Celsius 232.78

I have recently re-read and devoured Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and I must admit, it has always been one of my all-time favourites. Fun fact, its name comes from the temperature on which paper is known to burn, hence the tongue-in-cheek title of this post

I highly recommend the novel for those who have yet to read it, but I'll draw you a quick summary of it.

This dystopian novel follows the life of thirty-something-year-old Guy Montag, a third-generation fireman. However, unlike our world, in Fahrenheit 451, firemen are the fire starters themselves, brandishing a salamander patch and a Kerosene hose, and accompanied by their metallic hounds, "ferocious" mechanical dogs able to track down individuals by scent and armed with need capable of delivering lethal doses of drugs, they "go around" hunting and burning books. Guy is a proud fireman and seems to take some pleasure in his craft;

"Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.

Fahrenheit 451

At first, he seems to have a good job, which he enjoys, a house fitted with good technology, and a wife, Mildred. Although not even the threat of a nuclear war seems to shake him, the guy, no pun intended, does seem to spend a lot of time smiling.

This all begins to change; one day, when coming back from work, and meets his neighbour, Clarisse, a young 17-year-old girl that seems to be the antithesis of his wife, but more on Mildred later.

Clarisse strikes our protagonist as a rather peculiar, if not odd, girl. She, for starters, is quite inquisitive, questioning Guy's job, his happiness, and the small pleasures in life. She points out some stuff that for the reader might come out as evident and mundane, but in this dystopian future/past (the book was initially published in 53), like how green some patches of grass, and not only blotches of green on the corner of a drivers eyes, and how in the early morning there is dew on some of their leaves, and makes some comparisons to the world of yesteryear, as they were told to her by her uncle (a man that had been imprisoned and was an educated man, unlike most people in the novel), that billboards use to be shorter, but where brutally stretched to match the speed in which people drive.

Conversations like this start to spark a change in Montag's mind; he starts to realise how empty and lacking information there is in his life. And he begins to learn the same happens with those around him.

Take Mildred, for example; she lives a life of pure nothingness; she lives surrounded by the screens of her parlour, where a myriad of characters perform a pseudo-virtual reality, a mix between VR and soap operas. She does ask Montag to shut up since she cannot hear her family, which is nothing more than the soap opera she lives in. Unfortunately, she is not alone; as a matter of fact, apart from their neighbour, Clarisse, all women in the novel seem to be shallow creatures; one of her friends says proudly that she only sees her children a handful of times per year, as she "dispatches" them to private schools. Other talks of her husband and the husbands that died with a coldness that we would associate with psychopath or sociopath. But back to Clarisse;

As mentioned before, she sparks something in Montag, and not long after they meet, Clarisse meets her end being run over by a car, a fact that Guy only learns a few days after the fact, as Mildred just forgot to tell him about it.

This brings a bit more chaos into Guy's life, but soon at his job, he is faced with yet another woman that turns the spark left by Clarisse into a small flame. An old lady that, whilst protecting her books, defying all logic, instead of letting the books burn alone, reveals a match and strikes it. Engulfing her and her collection in flames. This leaves our protagonist thinking. And amid the confusion, he takes a book with him—the bible.

This is what I consider to be the turning point of the story, as now Montag starts to read, properly think, and doubt himself and his society as a whole. The role of books and the reason to despise and burn them. While discovering this new façade of himself, he is faced with two opposite forces, Captain Beatty, the firemen chief, a paradoxical man that seems to know not only a lot about books but is known to quote them sometimes; but make no mistake, he opposes books and goes to whatever lengths to burn them, but it is in Beatty that I found one of the most concise ways to summarize this society and its need for speed.

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.” “Snap ending.” Mildred nodded. “Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumour of a title to you, Mrs. Montag), whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at last you can read all the classics; keep up with your neighbours. Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.” Mildred arose and began to move around the room, picking things up and putting them down. Beatty ignored her and continued: “Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom! Digest-digests, digest-digest-digests. Politics? One column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” Mildred smoothed the bedclothes. Montag felt his heart jump and jump again as she patted his pillow. Right now she was pulling at his shoulder to try to get him to move so she could take the pillow out and fix it nicely and put it back. And perhaps cry out and stare or simply reach down her hand and say, “What’s this?” and hold up the hidden book with touching innocence. “School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, (Captain Beatty to Montag),

The other force in Montag's life is Professor Faber, an English professor who had retired and had crossed paths with Montag a year before the beginning of the book. Despite possessing only a handful of valuable books, he longs for more. He openly acknowledges that the current state of society is a result of the timidity displayed by people like him who failed to oppose the burning of books when they had the opportunity. He harshly criticizes himself for his lack of bravery, but his actions demonstrate tremendous courage and expose him to significant risks.

These two have opposite views on books and knowledge, but their attitudes in life are also opposed, one a blowhard, the other a self-appointed coward.

Faber acts as the guide for Montag's journey as we advance. If we follow the hero's journey archetype, he plays the "mentor" role. He instils our hero with the seeds of critical thinking, and for a while, he is a voice in our hero's journey, giving him a green bullet. This earpiece allows Faber to communicate directly with Montag. This will enable Montag to confront Beatty with an ace up his sleeve.

At his point, Guy starts thinking of ways to change the course of his society; he wants to start a printing press with Faber, steal books, and store them in other firemen's houses, spreading mistrust among these so-called heroes.

But his plans start to go awry when one night, while at work, they have a house to visit, another residence to burn books in—Montag's own home. So Beatty rides with Guy and commands him to burn the house and the contents.

Upon getting there, he sees Mildred walking away from the house, knowing she was the one that called in and denounced him, as she knew he was harbouring books.

Montag does as he is told and carefully explores and destroys almost everything in the house, the parlour, fitted with the screens where Mildred's "family" resided and pranced, the room they shared, and everything inside. During this time, Beaty confronts him, and a fight ensues; Montag, armed with his flamethrower, burns his captain to a crisp, and I mean it literally.

"(...) as a shrieking blaze, a jumping, sprawling, gibbering mannikin, no longer human or known, all writhing flame on the lawn as Montag shot one continuous pulse of liquid fire on him."

Having lost his green bullet in the fight, Montag flees and tries to find refuge in Faber's house but knows he cannot stay there for long as he knows the hounds are after his scent. So after the professor hands him clothes to mask the smell and instructions on where to flee, Montag is left to his own devices.

Following his mentor's advice, he flees to the outskirts, where he finds a group of seemingly homeless people. The hobos are what is left of the thinkers and professors of yesteryear.

They know our protagonist as his pursuit was broadcasted. To soothe public opinion and be unable to find Montag, a scapegoat was murdered in a live broadcast, albeit never showing the face.

Montag gets to know this cultural elite and discovers that they are knowledge incarnated, these scholars, in order to protect the words of the past, took the task of memorising books, as to keep them would have been a risky manoeuvre.

Having only memorised part of the Bible, more specifically the Book of Ecclesiastes, it is who Montag becomes.

While this happens, they can hear the bombers ridding the city, bringing chaos and destruction to all Montag knew. This thematically fits with the Book Montag became as the book of Ecclesiastes is one of the books in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and is traditionally attributed to King Solomon. It is a book of wisdom literature that explores the meaning of life and the nature of existence. The author of Ecclesiastes, who refers to himself as "the Preacher," presents a pessimistic view of life and asserts that everything is meaningless or vanity. He observes that all human efforts and achievements are temporary and ultimately futile and that death comes to all. Despite this bleak outlook, the Preacher also acknowledges that there is value in enjoying life's simple pleasures, such as eating, drinking, and finding satisfaction in one's work. He also recognises the importance of wisdom and living a virtuous life. The book of Ecclesiastes concludes that the only way to find true meaning in life is to fear God and keep his commandments. Overall, the book of Ecclesiastes is a thought-provoking reflection on the human condition and the search for purpose and meaning in life.