-time favourite novels. A joy to read...which makes the subject matter of the novel all the more ironic

Why does everything I'm taught to believe turn out to be a lie? Now I know that every time I've explained the title to someone I've been guilty of perpetuating an insidious falsehood. Answer me this Mr. Bradbury: Why, dammit, WHY?!!!

 

[j d worthington]

Oh, yes, there are numerous mentions of the book around here, from the Book Hauls thread to the Bradbury discussion, to What Future Do You Fear Most, to another thread on the book itself:

http://www.chronicles-network.com/forum/11560-farenheit-451-a.html?highlight=Fahrenheit

It's a classic of the genre, and was made into a beautiful, somewhat dream-like film by Francois Truffaut in 1966.

Cul... I'd say that, Bradbury being sensitive to rhythm and sound, 451 is a bit more mellifluous than 842, plus you have 4 + 1 = 5 as well. It may also have been a reference to the Nazi book burnings (though not to a specific year, more to the era). There may be other reasons, too, that I'm not aware of....

 

[Dave]

I just read this last year and you must read it! It may be 50 years old but the ideas in it could be today. It isn't just about book-burning:

People wear i-pods but don't listen.
They have video screens on every wall of the house.
There are Reality TV shows where the general public take the place of actors, and the actors become more important to them than their family.
Criminals on the run, chased by helicopter is the ultimate reality TV.
Everyone is more concerned with style than content, more with trivia than truth.
Knowledge and ideas are bad if they do not conform to the politically correct norm.

I think Bradbury must have been a time-traveller. It is so chillingly accurate.

 

[Ian Whates]

A classic book. I was lucky enough to pick up a signed, limited edition hardback edition a couple of years ago, and it's one of the most treasured books in my collection.

 

[Talysia]

I've only seen the film so far, as part of a college project on French film directors, but reading this I think I'll get the book.

 

[Allegra]

Shamefully I've never read Bradbury but I will have to since another thread specially about the author got me very interested. Any suggestions from which book to start?

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

I just read this last year and you must read it! It may be 50 years old but the ideas in it could be today. It isn't just about book-burning:

People wear i-pods but don't listen.
They have video screens on every wall of the house.
There are Reality TV shows where the general public take the place of actors, and the actors become more important to them than their family.
Criminals on the run, chased by helicopter is the ultimate reality TV.
Everyone is more concerned with style than content, more with trivia than truth.
Knowledge and ideas are bad if they do not conform to the politically correct norm.

I think Bradbury must have been a time-traveller. It is so chillingly accurate.

It was already a prophesy fulfulled by the time I read the book in 8th grade. The ideas animating this book didn't exactly hit me like a thunderclap though - it was merely a grim confirmation of all my darkest suspicions on where our species was headed. And each year becomes steadily worse. When Sony Walkmans first hit the stores a couple of years later I was telling my friends about the connection between this book and our current reality. I was laughed at. I wonder if those same people are still laughing, 24 years later ?

 

[j d worthington]

Um, Dave... "The Marching Morons", "The Little Black Bag", "If This Goes On --", A Canticle for Leibowitz, The Forever Machine, "The Happy Breed", "King of the Hill" (Chad Oliver), enormous amounts of Ellison (try reading his stuff from the early 1960s on, for example... pick up a copy of Approaching Oblivion and read the introduction, let alone things like "Silent in Gehenna" and "Knox", or the pyrotechnic but underlyingly grim (and right-on-the-nose at predicting a society) "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman".... the list goes on, and on, and on... These people were/are sharp, and were/are concerned about where we were headed, and they were taken as just entertainment (they were entertaining, but that was by no means all they were).

As I've said elsewhere, I think we've tended to forget, since the advent of Star Wars, that sf has often been the genre for guerilla social criticism when putting such comments out there in any other form would likely end your career at very least....

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

Shamefully I've never read Bradbury but I will have to since another thread specially about the author got me very interested. Any suggestions from which book to start?

No need to apologize! I think The Martian Chronicles would be a wonderful introduction to his work. Lyrical, elegaic, crisply paced and with a pungent current of social commentary running beneath it all, this was the book that got me hooked on Bradbury forever when I was 12 years old. I hope it has the same effect on you too!

If your tastes are running more towards the shadowlands of the human heart, then take a one way ticket to The October Country. With any luck you'll never want to return!

 

[Allegra]

No need to apologize! I think The Martian Chronicles would be a wonderful introduction to his work. Lyrical, elegaic, crisply paced and with a pungent current of social commentary running beneath it all, this was the book that got me hooked on Bradbury forever when I was 12 years old. I hope it has the same effect on you too!

If your tastes are running more towards the shadowlands of the human heart, then take a one way ticket to The October Country. With any luck you'll never want to return!

Thanks for the recommendations! Well, I'm not so sure about The Martian Chronicles... Not 12 any more and not a boy either - growing up feeling the martian thingies are mostly boys stuff (not because of 'Men from Mars, Women from Venus'). I'll look out for The October Country and may be this Fahrenheit 451 as well. I heard about it only because of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11.

 

[j d worthington]

Thanks for the recommendations! Well, I'm not so sure about The Martian Chronicles... Not 12 any more and not a boy either - growing up feeling the martian thingies are mostly boys stuff (not because of 'Men from Mars, Women from Venus'). I'll look out for The October Country and may be this Fahrenheit 451 as well. I heard about it only because of Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11.

I think you'll find that Bradbury's Martian Chronicles has little of that to it... wistful, elegiac, poetic, yet with a great deal of insight and passion about both the prides and faults of the human race in that book...

 

[Allegra]

Thanks J.D., will check it out without any preconception.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I always considered 1984 to have many themes similar to 451 - but much prefer George Orwell's book

 

[Dr. Atomic]

One of the all-time classics of science fiction -- and one of the few straight-up science fiction stories written by Bradbury (who always considered himself more of a fantasist). I think this is the best novel of dystopian future -- I always felt the alagorical nature of 1984 intruded on my enjoyment of the story -- as well as an engaging, powerful character study. The subject matter makes it particularly poignant, and it's one of those novels that feels as current today as it did in the Fifties. A work of genius, in my opinion.

I have a signed copy of the first paperback edition... it's one of the treasures of my collection, too (though I envy your hardback edition, Ian).

As for Martian Chronicles... Allegra, it's definitely not a boy's book (or a girl's book) -- it's universal in its themes, and it approaches space and martians as more of a poetic fantasy than a rock 'em sock 'em adventure. Definitely recommended. (It's actually a collection of short stories -- a "fix up," wherein they're all tied together to create a single book... but they still read like short stories...)

 

[Ian Whates]

I have a signed copy of the first paperback edition... it's one of the treasures of my collection, too (though I envy your hardback edition, Ian).

Wow! What a fabulous edition to have... and you envy me?

Must confess, when I first saw Allegra's request for advice, I dithered because I didn't know quite what to recommend:

Fahrenheit 451 itself would be a great way to start reading Bradbury, but then there's the oft-mentioned:

Martian Chronicles/The Silver Locusts -- such a wonderfully alegorical collection of stories, seemingly almost pastoral at one level, but passing comment on trends in American society at another...

The Illustrated Man -- a really neat way of linking diverse stories, with each springing from different tattoos on a carnival man covered with them, the tales given a common thread by being told as stories within a story...

The Golden Apples of the Sun -- which, apart from anything else, features the wonderful "The Sound of Thunder" -- one of the best time-travel stories ever (See how many times it picks up mention in the current '5 best time travel stories' thread over in the SF loungs, from myself, Neal Asher and others)...

Something Wicked This Way Comes -- A tale set around a sinister carnival at Halloween, which manages to be both terrifying and enchanting at the same time (and it's recently been reissued in the UK as part of Gollancz's Fantasy Masterworks series)...

And I haven't even mentioned The Machinaries of Joy, Dandelion Wine or I Sing the Body Electric.

To be honest, any of the above would be a great way to start reading Bradbury. The important thing is, don't miss out by not reading him at all... and if you could throw in a bit of Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber and Jack Vance along the way, then you'd be really cooking!

 

[j d worthington]

Martian Chronicles/The Silver Locusts -- such a wonderfully alegorical collection of stories, seemingly almost pastoral at one level, but passing comment on trends in American society at another...

The Illustrated Man -- a really neat way of linking diverse stories, with each springing from different tattoos on a carnival man covered with them, the tales given a common thread by being told as stories within a story...

There are also story links between these, as well, such as "Way in the Middle of the Air" (Martian Chronicles) and "The Other Foot" (Illustrated Man), or "Usher II" (M.C.) and "The Exiles" (I.M.).

Incidentally, as a piece of trivia, some of you might be interested in this, considering how Bradbury spoke highly of HPL on different occasions ("fine, big-worded Lovecraft", from "Pillar of Fire", for instance...), and HPL was a minor character in "The Exiles":

In asking for Bradbury's revisions on the story for the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Boucher & McComas apparently wanted HPL added. Tony Boucher specified that he wanted Bradbury to give "the real HPL ... not the saintly wonder man that Augie [Derleth] and [Donald] Wandrei have created", whereas Francis J. McComas said "We think that what we mean by the 'real' Lovecraft emerges somewhat even from the most idolatrous accounts.... A curious introvert, frustrated sexually, financially and creatively, ridden by neurotic dreads of cold and fish (and almost morbidly devoted to his one debauchery: ice cream), seeking refuge in thoughts of an Eighteenth Century which he did not understand but created in his own image, compensating in tremendous letter-writing for his failures in personal relations". This is from The Eureka Years: Boucher & McComas's Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1949-54, ed. by Annette-Peltz McComas (1982). This is interesting in that, while having some degree of truth to it, it is yet another "mythic" version of a very unusual and complex individual to make that person fit into a preconceived mold... one that was, in the end, even further from the truth than that they criticized, and showing part of the reason why HPL continued to find such difficulty being accepted by the sf community long after the hostile reception of his At the Mountains of Madness and "The Shadow Out of Time" when they appeared in Astounding....

 

[Allegra]

Thanks again everyone! I'm going to order The October Country, Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 to start with. I know I can count on you!

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Wow! What a fabulous edition to have... and you envy me?

Ah. I misread your post and thought you had a signed first edition hardcover. That got me kind of drooling. However... I still think you've got a great book and a wonderful addition to any collection, and I wouldn't mind adding it to my own.