A Firefighter’s Take on Fahrenheit 451
Editor's Note: In "Fahrenheit 451," firefighters burn books. In real life, they're superheroes. To help celebrate this year's One Book, we asked Fire Captain Mike Strapko to give his take on Bradbury's classic novel.
In "Fahrenheit 451," Ray Bradbury wrote brilliantly of a speculative, future Dark Age where society oppresses creativity and independent thinking by eliminating books.
From what I understand, Bradbury considered the increasingly widespread use of television at home in the early 1950s to be a threat to books. No doubt, the rapid advances in technology during the past century, specifically radio, television and the Internet, have taken people away from reading books.
Unfortunately, our fast-paced life conflicts with our leisure time which often makes it challenging to find a quiet spot and the time to enjoy a good book. The way I look at it, reading is an essential stimulus for the mind and soul, similar to how exercise is important to maintaining excellent health. We really need to take time to relax and enjoy reading as an integral part of a wholesome lifestyle.
Even though I very much enjoyed reading "Fahrenheit 451," it was alarming how Bradbury chose firefighters as the tyrants of reading. It is disturbing to think that firefighters of the future might become totalitarian regime’s book burning squads. Such awful behaviour contradicts the firefighters of today, who are soldiers of humanity and put their lives on the line to protect lives, property and the environment.
Furthermore, I have habitually borrowed books from the library since childhood. Therefore, it is unfathomable to consider perpetrating such a shocking deed, such as what the firefighters did in "Fahrenheit 451."
As the novel's central character, Guy Montag, secretly became smitten with books, it was encouraging to see that he became awakened to the fact that something dreadful was occurring. His burning love for books had intensified with the more he read, to the degree that he actually turned the tables and saved books. This is in line with the positive image and work of present-day firefighters.
Bradbury’s book fuels a strong case for the importance of reading and how hard it is to imagine a world without books. Reading is the key link that enables our enlightened civilization to continue flourishing. Books are vital fodder that keeps our collective souls nourished with unbridled creativity and imagination which opens our minds to explore all sorts of possibilities and make this a better world.
When you think of it, a true joy in life is picking up a good book, like "Fahrenheit 451," that draws you in so much that you can’t put it down. It would be shameful to lose sight of the important privilege of having such an abundance of books in our libraries and bookstores.
I strongly encourage the residents of Toronto to actively participate in the Keep Toronto Reading Festival and to continue reading and discussing books among friends and family. Please join the celebration of books available at your local Toronto Public Library and also online. Fire your imagination by reading Ray Bradbury’s "Fahrenheit 451" and partake in the city-wide events.
4 thoughts on “A Firefighter’s Take on Fahrenheit 451”
I like Mike’s defence of firemen as “soldiers of humanity”. I managed to pass on my love of reading to at least one of my sons by reading to them before bed for 11 whole years! I think that the man who wrote this must, himself, be a writer. I hope everyone gets to read the “Introduction to the 50th Anniversary Edition” that I have. Ray Bradbury’s remarks on his life writing this book are priceless. I once read that he couldn’t wait to get up in the morning and write. What a passionate way to live!
Yes Katherine, I’ve been rewriting my father’s memoires pertaining to his 18 months in soviet jails and gulags. The Soviet Union holds the record for the most murderous authoritarian regime of all time and they likely burned far more books than all other book burning atrocities combined. Thank you for participating in Keep Toronto Reading 2013.
I would be very interested in seeing your father’s memoires. The Soviet Union used psychiatry as a fascist tool and that should be of interest to all of us. In December, I ordered a book entitled “Psychotropic Drugs in the Year 2000 – Use by Normal Humans”, 1971. It cost me $240! It now sells for $500! I think this book has been buried by psychiatry so that the public does not find out what the eugenicists, anthropologists, psychologists and psychiatrists of the “Panel on Drugs in the Year 2000 – Use by Normal Humans” had planned for us. The Canadian psychiatrist, Heinz Lehmann, was brought to Verdun (now Douglas) Hospital in 1937 to conduct the experiments of MK ULTRA on the poor little children of the orphanages. They were called the “Duplessis Orphans”. That psychiatrist launched the current debacle we are now facing – antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs rampant everywhere. Even given to our children. Look out because the Canadian and Ontario governments are all in on it – it is part of their economic action plan to have us all on psychotropic drugs. Mr. Bradbury predicted this and we had all better wake up to the fact or we are in for it. If you get this email, Mike, please call our clinic (416-463-2912), and if you will let me, I would like to see your Dad’s and your work!!
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/quebec.pdf
There is the “Petition to the Vatican on behalf of the Duplessis Orphans”. Not for the faint of heart but we need to face up to it. The man who did these things to the kids, psychiatrist Heinz Lehmann, wrote the “Canadian Commission on the Use of Non-Medical Drugs” in 1972. It put researchers above the law, with no political interference and with at least $20 million dollars and more to develop our life as addicts. It is going on today with a vengeance. And, by the way, no Canadian lawyer contacted would touch this issue with a barge pole. The poor people had to go all the way to Washington, D.C. If you look up what psychiatrists have written about Heinz Lehmann, you would think he was the finest man alive. Suffer the lies….