Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I've been meaning to read Fahrenheit 451 for years, and I finally got around to it this past week. For anyone who doesn't know, the basic plot is Guy Montag, a fireman whose job it is to burn books in his dystopian society. Then he learns that books can contain good things and has to survive his change of mind.

The book is Ray Bradbury's railing against the changing world, and it's loss of the innocence of simple life. In that sense, it is somewhat pedantic.

What struck me most about the book was that it is not, in fact, about censorship. In a small way it is, but the true problem in the world is the lack of interpersonal relationships among the people. The people struck out to prevent anyone from feeling uncomfortable or stupid, and so they outlawed intellectualism. The government didn't foist censorship upon the people. The people asked for censorship because they weren't using their brains and didn't want to feel bad about it.

I can't help but draw connection to our own world. We reward stupidity in our society. Just watch TV for a while or read the news of recent civil lawsuits, and that should be clear enough. And the story has been about for weeks about how no one reads anymore (actually, the majority of people did read 2 or more books last year, but never let statistics get in the way of a good rant).

The point is we get the society we deserve, and unless we work against it, our society will decline like all others in history have. Only we'll have better weapons and technology to make the fall more interesting.