Bradbury's dystopia was not the first of its kind, but, nevertheless, it was able to become a kind of symbol of this genre. It is one of the three most popular dystopias, and any interlocutor who is interested in science fiction will name it among the works he has read. But the book’s popularity has not brought it widespread understanding: few readers delve into the meaning of the novel, unlike the Literaguru team. We will try to understand this text together with you.
About the history of the creation of the novel “Fahrenheit 451,” Ray Bradbury highlights an entire chapter, “Ten-Cent Investments in Fahrenheit 451,” in his work “Zen in the Art of Writing.” The writer is surprised by the enchanting success, calling the work a “penny novel” due to the fact that Bradbury invested 8 dollars and eighty cents when working on the first version of the text in the form of a story called “The Fireman.”
Rereading his work in subsequent years, he became convinced that the characters played new pictures in his head when he “asked them questions.” They are perceived by the writer as beings born in his mind, but he is not able to control their actions. This is how Clarissa disappeared from the pages, having revived the main character Montag’s interest in the contents of the books with her crazy conversations.
Ray Bradbury writes his works with complete passion, forcing himself to work every morning. “In order to learn to write, you must write.” Thus, re-reading the novel after a long time from its publication, he realized that the name of the main character (Montag) is identical to the name of a paper manufacturing company, while Faber, who according to the plot of the book is his ideological supporter, is a brand of a pencil manufacturer.
The novel itself is called Fahrenheit 451. Which is approximately 232 degrees Celsius and marks the temperature at which paper begins to burn. The name is given due to the fact that Montag works as a fireman, on the contrary, that is, he burns books.
The essence
We are just the covers of books, protecting them from damage and dust - nothing more.
The society described in Ray Bradbury's dystopia receives information from the screens of its televisions, which fill all the walls of its houses, from the noise of radios, and other distributors of digestible propaganda necessary for the state. But books that make you think about everything that happens around people and within society are banned in this world. Where they are burned, there is no place for riots and discontent. A society incapable of thinking is easily controlled by the government, which is why, under a totalitarian regime, literature is prohibited by law, making it subject to immediate destruction. But our hero, who, as part of his duty, cleanses his little world with fire, suddenly becomes interested in the forbidden fruit and begins to contribute to the concealment of books. But everything secret becomes the property of vigilant law enforcement officers.
People who have forgotten how to communicate with each other are only able to perceive the information that is presented, without the need to comprehend it. This is exactly the future that awaits us if we continue to exist as a rapidly evolving consumer society.
Genre, direction
The novel was written in fantasy genre, representing to us the world of the near future. Dystopia, which should be understood as fiction, where the exposure of negative trends in certain areas of society and the state necessarily appears. The author exposes the vices, showing an exaggerated picture of the future to which this state of affairs will inevitably lead. We wrote in detail and less officially about this genre
Along with this work stands the utopian world of George Orwell "1984" (), as well as Aldous Huxley's dystopia "O Wonderful One" new world» ().
The main characters and their characteristics
- Guy Montag (Montag in some translations) — main character, working at a fire station of the future. His main task is to respond to emergency calls in cases where books are found in houses to be burned using a special device - a hose. This man is a child of his era; he does not think about the essence of his mission until he comes face to face with several individuals who shake his confidence in the correctness of the political system. He is consistently disappointed in his wife, who is indifferent to everything except her favorite screens, in his service, where he sees only cruelty and blind desires to please his superiors, in his society, where he no longer feels organic. From an apathetic slave of routine, he turns into a conscious and active person, capable of saving age-old wisdom from the hands of barbarians.
- Clarissa McLellan- a young girl who appeared on the first pages of the novel, who gave impetus to the hero’s interest in books and what is contained in them. Her family was considered abnormal, constantly being suspected of reading. In the evenings, their windows were lit, and one could watch how all the relatives communicated with each other, making loud sounds, which caused terrible bewilderment and irritation among all the neighbors in the area. In the film adaptation of the novel, the heroine was given more time than in the text. She disappears without a trace, and Montag can only wonder where she went. Most likely, she went into the forests where the keepers of book knowledge were hiding.
- Beatty Brunsmeister- the head of the fire department, the first to suspect the protagonist’s interest in the contents of the books. Author famous quote“Keeping books is not a crime. It’s a crime to read them.” Sensing Guy's desire to touch the forbidden, the character teaches his subordinate a lesson, but desired result it doesn't lead. His conversations with Guy are the basis of the plot, because in them the author expresses his ideas.
- Mildred- an apathetic, insensitive, indifferent wife of the protagonist, who is a complete reflection of the society described by Ray Bradbury. She sits all day on the sofa in a room with screens, hardly speaks, and reacts with caution to books found in her husband’s hands. She betrays him without a twinge of conscience, announcing the discovery.
- Faber- a friend and like-minded person of Montag, a professor who failed to prevent the adoption of a law banning books. He is initially wary of Guy. When he realizes that the main character is trying to find out inner world books, former teacher English speaker strives to help the interlocutor.
- The main theme of the novel is the role of books in human life.. Through utopia, the writer demonstrates a world that can be reality if one refuses to read literature. Books contain the experience of our ancestors, which people should adopt to move forward. Readers ask questions that are unfamiliar to mass consumer society. Therefore, it is dependent on the government and is very vulnerable. For people who are not able to think independently, information is presented from the right angle, which gives the state all the levers for complete control.
- Family. The author proves the need for communication and promotion of common family interests. Many people become isolated in themselves and their gadgets, ignoring the importance of family ties. This is a direct path to alienation from family and friends, which promises a person loneliness and insecurity. After all, who, if not relatives, can help in difficult times, support and understand? Alas, the hero realized the destructive role of screens in his personal life late, so he lost his beloved woman.
- Loyalty and betrayal. Those whom Guy trusted betrayed him, obeying what the authorities told them. When propaganda becomes higher than morality, higher than feelings and affections, the personality is destroyed, and in its place appears a submissive and apathetic slave, incapable of emotions and thoughts.
- Theme of technical progress. We must understand that technology is a means, not the goal of our existence. We cannot allow society to value gadgets and virtual reality higher than people. In addition, progress should not displace the achievements of past eras; they can coexist with each other, only then will all generations achieve harmony of mutual understanding, which is a guarantee of mutually beneficial exchange of experience.
- Conflict between society and individual. Guy Montag comes into conflict with society by reading books instead of destroying them. As a fireman called to destroy them, he becomes a double agent - on missions, instead of destroying literature, he takes some of them home. The hero stands out among the people with whom he is forced to share his life. Like the black sheep Chatsky, he is misunderstood and expelled, considered a criminal for his desire to learn new things and think, while society has forgotten how to think and exist independently.
- Propaganda and manipulation of society through the media. Television fills all the problems that arose after the ban on literature. The media is becoming an excellent way of manipulation; they have “zombified” the population, remaining the only channel for obtaining any information. However, everything that is shown in screen rooms is presented from an advantageous angle, and the chances of noticing “something wrong” in the information presented are reduced to zero due to the inability to think.
- The problem of lack of spirituality it is also born due to the lack of books and the abundance of “information fast food” of television screens, which, as a monopoly, participate in the education of the population. Moral values, as a result, are replaced by consumer ones.
- The problem of historical memory. Literature, which has collected all the discoveries and inventions, everything meaningful and thought out over centuries, is the memory of generations. This is a collection of archives of everything created by man since the advent of writing. In a society where books are banned, the possibility of preserving all this is lost, which becomes the key to complete regression for society.
- The problem of the loss of traditions and values of past eras. Technological progress, replacing a crisp book in your hand, can be beneficial or harmful, depending on how you use this find. But without the alternative that the same literature provides, society cannot judge whether it is managing its capabilities in the right way. Despite the improvement in the quality of the displayed image and the increase in screen diagonals, technology can remain only a beautiful cover for the apotheosis of emptiness.
Topics
Issues
Meaning
Ray Bradbury's idea is this: without relying on the experience of past generations, on free and honest art, the future, which is described in the novel Fahrenheit 451, is inevitable. People are increasingly choosing the latter when choosing between a book and an entertaining video; the level of education of the population is falling, due to which mass degradation occurs and an inability to think develops, leading to stagnation in every area of human activity. Instead of finding out for yourself, and at the same time checking, the information that is so conveniently and simply presented on the screens, the viewer is content with a superficial picture of the world, which is carefully packed into 5 minutes of airtime. And if the same viewer himself had found, for example, versatile facts about what was being served to him in a propaganda sauce, then his worldview would have been more objective and richer. In art, which is only one of the sources of information and guardians of culture, those grains of truth have been preserved that could shed light on the true state of affairs. Unfortunately, the author’s gloomy predictions come true in certain countries where the literacy rate is low, but the indicators of bigotry, poverty and aggression are off the charts. People kill each other without even thinking about why this is necessary, if initially all religions had a peaceful message, and all statesmen must lead the people to prosperity.
The writer’s idea is also clear that a person, like Guy Montag, should not be afraid to stand out from the crowd, even if the whole society opposes him. The desire to think and learn something new is a natural need, and in the age information technology- absolutely necessary.
Criticism
Due to its highly social orientation, the novel did not immediately see the light of day. Before this, the novel went through many censorship changes. Thus, he lost numerous swear words before releasing a book for a school publication.
In 1980, the writer noticed that the publishing house was releasing his book in an abridged form, excluding scenes that were unacceptable to them. The writer managed to stop this practice after demanding publication in full.
In Soviet criticism, the range of reviews is varied: from sharply negative reviews to praise and even flattery.
Interesting? Save it on your wall!Exactly 65 years ago - October 20, 1953 - the famous American science fiction writer Ray Bradbury's book “Fahrenheit 451” was published. Perhaps the best of the writer's major works. Very exciting, touching and at the same time lively and dynamic. The book depicts a dystopian society of the future, and in essence, “our reality, taken to the point of absurdity.” Bradbury came up with a state where reading and storing books is prohibited by law. For the sake of political correctness and general peace, the general level of spiritual and intellectual needs of citizens is artificially lowered. But there are rebels and fugitives...
In 1934, the writer lived in Los Angeles and watched at least 12 films a week. Before each screening, newsreel material was broadcast, which deeply shocked him. Grainy black-and-white footage of Nazis throwing books into blazing fires flashed before his eyes, and the sight left a seared mark on his subconscious. Ray sat bathed in the light of the movie projector, the flames reflecting off his round glasses as tears rolled down his face.
During the Great Depression, books—especially free books from the public library—were his only solace. In 1966, in the preface to Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury wrote: “When Hitler burned the book, I felt, forgive me, acutely that he was killing a man. However, in the end, stories, people and books are one flesh.”
In the late '40s, Ray wrote a series of works that he later called the "five firecrackers" that helped fuel Fahrenheit 451: Bonfire, Radiant Phoenix, Exiles, Escher II and Pedestrian. . These stories dealt with themes of censorship, banned books, book burning, the power of individuality, or rescuing art from the clutches of those who would destroy it. All of them belonged to the genre of social satire and addressed issues that were especially close to Ray Bradbury.
The earliest draft of the future novel was called Long After Midnight, which Bradbury wrote on a borrowed typewriter from the Los Angeles Public Library. Thus, the basis of the novel “Fahrenheit 451” appeared back in 1949. The 25 thousand word story, which became known simply as “The Fireman,” was written in 49 hours.
Ray Bradbury intended to turn The Fireman into a novella. However, the story was supposed to be the axis around which other stories were located. As he wrote the book, Ray made the decision not to revisit the original story. “I just let the characters tell their story,” Ray said, recalling the first hours of work on the book “Fahrenheit 451” and resorting to the traditional author’s cliché. “I didn’t work on the novel; rather, he worked on me.” The plot remained the same, the characters remained the same: fireman Montag; his wife Mildred, swallowing pill after pill; Clarissa MacLellan, who opened Montag's eyes to the power of the books he burned every night. Minor changes have been made.
In January 1953, the book still did not have a title - Ray was looking for something powerful, symbolic. And then on January 22, in the light of the sun's rays pouring through the windows into the garage, he had a revelation. “I thought I could use the temperature at which paper ignites as the name,” Ray recalled. “I tried to contact the chemistry departments of several universities, but did not find anyone who could tell me the exact temperature. I contacted several physics professors. To no avail. Then I slapped my forehead and muttered, “You fool! You should have called the firefighters right away!” After a quick call to the Los Angeles Fire Department, Ray finally got an answer: the temperature at which paper ignites is 451 degrees Fahrenheit. “I didn’t even think to check if this was true,” Ray recalled with a laugh many years later. — A fireman told me that a book page catches fire at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. That became the title of my book because I liked the sound of it.”
The book's release was met with critical praise nationwide. The eminent New York Times critic Orville Prescott praised the book with these words: “The skill with which Mr. Bradbury has depicted pictures of a crazy world so frighteningly reminiscent of our own is amazing. The story of the protest of its protagonist, who decided never to burn books again, but rather to read them, is breathtaking...”
Although not immediately, Fahrenheit 451 became one of Ray Bradbury's best-selling books. Sales of the first hardcover editions amounted to 4,250 copies, while 250 thousand paperback copies were released simultaneously. Sales remained consistently high for decades, gradually increasing as the book's cultural significance grew. By the end of the 1980s, the 79th edition of the book totaled about 4 million 500 thousand copies. “I could very well stop writing and live solely on royalties from the sales of this one book,” Ray admitted in a 2002 interview.
Even without taking into account the book's consistent sales figures, this novel, even more than any other work by the author, has become a literary monument. It sits comfortably alongside other dystopian masterpieces such as Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. And it was just as easily considered required reading for high school students, along with Hemingway, Faulkner, Harper Lee and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Although Ray Bradbury has always considered his books more fantasy than science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 helped cement Bradbury's reputation as a visionary. Half a century after the book was written, one can be convinced that much of what was described in this exciting story turned out to be a prediction of the future in amazing detail. Of course, the book-burning premise is pure metaphor, namely the depiction of a fictional world facing problems that plague our own world.
Some startling plot details in Fahrenheit 451 make us wonder if Bradbury was looking into a crystal ball to predict our future. Among other things, the book anticipates society's dependence on television, the advent of wall-sized plasma televisions, the invention of stereo headphones (radio shells have long been rumored to have inspired the Sony Corporation to create the Sony Walkman headphones), and even the live broadcast of sensational events across all media channels.
Ironically, the novel Fahrenheit 451, which exposes censorship, was subject to censorship by its own publisher for 13 years, until Bradbury became aware of it. In 1967, the Ballantyne publishing house released a special version of the novel, adapted for reading in classes in high school. Words such as “abortion” were cut, as were the English swear words “damn” and “hell” (similar to our “damn”). In the approximately 150-page novel, 75 paragraphs were changed. Two scenes were edited. In one of them, “drunk” was replaced by “sick.” In another, cleansing the navel from impurities was replaced by cleaning the ears.
Since readers had no opportunity to compare with the original, these edits went unnoticed: there were no footnotes or editor's notes on the censored pages. The cut-out version of the novel was reprinted ten times. At the same time, the original "adult" version was sold in full and was available everywhere except schools and colleges. In 1973, after six years of distributing two versions of the novel, the publishing house decided to release only the edited version.
The novel was filmed and staged several times. In 1966, a film based on the story was made by Francois Truffaut, carefully transferring images from the book to the screen. The director allowed himself an unexpected experiment by using the same actress (Julie Christie) in the role of Clarice and in the role of Montag’s wife (played by Oscar Werner). Despite some disagreements between the director and Bradbury himself, this film adaptation is already considered a classic.
Mel Gibson and Frank Darabont also took on the film adaptation, but these projects were never realized. A version of the film was filmed in the Soviet Union in one of the episodes of the television play “This Fantastic World.”
Few people know that Bradbury, known for his grumbling about computers and the Internet, at the very dawn of the personal computer era - in 1984 - hosted the creation of computer game"451 degrees Fahrenheit."
The packaging of the game, released in 1986 for the then popular Commodore 64, Macintosh and PC platforms, featured the words of Bradbury himself: “I was delighted to take part in turning my story “Fahrenheit 451” into a computer adventure. If you were wondering what happened to Montag when the book ended, or what sci-fi software is, now you have a place to start!
"Do you know what fallen leaves smell like? Cinnamon!"
Reviews
To be honest, I don’t remember why I decided to read this novel. Therefore, when I started reading it, I did not know the approximate content or even the genre of this work. But I was already familiar with the work of Ray Bradbury, which I generally like. The novel, like all the works of Ray Bradbury, is replete with beautiful figures of speech and complex structures, so reading is a pleasure. In his narrative, Ray Bradbury shows the reader modern society, a society of consumers who have lost interest in art, literature and science. A person is surrounded by technology on all sides, life is simple and ordinary, interesting pictures flash on TV screens, and emotionless monotonous news filtered by the government comes from the radio. People have been turned into zombies, they do not remember their past and do not appreciate their present, they float with the flow, like robots, devoid of feelings. Books, like other art, are banned. Those books that carry the danger of even the slightest possibility of forcing a person to think, feel, and create independently. Surprisingly, this novel is just about our modern society. The only difference is that people themselves forbid themselves to love, feel, enjoy what nature gives us. They gratefully accept what society dictates to them, often without their own own opinion. They are zombified by the news, they believe the announcers broadcasting from the screens, and they do not remember their history.
This novel is not about the love of books. No. This novel is about the degradation of people, about a society that goes nowhere and ends in complete ruin. This book touched me and I listen to it from time to time. I found a cool site: http://dotbook.ru/ Foreign+literature/8465/,
where are the best readers with beautiful speech.
Problems of the novel “Fahrenheit 451”
Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 is a thematically expanded version of the short story "The Fireman", published in Galaxy Science Fiction in February 1951, and presents a whole range of problems that, in the author's opinion, may eventually be overcome. , humanity will have to face. The title of the novel comes from chemical properties paper spontaneously ignites at a temperature of 451 degrees Fahrenheit (233 degrees Celsius).
In depicting America in the twenty-first century, Bradbury models a picture of the future based on current trends. The writer in his novel creates an anti-model using the symbolism of his fantasies. He reflects on the fate of earthly civilization, on the future of America, with its unconventionally formed mentality, with its national flavor. The USA depicted in the book is, in fact, the same United States of the twentieth century, with its consumer culture, with intrusive advertising in the subway, with “soap operas” and the artificially cozy world of cottages. Only everything is taken to the extreme, to that very notorious “absurdity”: firefighters do not put out fires, but burn banned books; people who prefer to walk rather than drive cars are mistaken for crazy; It is forbidden to even admire nature. The slightest deviation from the generally accepted way of life causes repression [Lyubimova 2001].
The development of science and the rapid growth of technology have changed people's thinking. Technological progress has made human life much easier, while at the same time greatly suppressing his instinct of self-preservation. People are helped to survive in a new society that is becoming not only technocratic, but also totalitarian herd feelings, and first of all this affects the spiritual aspects of a person’s life. The norm of behavior becomes a consumer existence, in which the only food for the mind is provided by entertainment, reality is replaced by primitive television illusions [Zverev 1989].
The world described by Bradbury did not become like this overnight. In the twentieth century, radio, television, video and audio systems were added to such media and communications as newspapers, mail, telegraph, telephone, computer network etc. The volume of information absorbed by humans has increased significantly, which has led to information overload. Often carrying a destructive, aggressive beginning, and sometimes having a contradictory, conflicting nature, information began to have an impact negative impact on the psyche and health of people. There was a need to create methods of protection against such influence. Ray Bradbury in his novel presents one of the options for solving this problem: repressions against literature did not begin by themselves - they were a forced measure. When at some point it became clear that the information sphere needed to be reduced, the question arose: what area? It is no longer possible to do without means of communication, and television and advertising have long become an integral part of people’s lives, and too many people are interested in them from a practical point of view. The solution was found in getting rid of books [Chalikova 1991].
An attempt to argue for this decision is made by the colleague and opponent of the main character Guy Montag, Firemaster Beatty. The reason why books fade into the background, he sees, is the extensive development of culture, its expansion with inevitable devaluation: “Once everything has become widespread, it has become simpler... Once upon a time, only a few read a book - here, there, in different places . Therefore, the books could be different. The world was spacious. But when the world became crowded with eyes, elbows, and mouths, when the population doubled, tripled, quadrupled, the content of films, radio programs, magazines, and books dropped to a certain standard. A kind of universal chewing gum... Books are shrinking in volume. Abridged edition. Retelling. Extract... From the nursery straight to college, and then back to the nursery... The duration of education in schools is shortened, discipline is falling, philosophy, history, languages have been abolished. English language and less and less time is devoted to spelling, and finally these subjects are completely abandoned...” [Bradbury 2008, 114].
So, why have books if you have a TV, argues Beatty. And reading does more harm than watching TV shows - books disturb you and make you think. They are dangerous! People who read books become “intellectuals”, stand out from the rest of the public, and claim something. “...A book is a loaded gun in a neighbor's house,” Beatty declares. - How do we know who will become the next target for a well-read person tomorrow? Maybe me?
What should I do? It’s very simple: take it and ban it, burn it. Firefighters, Beatty explains, “have been made the guardians of our peace. In them, as if in a focus, all our completely understandable and legitimate fear of being inferior to others was concentrated. They became our official censors, judges and executioners... ... People of color do not like the book “Little Black Sambo”. Burn it. Someone wrote a book about how smoking predisposes you to lung cancer. Tobacco manufacturers are in panic. Burn this book. We need serenity, Montag, calmness” [Bradbury 2008, 124].
The novel “Fahrenheit 451” is a subtle and skillful criticism of consumer society, fear of its degradation, and a warning to the average person. The consumer society described by Bradbury does not burn books at the stake, it burns itself - its history, its culture. The value of the novel lies in scary picture future, which may well become true. The American ideal of a carefree life, dreams of universal equality, the absence of unnecessary anxious thoughts - this limit of society’s dreams can turn into a nightmare if the author’s warnings are not heeded [Novikov 1989].
Both novels considered in the study were written at approximately the same time, which reduces to zero the likelihood of using one novel when writing the other, but, nevertheless, the works have many common features, allowing these works to be classified as a dystopian genre.
1) In both works, the action takes place in countries where there is more or less pronounced violence against the individual and a restriction of his freedoms. The degree of personal lack of freedom in the works varies. Orwell describes a typically totalitarian society with all its attributes, such as strict regulated standards of behavior, weak economic development, the figure of the leader in the image of the “big brother”, total observation of every person. Bradbury brings to our attention a seemingly completely different society. At first glance, complete well-being reigns in Bradbury's world: there is no hunger, obvious violence, moreover, there is no visible power, there are no pictures of leaders, no broadcast of fiery speeches, or any other attributes of totalitarianism, but the well-being of this world is only external [Shishkin 1990].
2) Following the canons of the genre, the protagonists of the novels are opposed to society; their thinking, different from the general mass, is forced to involve them in the struggle against this mass. Winston Smith's struggle ends in defeat, since the world described by Orwell is so stable and perfect in its totalitarianism that the heroes of the opposition have no chance. Ray Bradbury was a little more loyal to his hero. The world of Fahrenheit 451 is less violent than the world presented by Orwell. Bradbury optimistically admits the possibility of resistance; consumer society is opposed to guardians driven into the forests cultural heritage, people-books, to whom the main character of the novel, Guy Montag, subsequently goes [Shishkin 1993].
3) The role of women in both novels is similar. The way of thinking of the main character is compared with the way of thinking of people absolutely loyal to society, and oddly enough, for both authors, the wives of the heroes (in the case of Orwell, the ex-wife) act as such an opposite. Both Winston Smith and Guy Montag suffered from the absolute conformism of such close (or theoretically should be close) people. It is also similar for both authors that the catalyst that rebelled both heroes against the regime was a girl: Bradbury’s Clarissa and Orwell’s Julia.
4) Attracts attention and social status The main characters of both novels, both of them have some position in society and have access to a certain set of goods. Therefore, it cannot be said that they had absolutely nothing to lose. However, internal freedom on the other side of the scale outweighs in both works.
5) The ways in which the authorities influence the minds of the population are extremely similar; In both novels, the most important way to influence a person is television, broadcasting a huge number of patriotic programs for Orwell or completely meaningless soap operas for Bradbury.
6) Home driving force, which forced the heroes to put everything they had, and even their lives, on the line, two things became: love and literature. The movement towards knowledge motivated these people. It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that the profession of both was the destruction of information: both burning books for Bradbury and working on correcting history for Orwell.
Thus, having discovered so many common features in the works of these rather different writers, we can conclude that the views of anti-utopians on the oppression of moral freedoms are very similar, and their views on the forces that must resist evil are also similar: love, loyalty, thirst for knowledge and independence of thinking. In the authors’ contemporary bourgeois society, they already saw elements of “personal programming” [Lazarenko 1991]. The moral position of both writers can be illustrated by the statement of R. Emerson: “The true indicator of civilization is not the level of wealth and education, not the size of cities, not the abundance of harvests, but the appearance of a person raised by a country.”
On October 20, 1953, a new dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury called Fahrenheit 451 appeared on the shelves of American stores.
The epigraph of this science fiction work states that 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper ignites.
Bradbury tells us about a hypothetical totalitarian society based solely on consumer thinking and popular culture. All books that have the potential to make people think about life should be burned. Even the possession of literature becomes a real crime, and people capable of critical thinking become criminals. The so-called “firemen” burn all the books they find, along with the houses of their guilty owners (who are also arrested, sometimes sent to a lunatic asylum).
Guy Montag, the main character of the novel, serves as just such a “fireman”. At first, he is confident that he is doing his work solely in the interests of all humanity. But he quickly becomes disillusioned with his initial ideals imposed on him by society, becomes an outcast and goes “out of town”, joining the “marginals” who memorize books in order to preserve knowledge for posterity...
It is noteworthy that this is ingenious work of art was written in the Los Angeles Public Library building on a typewriter that Ray Bradbury rented.
The first edition of the book is also interesting - it was published in several parts in the first issues of Playboy magazine - the photo shows the first issue of 1953, with Marilyn Monroe on the cover -
Bradbury paints us a world where people are losing touch not only with the intellectual heritage accumulated by their ancestors, but also with nature and with each other. They are always running somewhere, not talking about their feelings and thoughts, chatting only about material values... The walls of their houses are picture tubes, allowing them to watch meaningless TV series and TV shows all day long, as well as communicate on an analogue of Skype with family and friends (literally so - putting on headphones! The book, I remind you, was written 60 years ago!)
People's lives have been simplified to the extreme - it consists entirely of entertainment. Even funerals have been canceled so as not to disturb anyone - people's corpses are cremated in a matter of minutes.
Moreover, all this “stability” is a colossus with feet of clay. All this time, the country is on the verge of a war, which finally begins.
I won’t talk here about how the main character of the book understands that another life is possible, so as not to spoil it (as you might guess, there were women involved).
It is noteworthy that “451 degrees...” has become a real victim of censorship since its release. Publishing Ballantine, when publishing the version for secondary schools, changed more than 70 phrases, including Bradbury's favorite curse words, references to abortion; two large fragments of the book were completely rewritten. At the same time, the publisher did not make any notes about editing...
The abridged version of the book ceased publication only in 1980.
In the USSR, the novels were published quite quickly - in 1956. At the same time, despite the negative reviews left, for example, by the magazine “Communist”, the book was published and was available, as it was actively used to criticize the “decaying Western consumer society”...
Although it was in our country that the book people described in the novel existed. In Soviet camps there were prisoners who knew forbidden religious literature and poetry by heart, and who were happy to share information with others. An example of such an expert (in this case, an expert in the Criminal Code) was shown in his recent continuation of “Burnt by the Sun” by Nikita, our light, Mikhalkov -
In fairness, it is worth noting that even before the revolution in our country there was something similar to some episodes of Bradbury’s novel. Thus, the famous Russian writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky in his book “Moscow and Muscovites” (1926) described how the duties of firefighters (!!!) of one of the Moscow units (Sushchevo district) were to burn books prohibited by censorship. A striking coincidence that makes me wonder: hasn’t Ray read Gilyarovsky?
Amazing and clean technical side novel, the prophetic technological genius Bradbury, who in the year of Stalin's death described such things as:
- a portable radio receiver (of the “Shell” type, which appeared only 26 years later);
- TV models: from portable miniature ones to wall-sized TVs (modern panels that appeared only 15 years ago). At the same time, TVs were not only “in color, but also in volume” (that is, 3D)…
