Now, I could make a point about my first post on this newly designated literary space being on a book that takes the demise of the written word as its subject matter, but then that would imply that this was a premeditated choice. In reality, it just happens to be the most recent book that I’ve finished. Besides, I think that the story of how I originally came across Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 novel is more interesting.
I nicked it.
On holidays last month in Oman visiting friends, we spent a day lazing by the pool in a sort of ex-pat country club while our friends were at work. At 2 Rials for the afternoon, it was much cheaper than the Hyatt hotel we’d chosen as our lazing spot two days beforehand (6 Rials - pricey), and was closer to the house. All sunned and swimmed out, we we making our way to the car when I noticed by the door a pile of take-one-leave-one books for holiday makers. I hadn’t one to leave, but needed something to read so I had a look through them anyway. I didn’t know much about Fahrenheit 451 except the basic premise of the story, that Francois Truffaut had made a film about it, and that Michael Moore had ripped off the title for his documentary on 9/11. Having now read it, I quite like the idea of having randomly chanced upon the book and ‘stolen’ it from a pile of unwanted titles – it seems to fit somehow. Oh, and if you’re reading this in Muscat and are wondering where your book’s gone, I’ve got it.
The story follows the events of about a week or so in the life of Guy Montag. Set in an unspecified but clearly not-too-distant future, Montag works as a fireman in an unnamed city. In this future world, the occupation has taken on a new role as bringing rather than extinguishing fires; firemen now being charged with the task of burning books (indeed, the name records the temperature at which paper – and so, books – catch fire). Unapproved literature has been outlawed and the written word is viewed with abject suspicion and distaste by the ruling powers. The only form of writing comes in manuals and pre-screened texts, thus ruling out any form of literature or original thought. In Bradbury’s future world, people are encouraged to lead hedonistic and thought-free lives, allying their emotions to televisions that fill entire rooms and sedating narcotics. Friends, families, and neighbours spy on each other and report suspicious book-oriented activity to the firemen, who swiftly set offenders’ houses ablaze, destroying all traces of intelligent and independent thought. The narrative follows Montag’s awakening from the horrific and emotionless life that is nurtured in this new society, as he begins to wonder what it is in these books that all the fuss is about.
Patently, this is a novel that owes an awful lot to more famous dystopian visions such as Orwell's 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World. Many aspects of Bradbury’s future have parallels to be found in these other titles – the multi-walled televisual experience that Montag’s wife prefers to real life echoes of Huxley’s overwhelming sensory theatres, and the backdrop of near-constant warfare between huge nations nods to Orwell. That said, Fahrenheit 451 is a force unto itself. Bradbury’s style is often frenetic and disjointed, mirroring the thought-processes of the protagonist Montag as he divorces himself from the artificial society that has somehow managed to build up around him. The writing gives a real sense of the reluctant fireman’s panicked yearning for contact with others who reject this new uncivilised civilisation, as well as his desperation to tear open and expose the newly anaesthetised world for the waste of human intellect that it represents. Though it’s true that Fahrenheit 451 is indebted to Orwell and Huxley, Bradbury’s vision of the future includes some truly terrifying aspects of its own. These can be seen in particular in the workings of the firemen. Armed with guns that shoot napalm-like jets of liquid fire over the offending literature, the firemen are also equipped with one key piece of machinery known as the Mechanical Hound. The Hound, an eerie creation described as straddling the line between living being and deadly robot, is programmed to record individuals’ particular odours and hunt them down. It is a relentless and almost flawless tool in bringing down fleeing criminals and one that Montag rightly fears enormously.
Also within the organisation of the firemen, Montag’s commander Beatty reveals himself to be one wholly indoctrinated into the new world order. With a depth of knowledge of human literary history that would seem to counteract all he believes in, Beatty is all the more frightening for his outright rejection of the literature he seems to know so well. It baffles and horrifies that one with such a wealth of humanistic knowledge can see in it no merit at all and would seek to destroy and eradicate it from the world for its inherent ‘danger’. In one wonderfully written episode, Beatty lavishes quote upon quote on Montag, first laying out a defence of literature before attacking and ruthlessly questioning its worth, all the while using the written word first for and then against itself.
There have been talks of making a new film of Bradbury’s novel since 1994 but issues over scripts, casts, and scheduling have meant that the project has been consistently delayed. Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, and most recently Tom Hanks have all been connected with the production over the years as possibilities for the character of Montag. Wikipedia tells me that one of the principal reasons for putting filming on hold was the question over the relevancy of such subject matter in the age of the internet. In a world of computers where the written word is available instantly to more people than ever before in history – albeit in a new format – is Bradbury’s message one that needs reiterating? All well and good for Truffaut to ponder the future of books in the 1960s, but do we need a 21st Century rendering? Personally I’m sceptical about the need to film a novel that so strongly argues against the transfer of information through televisual media; however, Bradbury himself was apparently happy with the previous effort saying it "captured the soul and essence of the book.”
In either case the novel itself is one that deserves greater attention. Brilliantly written and genuinely thought-provoking, Fahrenheit 451 deserves to be counted alongside the likes of 1984 and Brave New World, rather than merely recorded as a footnote of their influence.
