Thoughts on Fahrenheit 451 Audiobook (2005)

Recently I have found it difficult to read but found myself with four hours, give or take 20-minutes, of time in a car by myself to commute to my new position. I figured why not try this audiobook thing. I have been trying to complete the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge and this is a classic of Genre Fiction I had not read. However, listening to it I have quickly and successfully (finally) read a classic without being bored of it.

This classic tells the cost of complete censorship. As Bradbury (2005) notes in the Afterword, so read by Christopher Hurt, the Narrator, he explains how this book is a commentary on how picky people are over books. What a fitting book to read during #BannedBooksWeek (however by the time this is posted that will have been weeks ago). The story is quick paced and told from the perspective of Fireman Guy Montag, who is disillusioned with the world he lives in. Montag realizes something is wrong after meeting Clarisse, a teen neighbor, who sees the world differently. After this chance early morning meeting all the events are set in motion, leading Guy on a journey he had never considered. Bradbury’s text shares what happens when you open your eyes and see the world in a new way but beware of the path knowledge may lead you on.

Bradbury’s story is timeless and fitting to our time of easily hurt feeling where everyone has an opinion but if you voice it too loudly your will be shot down by one group or another. The afterword of this edition of the book was great and connected the text to today in an elegant way. The story tells what can happen when people give up thinking for themselves and only focus on being politically correct and not hurting the feelings of groups which voice opinions the loudest. Books are a tool, as noted by Faber (a retired English professor in the text), to contain knowledge and ideas for people to remember. The wandering intellectuals try to preserve the world’s knowledge even as it destroys itself through pointless nuclear war. The age in which this is set could just as easily be today as it could be the past (Cold War Era) or some time in the not too distant future. We all should take warning from Montag, Beatty, Faber, and the rest. Look around, do you know everyone or are they simply there passing by an unknown like in the tale where people come and go a swiftly as the wind in a gust then gone.

So, this has become less about the text and more about my view of the world. This book makes one think about what would happen in a world without books. What would I do, after all my job is books?!?!

Reference

Bradbury, R. (2005). Fahrenheit 451 [Electronic resource]. Blackstone Audiobooks. Retrieved from Shasta Public Libraries using Overdrive/Libby.

Goodreads.com. (2018). Fahrenheit 451 [Cover image]. Retrieved from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16639257-fahrenheit-451