Fahrenheit 451, Burning Bright

An Original Book Cover (note, 50 cents)

To every thing there is a season, 

and a time to every purpose under the heaven...

Ecclesiastes 3 King James Version (KJV)

The technology in vehicles is mind-blowing these days, including the ways by which we can divert ourselves while supposedly conscientiously hurtling down the highway. We have taken to listening to books as we travel, which I've mentioned before, but in our new vehicle we have an even more sophisticated system to listen to books downloaded to a phone from the library service called Hoopla.

Recently we finished a classic from another era, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It was written in 1953 and there are overtones of the threat of the atomic era as well as the threat to freedoms of McCarthyism in this exceptional novel. The title refers to the ignition temperature for paper and in this dystopian world firemen are those who are employed to set blazes rather than extinguish them. 

 Their principle targets are books, and the homes in which they are illegally housed, and those persons who are collateral damage in the conflagration. In this society people have gradually, willingly, grown disinterested in books Eventually the government bans them as a threat, realizing that the ideas they contain can undermine compliance and that it's far easier to govern when people live in a perpetual state of amusement and distraction. 

The central figure in the book is the fireman, Montag, who proudly wears the 451 symbol on his uniform. A chance conversation with a teenaged neighbour is the beginning of an awakening for Montag which changes the trajectory of his life. He rescues some books at fire scenes, a dangerous choice, and one of them is a bible. 



Film Version 1966

Montag ends up having another clandestine conversation with a former English teacher, Faber,  who is impressed by the bible in his possession. Faber mentions the Sermon on the Mount with the Jesus who is more than the confection he has become in their society - a peppermint stick is the term he uses. There is also mention of the biblical prophets.

I won't share the outcome of the story because it really is worth reading (the irony was not lost on us that we were listening rather than reading!) I will say that at the conclusion Montag has committed to memory portions from both Ecclesiastes and the Revelation of John. 

There is so much in this novel that stirred thoughts and moved me emotionally. I'm grateful to Ruth, my wife, for the suggestion. 

And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, 
which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; 
And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:2



2018 (panned)