Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 is about How TV Destroys Literature

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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 6/13/2007

Here's a news flash for those who have interpreted Fahrenheit 451 (Ballentine, 1953) as a protest against censorship: Ray Bradbury says that it just isn't so. The author, interviewed last week by the L.A. Weekly, says the novel is actually about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

"Useless," Bradbury, now 86, complained to the Los Angeles publication about the ubiquitous tube. "They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full." He adds that his fear about television—when he first published his book 54 years ago—has been partially confirmed by its effect on the news.

Fahrenheit 451 fans watching widescreen TVs are sure to think back to the book's central character, Guy Montag. The fireman—which in this case means a book burner—begins to wonder why he's burning books to pay for a living room featuring three wall-sized televisions, with his wife pressuring him to buy a fourth. The title, Fahrenheit 451, is stated as "the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns."

As everyone who's ever loved the book (or the 1966 movie starring Julie Christie and Oskar Werner) knows, Guy Montag eventually gives up burning books and considers joining a secret community of book-lovers who "become" their books by memorizing them to pass them down to future generations.

Interestingly, Bradbury's comments are timely. Fahrenheit 451 is, for many communities, this season's National Endowment for the Arts-funded "One Book" selection. Bradbury's publisher, Gauntlet Press, this month also is releasing Match to Flame, a collection of short stories Bradbury wrote as a run-up to Fahrenheit 451.

Bradbury has said that he wrote Fahrenheit 451 on a typewriter in the basement of UCLA's Powell Library and that his original intention in writing the book was to show his great love for books and libraries.