Dear “Chauncy Gardner" clones and wannabees:
I realize that some, if not many, of you reading this letter believe in the utmost importance of up-to-date information, current affairs and visual, technogeeky, fast-paced entertainment. You do not have the luxury of what books or novels demand of you, which is quite the opposite of television or movies, you believe. If you have seen the brilliant comedy, Being There, or read my recent review of it, no doubt you iconize the main character, Chauncy Gardner, who only watches TV and doesn’t know how to read, for being a genius as the other characters in the movie did.
I’m very sorry if I seemed to have promoted such a “genius.” Hopefully with this review forthwith of Ray Bradbury’s most celebrated novel, Fahrenheit 451 (named so because book paper burns at that temperature), you will realize as I did that your life needs to change from reading the short, 150-page novel from 1953.
Why, you ask? Read on...if you can spare the time! I’ll try to be to the point.
The Story
Guy Montag, thirtiesh, at first relishes his job of fireman in an ambiguous time set in the future when their job has become one of starting fires and burning houses or any place where novels and any historical book has been discovered. History has been rewritten with no one the wiser to say that firemen from the time of Ben Franklin have always instigated fires instead of putting them out, but after meeting a young, attractive, female neighbor who questions why people don’t talk or listen or look at the moon or feel the rain, Guy suddenly becomes confused about his life. Is this early mid-life crisis?
He begins snitching books before they go up in blazes and hiding them in the ventilator shaft so his wife doesn’t discover them. Because she can’t sleep, the woman almost commits suicide with pills, then his neighbor disappears and he calls on an old retired professor of literature for help in understanding the value of books. Guy knows there has to be more to life than just being fed shallow entertainment from the TV-like walls at home because his wife’s near death and that neighbor have opened his eyes.
Montag's confusion and search must not be found out by the fireman captain who taunts Guy about silly books he has read. A Mechanical Hound that sniffs out rats at the firestation and runs them down to inject poison with a needle, has it in for him as well and when Guy has been betrayed by his selfish, stupid wife who uncovers the books, he must try to outwit the Hound and escape the city. War on America has just been declared. Can he get out in time before the bomb drops? Will he ever realize the value of books?
Dear “Chauncy Gardners” Who May Become Real “Guys”:
This novel should be perfect for you. It’s short as I’ve mentioned, is very descriptive in a nightmarish way so you can visualize everything, has futuristic technology to admire and a hero who could be your twin brother. I promise you that Guy will replace Chauncy as your favorite role model because he has to earn the freedom he desires by taking life-or-death chances and not rely on the ignorance of others to do so as the gardener does.
True, Bradbury’s novel plays more like a tragedy than a comedy. It is dark and gripping for the most part, but your mind will come alive with wondering if our country and world could be headed for just such a future. Could knowing our history and the thoughts in novels really divert our destruction? Or can nothing help us now?
Yes, Fahrenheit 451 shall grip you so hard that it’ll be impossible to stop reading until the last, thought-provoking page. The image of a woman refusing to leave her books and burning with them, of Guy being forced to set his own house afire section by section, of a lady suddenly crying at the sound of poetry and of the circle of book-loving people around a fire outside the city: these, I do promise you, will never be forgotten, but act like a can of worms let loose on your mind.
Please give this book—and our future--a chance. Let it change you from a TV junkie into a bookaphile with real genius potential. Sure, Being There might be more fun and is fine for simple entertainment, but the hope for our world lies in remembering our past and its perceptive writers as Fahrenheit 451 vividly demonstrates. Listen to a man named Granger as he sits around the fire with Guy and the others:
There was a damn silly bird called a Phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But everytime he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know...pp 148
Know what, you wonder? Get the book and find out!
Your friend,
Jankp
This has been a very late entry to lyagushka’s This Book Changed My Life write-off. I hope the book I chose stimulates more readers like it did me. Please check out the life-changing entries of these other awesome writers:
4rhodes, azielinski, cletta1201, darkhoney, dedemw, dramastef, faireheart, fionablackwolf, greatpilgrim, gungian, jankp, KatM, kurt_messick, kuuleimomi, mkp51, mothermeatloaf, murasaki, snpmurray, vormancian.
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