Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

[silverflight8]

I feel that the conventional descriptions of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 don't do it justice. For perhaps the first quarter or so of the book I felt it was entirely too heavyhanded. After all, I've been thoroughly spoiled for the themes of the book, and honestly I'd much rather be spoiled on the action; themes really spoil everything. The thing that bothers me about dystopia is an almost fetish for the past - re-imagining what came before a paradise. Sometimes it's an idolatry of the political system that came before (civilization only exists as a city--all right, fine, the word itself is derived from civitas inextricably tied to cities, but still.) Sometimes it's putting historical figures on pedestals. A similar vein exists with high fantasy: protagonists trust the knowledge contained within books more than anything else. And dystopias sometimes demonize or play up the dangers of new technology until I feel I'm listening to another lecture: all that TV that kids watch will rot their brains! all the videogames they play will rot their brains! all those movies, all that internet! and so on. Bradbury's "Veldt", one of his short stories, has some lingering similarity in themes (about TV, incidentally.) But this passage was a much more nuanced look at the issue. Faber is an old English professor who has been hiding for years, along like most thinkers:

It's not books you need, it's some of the things that were once in books. The same things could be in the 'parlour families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

(Faber, page 78)

Faber is speaking as someone who was educated in the past, but his words fit in with how Clarissa's living--she doesn't have the same philosophical bent or education, but she's living what Faber's speaking about. "Infinite detail and awareness", except expressed in life instead of words.

I'd heard Fahrenheit 451 being described over and over again about the perils of modern society and the dangers of not reading. And truthfully, the book does deal with burning books and firemen whose roles are twisted versions of their original purpose, but perhaps that's because Bradbury was writing in 1951 and books were a/the major way of consolidating information. And there's no resurrection of a burned book. A ripped book, maybe. A water-soaked book, maybe. Once fire gets through a book, it's gone. But the idea of the novel is much broader than books.

The other interesting point that Bradbury seems to make is that it's not a top-down movement, not really. Unlike similar novels like 1984, it's not the government. It might have been the government or a higher power, once, but now the compulsion to destroy books and bury oneself in the blunting influence of TV is from the people themselves. The fire department will show up at your house if you have books, but the firefighters aren't being forced to do it; they feel it's right to do so. Through Faber, Bradbury criticizes the pursuit of happiness at the expense of everything else like critical thinking, though he notes elsewhere that people aren't really happy, either. The protagonist's wife, despite her 24/7 immersion in her virtual Family and other content, seems to be deeply unhappy in a way she isn't even aware of (it's ambiguous whether or not she tried to commit suicide.)

I'm pretty sure I could go on for a long time dissecting this novel (what about the chief fireman? The woman who chose to burn with her books? etc) but I'm sure lots of more eloquent people have done this already, and I've spilled enough ink myself!

Fahrenheit 451's a very short book; I liked it, but I do think he's more used to writing short stories. Bradbury's writing is unexpectedly lyrical and abstract, I suppose, with a lot of metaphors and similes that took awhile to get used to, but it left me distanced from some of the action, which was really effective. I make it sound like a very anvilicious novel, but I've heard so much about it that I'm incapable of actually judging anymore. Despite this, I'd still recommend the book--if for nothing more than to understand what all the references are invoking. (And he quotes "Dover Beach"! One of my favourite poems, so it's got my vote.)

Comments

Fetish for the past indeed

[ed_rex]

I agree with just about everything you've said here, so just a couple of observations.

I think you're spot-on about Bradbury's "fetish for the past". I think you'll find, if you keep reading him, that it's an attitude that permeates much — probably most — of his work, and that celebrates a past that never existed. Or else, one very narrow slice of a past that did.

It took me a hell of a long time to recognize that as being part of a fundamentally conservative sensibility on Bradbury's part, even when (as in much of The Martian Chronicles, or Something Wicked This Way Comes. The second shoe dropped for me only fairly recently, when I (think I) read or perhaps saw on Youtube an interview with Bradbury in which he said, in effect, No, no, Young Geoffrey! Don't read you personal political views into my work! Farenheit 451 was not an attack on McCarthyism, but an attack on Stalin and the Soviet Union!

The other interesting point that Bradbury seems to make is that it's not a top-down movement, not really. Unlike similar novels like 1984, it's not the government. It might have been the government or a higher power, once, but now the compulsion to destroy books and bury oneself in the blunting influence of TV is from the people themselves.

I don't remember that aspect of the novel (it's been a long time), but it certainly parses as an observation coming from a conservative thinker, doesn't it? At least rhetorically, leftists usually credit the masses with being part of the solution, not part of the problem.

A good, thought-provoking review. Nice to see someone making the academy look good in lit-crit for once!

Re: Fetish for the past indeed

[silverflight8]

In my mind, I've always grouped science-fiction as "future" and fantasy as "past" (in really general terms--like the aliens & elves dichotomy) so it was surprising to see how much science fiction drew from the past, even if it wasn't acknowledged in the same way like fantasy (eg consulting books as ultimate repositories of knowledge.) I guess another way of saying it is that no one is able to escape from the grasp of history :P

No, no, Young Geoffrey! Don't read you personal political views into my work! Farenheit 451 was not an attack on McCarthyism, but an attack on Stalin and the Soviet Union!
This is a case where Death of the Author really comes into play, I think. Maybe he intended it that way and justified it that way (then and later), but given the time period he wrote it in, I think it's impossible not to draw links to the Red Scare.

I think it is Faber who talks about the top-down/bottom-up thing, though unfortunately I returned the book weeks ago so I can't check. Alas, I'm not really a political science sort of person, so I don't have anything to add to the conservatism/neo-liberal/liberal discussion.

I'm glad you liked it! I figure that Fahrenheit 451 has been reviewed a million times, so it's not really necessary to do the summary song and dance this time. (The summarization is the worst part of reviewing. It never feels quite adequate.)

Re: Fetish for the past indeed

[ed_rex]

I'm glad I liked it too. The pleasure of unexpected insights are among the reason I keep at LJ/DW. And though our interests don't always intersect, your posts are among those I've most looked forward to since you showed up.

But I fear to make you blush. Onwards.

I tried searching for what I had thought was the Bradbury quote, but the closest I could locate via Youtube suggests a much more general inspiration that what I remembered. Namely, book burnings in particular. In an interview from 2007 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aKItfLeso4), Bradbury sites Nazi book-burnings in the streets, more quite Soviet burnings (and author burning, he said) as well as things like the Library at Alexandria going up in flames.

If the author himself is anything to go by, he wasn't taking aim at any specific contemporary political events, but was more expressing a visceral horror of the destruction of knowledge and the physical fact of libraries.

Re: Fetish for the past indeed

[silverflight8]

:D I guess you can take the kid out of the English class but you can't take the English class...oh, that doesn't work. One of my favourite things about the internet is I can and do find people who like talking books :)

He said "Fahrenheit four-five-one!"

It makes sense, but I can't help but think that the circumstances surrounding the author while he was writing must have influenced his work.

Re: Fetish for the past indeed

[ed_rex]

... I can't help but think that the circumstances surrounding the author while he was writing must have influenced his work.

That's my prejudice, too. At the same time, it's worth keeping in mind that McCarthy had a lot of support and, more, that a lot of non-fascists nevertheless fully believed in the idea that "international communism" posed an immediate and existential threat to the USA (and the entire Free World).

Just think of how many normally anti-imperialist liberals and so-called lefties supported the bombing of Serbia, the invasion of Iraq and the up-coming(?) attack on Iran (to name just a few fer'instances when people philosophically opposed to militarism get caught up by the propaganda of the moment).

So I can believe that he was paying more attention to headlines about the show-trials in Moscow than he was to the House Unamerican Activities Committee hearings in Washington. Or that he approved of what they were up to there.

Re: Fetish for the past indeed

[silverflight8]

It sounds like there's two arguments/points--whether or not Bradbury was aware of/concerned with McCarthy, as well as whether or not that affected him/his writing. I'm inclined to think both, since he was pretty upset by the book burnings and seemed to have heard of the news abroad. (I am not sure how many Americans--and Bradbury himself--knew about or cared about what was going on, like you say.) And I subscribe to the "no one creates in a void" theory. But this is all just speculation. :P