Fahrenheit 451 is the classic dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury.

Plot:
Guy Montag is a fireman, which means that he is employed to set fire to things, sepcifically books and the houses around them. One day, he meets his new neighbor, Clarisse, a 17-year old girl who keeps asking him questions that make him doubt himself, his existence, his job and his life.

I did not like Fahrenheit 451. It’s misogynistic and did not age well, which could be forgiven. But it’s also mostly boring and I just don’t agree with the message Bradbury tries to hammer home. [And since this is a book with such a strong message, it’s hard to seperate that from the reading.]

[SPOILERS]

I understand that a book that’s been written almost 60 years ago will have trouble with the current standards of moral and we can argue what that means for the way it should be judged. But, people, even for a book that’s been written 60 years ago, Fahrenheit 451 is misogynistic. I mean, put all together there are four women in the book. One is a girl, Clarisse, and Bradbury had to choose the least threatening package possible to deliver her revolutionary ideas to Montag – which I understand and little girls usually are rather unthreatening, especially when they are so childlike. But then her ideas are not really her ideas, instead her head is filled with her uncle’s thoughts, probably because a petty little girl-mind couldn’t possibly conceive these ideas.

The other three women are mindless, stupid people with no thoughts whatsoever of their own who need to be taught by Montag and then are too stupid to understand them anyway. Anything of any importance that’s being said is said by a man. And that’s pretty damn infuriating.*

But that’s not the only aspect where Fahrenheit 451 didn’t age well. I mean, a science fiction novel that was written before the internet and therefore doesn’t include it, but that’s still set in the future automatically seems quaint but also the development of the TV wasn’t well anticipated and felt awkward for somebody living today.

Basically, the book is about how TV fucks up people and makes them not want to read books. And by not reading books, they lose all capability to form critical thoughts. And people, you know me. I love books, I love reading books, I couldn’t imagine my life without them. But do I think that not reading makes people stupid? Hell no. Critical thought is not something that happens when you read enough stuff. Reading is a tool that you can use for critical thought, not the other way round. And painting the TV as evil of all evil? That’s just ridiculous. [Talulah Mankiller also has an interesting post on reading that speaks from my soul. :)]

Apart from the content, Bradbury’s writing style wasn’t my cup of tea, either. I mean, there were some nice quotes like

Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

But mostly it was pretty tedious and I caught myself skimming quite often. And I never skim.

I can see the importance that Fahrenheit 451 might have had. But I don’t see its relevance for today.

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* It also doesn’t help that in the interview with Bradbury that’s at the end of my edition, he comes across as a total asshole, especially because he apparently has never heard the term “privilege” and has no idea how it applies to “white men” and therefore goes on rants about how minorities are out to censor and how that hurts everybody. And that some of his stories only feature men is completely okay, because if somebody wants to write a story that features only women, they should just go ahead and do it.