#date reviewed: Feb 12th 2025

[sage-nebula]

Book Reviews: Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Rating: 2/5

When people think of books that discuss the negative impact government censorship—and in particular government-mandated literary censorship—can have on society, the book on the tip of everyone's tongue is Fahrenheit 451.

This is in spite of the fact that Ray Bradbury himself insisted that the book was not about censorship, to the point where he once walked out of a UCLA class when the students insisted that it was. This is despite the fact that the only clear reason the book ever gives for the book burnings is that the people want it done—that society itself has become so anti-intellectual that they would rather rot their brains in front of the television and feel insulted by the very notion of literature. (Well, that, and that "political correctness" made it impossible to write novels for fear of backlash, but Bradbury's bigotry can be discussed more in a moment.)

I have been interested in Fahrenheit 451 for years, believing it to be a book about the perils of media watchdogs and government censorship, along the lines of 1984. Unfortunately, in this I was disappointed.

As mentioned, only once is a reason ever given for the book burnings that take place in the world of the novel. This happens about one third of the way through the novel, when fire captain Beatty visits Montag in his home. According to Beatty, the reason the burnings and firemen came about are twofold: One, people hate anything that causes them to think and may in turn cause them distress, hence they'd come to hate books and enjoy the three-walled television screens that housed the "family" (vapid fictional characters whom they could interact with). And two, minorities who were offended at bigoted portrayals in books raised a fuss about them, leading authors to no longer want to write at all for fear of offending someone.

I've often seen it said that Fahrenheit 451 is still relevant today. To that I say: it is only relevant in the sense that washed-up male comedians and right-wing bigots would undoubtedly insist that "art is dying" because they can't make racist, sexist, queerphobic "jokes" without reprisal. Beatty's rant was inspired by Bradbury's own career, in which he received criticism in fan letters because of the bigotry present in his own work. From a foreward to Fahrenheit 451:

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles. But, she added, wouldn't it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women's characters and roles? A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms, and why didn't I "do them over"? [. . .] For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conservationist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics.

While not every criticism of a book should be listened to—and in fairness, Bradbury also cites letters telling him that The Martian Chronicles was "prejudiced in favor of [Black people]" and so it had no merit—Bradbury has a particular hatred for minorities. It is minorities that he blatantly calls out in his foreward, that he has Beatty call out as the reason for books falling to the wayside and eventually being burned. In fact, Beatty cites minorities as the ones who started the book burnings, with the general public carrying them on once they realized that books held confusing, conflicting, or difficult ideas, while television screens provided simple, mindless, comforting entertainment.

As if it wasn't enough that both the character of Beatty and Bradbury himself outright blame minorities for the dissolution of literature, the characters in the book blatantly highlight Bradbury's racism. For starters, there is not a single non-white character in the book; all of the characters are described as having white, pale faces. For another, here are the female characters in the book:

- Mildred Montag, the protagonist's wife - Clarisse McClellen, the 17-year-old neighbor of the protagonist - The old woman who burns with her books - Mrs Phelps, Mildred's friend - Mrs Bowels, Mildred's friend

Mildred is written as a mindless drone. Her entire life consists of interacting with the three wall-televisions they have in their parlor, and overdosing on sleeping pills (though she denies having done it). She does not care at all for her husband outside of his ability to pay for the fourth wall-television in the parlor, and ultimately is the one to turn him in. The last we see of her is her hurrying into a taxi to go to a hotel, where she is then killed off-page in the city bombing.

Clarisse is a manic pixie dream girl whose only purpose at all in the narrative is to be beautiful (much ado is made about her "pale, white" face) and make Montag think about the world around him. She is hit by a car and dies off-page.

The old woman who burns with her books is never given a name or identity. She refuses to leave the house and chooses to die there among her library. Montag is horrified by her death, but much like Clarisse, she was only ever a tool to further push him along the weak narrative through-line.

Mrs Phelps and Mrs Bowels are barely separate characters. They are both mindless drones, just like Mildred. They are described as simple, as dimwitted, as foolish. Mrs Phelps cries when read a poem by Montag, and Mrs Bowels grows angry, but that is the only difference between them. Both also reported Montag, but those reports were ignored by Beatty.

So as you can see, criticisms of Bradbury's portrayal of women in his works (if his other works were anything like this one) are valid. His female characters are written as dimwitted, mindless drones. The only exceptions are the two that are used to further Montag's narrative: Clarisse the manic pixie dream girl, and the old woman who exists for all of a couple pages before being burned to death. The only true intellectuals in the novel (who get to live) are men; the professors, the doctors, they're all men. And while it could be argued that this was a product of its time, Fahrenheit 451 was first published in 1953; women could indeed attend universities and earn doctorates in 1953. The fact that none of the doctors or professors Montag encounters in the novel is a display of Bradbury's own misogyny and disparagement of women coming through in his work.

Aside from Bradbury's blatant bigotry against both women and racial minorities, the novel itself left a lot to be desired. It is mentioned a couple of times that "the State" is the one who sanctions the firemen, the Mechanical Hound, and the police to hunt down those who possess and read books. However, we're never given a clear idea of what "the State" entails, or why they have this power aside from "the people want it." This in fact paints the picture that it is the opposite of a censoring regime that has caused the world of the novel; despite Bradbury's inspiration being a book that portrayed the brutality with which Stalin's regime pushed for anti-intellectualism, Bradbury seemed reluctant to say that the government in his own book would do that, and instead laid the blame at the feet of the people (especially minorities).

Although his male characters were given intellectualism and agency within the plot, they still left a lot to be desired. I felt little for Montag, despite spending 160-something pages with him, because I was given no real glimpse into his interior world beyond "he used to like burning books, and now he likes to read." The book itself felt less about the dangers of censorship (which makes sense if you consider Bradbury didn't want it to be), and more like a hearty wank over the sanctity of books. Which, don't misunderstand, books are important; but focusing less on the ideas on the pages, and more on how those ideas impact society (and build or destroy society) would be a much better use of the pages than what we actually received in this novel.

In the end, the only reason I can grant this two stars instead of simply one is because it is clear that Bradbury took something other than simply quotes from the book he read. The one thing that stood out to me—when I wasn't combing through the text to try to discern whether we were actually in the present moment, or yet another one of Montag's metaphor-addled hallucinations—is that Bradbury knew how to effectively utilize punctuation in order to control the rhythm and flow of his sentences. While the narrative aspects of effective prose escaped him, he had the mechanical ones down pat, and that is something I could appreciate.

All in all, this book was a disappointment, and I am suddenly no longer disappointed that I hadn't read it for all these years. Bradbury can keep his hatred for technology, his sanctifying of literature, and his hatred of minorities; there are plenty of better books to read.

[emeraldskulblaka]

The Lord of the Rings Musical Masterpost

Music

Original London Cast Recording 2008

Lothlórien alternative (earlier?) version

Lothlórien Toronto demo version

The Song of Hope (Duet) (Alternative Version)

Press reels/trailers/videos

Toronto, Canada

Inofficial trailer

Another shorter edit

B Roll

individual scenes: Now and For Always, Arwen Evenstar, Galadriel)

TV ad

West End

Press reels

individual scenes: The Cat and the Moon, Lothlórien, Star of Eärendil, The Cracks of Doom

official edits 1 + 2

video projection and LED screen sample by The Gray Circle x

Live performances: Kids Week 2007, West End Live 2007 1 + 2, West End Live 2008

edits including footage from both productions, but mostly West End: 1, 2

Newbury, UK

teaser trailer

Documentary/Behind the Scenes/Vlogs

National Geographic Documentary + ad for it

Backstage with Laura Michelle Kelly

"Backstage Blogs"

Rehearsals 1 + 2 + 3

Flight to the Ford behind the scenes

Orcs in the audience

Production details

Toronto, Canada

Princess of Wales Theatre

previews from 4th February 2006, official opening 23rd March 2006, closing night 3rd September 2006

nominated for 15 Dora Awards, won 5

cast of ~65 actors: announcement

scan of a programme available on request

West End, London, UK

Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

previews from 9th May 2007, official opening 19th June 2007, closing night 19th July 2008

nominated for 7 WhatsOnStage and 5 Olivier Awards

cast of ~50 actors: announcements 1 + 2, cast changes in February and June 2008.

scans of two different programmes and the brochure available on request

Newbury, UK

Watermill Theatre

previews from 25th July 2023, official opening 1st August 2023, closing night 15th October 2023

nominated for 4 WhatsOnStage Awards, won 1; nominated for 10 BroadwayWorld UK Awards, eon 8

cast of ~20 actors: announcement, small cast change in September 2023

scan of programme and brochure available on request

Chicago, IL, USA

Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Yard

previews from 19th July 2024, official opening 26th July 2024, closing night 1st September 2024

cast of ~30 actors

Auckland, New Zealand (Aotearoa)

Auckland Live, The Civic

previews from 5th November 2024, official opening 7th November 2024, closing night 1st December 2024

Sydney, Australia

State Theatre

previews from 7th January 2025, official opening 9th January 2025, closing night 1st February 2025

Plymouth, UK

Theatre Royal Plymouth

4 to 11 October 2025

Cancelled productions

Announcements for productions that never happened: London 2005, World Tour 2015

Why the Cologne, Germany production planned for 2009 didn't happen (Wikipedia in German) + another German article on the topic

Reviews

Toronto, Canada

CBC News summary of reviews

TheaterMania

The Boston Globe

The New York Times

Financial Post

The Globe and Mail

West End

Summary of reviews, another

BroadwayWorld message board with copy-pasted reviews I can't find online anymore

The Guardian

Musical Talk

A West End Whinger

The Stage

London Theatre

Variety

BBC

TheOneRing

gamesradar

and probably many more

Bootlegs

* = available, cursive = unavailable

Toronto

*Highlights video 23rd March OR 26th August 2006: selection of clips here. This is commonly mislabeled as Toronto 2007 or London Feb 19, 2008. These dates are incorrect. The video features the full original Toronto cast and runs 1h 50mins.

Audios: 12th March 2006 (preview)*, 4th June 2006*, 30th August 2006*

audio clip compilation

West End

two video clips from 19th July 2008 (closing night): Lothlórien and speeches

three video clips from random performances: Elránien, 'The War' (actually Caradhras/Moria) and Balrog

Audios: 19th May 2007 (preview)*, 28th June 2007*, 9th July 2007*, 12th July 2007 mat*, 21st July 2007*, 27th July 2007, 3rd September 2007*, 13th September 2007 eve, 27th October 2007, 10th November 2007 (highlights)*, 31st December 2007 mat*, 3rd January 2008*, 2nd February 2008 mat*, 6th February 2008, 15th February 2008, 19th February 2008*, 8th March 2008, 10th April 2008*, 17th May 2008 eve, 28th June 2008 mat, 10th July 2008 mat, 12th July 2008 mat, 19th July 2008 eve*

audio clip compilation

Newbury, UK

audios: several; videos: July, August, September 2023

Chicago, IL, USA

audios: 20th July 2024, 23rd July 2024

Interviews/Miscellaneous

Interview with Malcolm Storry (Gandalf, West End)

Interview with James Loye + 2 (Frodo, Toronto + West End)

Interviews with Laura Michelle Kelly (on several topics, LotR being one of them; Galadriel, West End): 1 + 2 + 3 + 4

Interview with Jérôme Pradon (on several topics, LotR being one of them; Aragorn, West End)

Behind the scenes mini interviews

short clip featuring the stage

my YouTube playlist for all things LotR West End

Laura Michelle Kelly singing "Wonder" for the first time since January 2008 on 24th February 2019 at her Cadogan Hall concert (my audio); this concert also featured Kirsty Malpass, who played Rosie Cotton in LotR West End

Book: Gary Russell - The Lord of the Rings: The Official Stage Companion - 2007; message me for a scan

Piano&vocal score (West End version): message me for the PDF

Technical details

Merchandise

see this post on the topic!

I'm willing to scan any of my programmes and the brochure.

Works inspired by the musical

my YouTube playlist:

edits, instrumentals, covers (featuring one by @everywindintheriver and @cafemusain + by @hellofeanor), animatics (by @concerning-mushrooms), lyric videos, remixes

cover of Wonder by thedrpepperprincess: 1 + 2 + 3

incredible cosplay by daeriscosplay - look at these pictures !! - @broadwayqueenregal x - wilmacosplay 2 - elliotgooch

edit by toby1066, @capitanogiorgio x

tattoo by lord_lexan

This post obviously doesn't contain EVERYTHING related to The Lord of the Rings On Stage. Please check my tags #lotr musical and #lord of the rings musical as well.

@lordoftheringsmusical is my blog; I'll post news, footage, and info as soon as they're available, especially for the new productions at the Watermill Theatre and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

I'm always willing to talk about this musical, feel free to tag me in posts and message me about it 💚