Rereading Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’

I first read Ray Bradbury‘s ‘Fahrenheit 451‘ in Sept 2011 as a member of The Guardian’s online book club. Completed rereading it yesterday night after nearly 13 years. Looking at my blog notes from then, I recognize that my feelings and thoughts about that book have not changed much and if any, they only deepened with lot more respect for what Ray Bradbury tried to do with/in Fahrenheit 451.

However, since I have not remained static as a reader, there are a few major differences in the reception of the book. First, back then I felt I was a bit removed from the dystopian world that Ray outlines in the book. In 2024, I feel I am not only in that dystopian world but I have accepted it as the new normal. The social media of today’s world which contributes to creating a distorted picture of everything far outweighs the controlled communication that Ray writes about in the book. Second, I have grown far more sentitive to the nuances of language and instantaneous recognition of the inherent joy in reading good themes in fiction. I enjoyed this reread much more than when I first encountered the novel for its insightful theme, rich metaphors and similes. Having covered a lot more of Ray’s work in the intervening years, I can now say that there are very few that can match Ray’s mastery of metaphors in telling stories. Third, I recognise now that the book abounds with references to great works in literature including that of Shakespeare, Mathew Arnold, Marcus Aurelius, Alexander Pope and Johnson etc… which I was not only unaware then but glossed over while reading. Fourth and above all, I now feel the entire theme, purpose and message of the book has grown manifold more urgent and more important now than what I felt then. A fallout of all of this is that now I feel Ray is a greater visionary than what I thought about him then.

Rereading a book is an opportunity to reassess it but more than that it is an opportunity to reassess oneself and the changes that the passage of time wroughts on ones mental makeup.