#Fahrenheit 451

[justafewberries]

i cannot wait for haymitch to have a montag style crash out

[laddersofsweetmisery]

I don't see enough people mourning over the slow death of physical media. And I don't just mean TV shows, video games, or movies--which don't even get me started about how we don't really 'own' anything anymore. It includes notes, journals, and letters to one another...so much of our history is lost when we lose a password, a website goes down, a file/hardware is corrupted, or a platform disappears. History that doesn't seem important until you no longer have access to it. Physical media does a lot for memory recall. How many memories will we lose because we don't have something tangible to tie it back to? Something to hold in our hands and stir up those memories we thought were once lost? Sometimes I wonder what the difference between burning a book and losing access to physical media is when someone can pull the plug and remove your access so easily.

[soracities]

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 [ID in ALT]

[remusjohnslupin]

LITERATURE SERIES: Dystopia

“Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever… And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon." ― George Orwell (1984)

[odinsblog]

[renthony]

Hope in the Hellfire: Revisiting Fahrenheit 451 in 2024

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

When I first read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I wasn’t much younger than seventeen-year-old Clarisse McClellan, one of the novel’s major characters. In many ways I was like her: disgruntled with classmates who found me off-putting, eager to talk to adults who would entertain my unusual questions, and constantly off exploring the woods. I was a bookish loner who struggled socially. I proudly read banned books, and carried around my mom’s paperback copy of Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land—a book formally banned from inclusion in my high school’s library or curriculum—as a passive challenge for adults to try and confiscate it. None ever tried, but I sure was prepared to raise hell.

Revisiting Fahrenheit 451 in 2024 is a strange experience, not just because of the book’s political commentary. In 2024 I am 30 years old—the same age as Guy Montag, the protagonist. It is easy to put myself in his shoes now, the way I once put myself in Clarisse’s.

Montag is a fireman in a world where every house is fireproof. Instead of extinguishing fires, Bradbury’s firemen collect and burn books. Without books, the population is ignorant and complacent, kept busy with mindless screen entertainment.

Like Montag, I live in a world where books are targeted by a hostile government. In 2024 I live in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis makes regular headlines for his crusades against public education, libraries, and books. Many an op-ed has been written about the relevance of Fahrenheit 451 in our times, and it almost feels cliché as an anti-censorship advocate to list it as one of my favorites.

Cliché or not, I can’t help it. Fahrenheit 451 is a warning against censorship, yes; it is a pointed exploration of 1950s American social anxieties, yes; it is a well-written piece of fiction containing rich descriptions of exciting events, yes; but more than that? Fahrenheit 451 is one of my favorite novels because it leaves me feeling hopeful in the midst of social upheaval.

After stealing and reading forbidden books, Montag’s life spirals out of control. His wife sells him out to the authorities, he kills a former colleague in self-defense, he is pursued in a televised government manhunt, and before the story ends he watches bombs reduce his former home to rubble. Montag survives, but he doesn’t fix the world. He is not the victorious hero of a glorious rebellion. Many, many books get burned, and people die. Yet still, there is hope, because Montag finds community. He finds a way to help preserve the books’ contents so they can be passed down to later generations.

In 2024, Fahrenheit 451’s message is important not only because it warns against censorship, but because it reminds us that even if the road ahead is difficult, even if things get worse before they can get better, even if some stories are lost, there are still countless unnamed, unnoticed people fighting to preserve and share knowledge.

The best part is that any of us can join them.

_

Written on commission, using the prompt, “500 words about your favorite pre-1960s Sci-Fi.”

Lovingly dedicated to the Queer Liberation Library (on tumblr as @queerliblib!) for their ongoing mission to make queer eBooks accessible. Check them out at queerliberationlibrary.org!

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[mudwerks]

(via Ray Bradbury Wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a Coin-Operated Typewriter - 

...Ray Bradbury's iconic novel Fahrenheit 451, he composed the original version of the story at some point in the late 1940s (the precise date appears to be uncertain) when he had a newborn baby at home and wanted peace and quiet in which to write. He went to the basement of the Powell Library at UCLA and used one of the rental typewriters for 20 cents an hour. $9.80 later, he had a functional draft.

[fuckyeahsciencefiction]

[palatinewolfsblog]

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury.

[tilbageidanmark]

2 unusual editions of Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’.

[marslordu]

Hâlâ deliyim. Yağmur iyi hissettiriyor. Yağmurda yürümeye bayılırım.

[real-odark]

people always hate on books you read in school just because theyre being forced to read them i PROMISE it is so much better when you read at your own will because the books ARE good youre just associating them with you being buckled down and made to "enjoy" them

[sidecast]

that burning guilt you feel

[smashing-yng-man]

Beyond the obvious political correlation, all four books listed here have suffered "banned book" attempts ever since they were released. Not just in American public school curriculums, either.