Book Journal Week 4 : Fahrenheit 451

Meet Montag, The fireman whose task was to burn books, who ended up meeting a curious young girl named Clarisse. Through their initial conversation we will be taken into the world where books were considered to be the source of unhappiness. And even in the first few pages, Clarisse made Montag think whether he’s happy or not. After that initial conversation, we soon will discover that Montag wasn’t quite happy with his life. He questioned his own happiness and considered himself wearing a mask, appearing to be happy just for the sake of it. The journey soon follows to the scene where Montag meets other characters in the novel including Faber, another protagonist in the novel that opens Montag’s eyes about the book that he kept hidden and wasn’t unable to burn. Will Montag eventually realize the importance of preserving books and the wisdom it carries? Will he be able to find happiness?

If you have not read this book, I definitely recommend you to read it at least once in a lifetime. However what is most intriguing is Ray Bradburry’s interview that is available at the end of the book. Prior to this, I had not paid attention to the interview but looking at it in today’s perspective, what he said is still relevant and applicable. The interviewer argued that Fahrenheit 451 is better than Orwell because Fahrenheit 451 is even more prophetic than nineteen eighty four. And in that review, Bradbury explained that his novel focuses on the social aspect instead the political aspect of society. He wondered about the impact of TV, Radio and the lack of education. He said that “ in the coming events, schoolteachers not teaching reading anymore. The less they taught, the more you wouldn’t need books.” And as you all can observe, this has happened and will even be more prominent in the future as people are not reliant on reading information rather have information fed by AI or artificial super assistants that could help you think and react to things even faster. In this conversation, though I agree with Bradburry that “you’re either love in love with what you do, or you’re not in love” but these days, I recognize that teachers get paid less to make bigger efforts in their job and even more in American society, there are layers of problems when it comes to schooling that it’s not just about the underpaid teachers. It’s the same where I live though and I’d like to think the challenge would be similar in other countries. Another aspect of the interview that intrigued me is Bradbury’s opinion on journalism and TV news where he said, “ We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking”. Nowadays, it’s not that different and I bet some of us can get carried away with some drama from Tv, internet, and social media without taking a step back and thinking it through.

Since I have read this book a couple of times by now, it was the Ray Bradbury interview that got to me the most. I think that he was beyond his years, quite prophetic and the TV that he referred to in the interview could be substituted by social media these days. From the interview, you can tell that he is pretty adamant about keeping reading alive and that writing must be done because of passion and not because of monetary rewards. I do agree but that is such an old school thought because these days, commercial writing is what gets us to do our passion especially if you’re in arts.Anyway, you can find this book on archive.org. I actually have a copy of it but because I am on the move and only bring three of my January week, I ended up relying there and borrowing from it. It’s nice that they also have a timer for borrowing that was so helpful with timing my reading. The conversation can be found from page 180-190 and if you are not into the novel, the conversation is really worth reading too. You’d get to know behind the scenes of the novel and why it was made and some details that Bradbury tries to clear up. This is the link to Fahrenheit 451 in Archive.org