Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This iconic book deserves reading.  Knowing that it was written by the then youthful author in the space of 9 days on a rented typewriter makes the prose and construction of the novel much more impressive.  As a commentary on the 'Macarthy era' of the early 1950's where what you wrote could land you in prison if it was considered to be 'unAmerican'.  The premise of the novel that books are dangerous and must now be burnt.  Firemen now burn houses that have books.  The ideas in books are deemed to be dangerous - to distract   people there is wall to wall interactive entertainment TV's, music entertainment direct to the ears, fast cars and dumbed down culture, keeping the population happy.  The on going war in the back ground carries on, with little or no interest by the population for whom it is supposedly being carried out in the name of.  

Guy Montag the 'hero' of the novel starts to think about things, books, life and ideas after meeting a young girl Clarisse who talks about everything. Montag meets an old English teacher Faber who encourages him to read some of the books he burns.  This of course leads to detection and the burning of his home.  Montag goes on the run, encouraged by Faber to reach a group of people who live outside the city where they memorize books waiting for the time when they can be printed again.  The end of the city with nuclear bombs where all that Montag knew is gone, and society has to start again - hopefully learning from it's own mistakes.  But do we?

We had a great discussion around this book and the interesting concepts that it illustrates.  Are books that important - are ideas that important, does society need to keep a record of its events and thoughts so that we don't make the same mistakes. Having said that if you look at history - it doesn't seem to be working! What about societies, cultures and religions that don't encourage independent thought, how should we consider those.

Words used to describe it: incendiary, inflammatory, prophetic, depressing, disruptive, thought provoking.
Marks out of 10:  between 8 - 9 so well liked.

Next Book

The Door by Magda Szabo

Next Meeting

Thursday 4th February

Ground Floor, 55 Harbord St