Fah fetched

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Another one of ‘those’ books that everyone has read and from the same era as ‘on the road’ but this I enjoyed a lot more but I have to admit to being predisposed to like a dystopian fiction.  NB it can’t go unnoticed that this was written in the aftermath of Orwell’s alleged fictional vision.

This is a world in which books are banned and immediately burned on discovery, their owners sentenced to death.  Montag is a fireman a profession in this future which is responsible for this state sponsored incineration censorship.  That in days gone by fireman traditionally doused the flames is now just a whispered myth.  Away from work the population is stupefied by prescription drugs and manipulated by large screens mounted on their walls and if they want to get out they get into a car and drive like Winston Wolf.  All the while people live in permanent fear of war.  This is a short book that reads easily, doesn’t get bogged down and finishes with a glimpse of hope.

But then again maybe it’s all too far fetched, after all it’s not like we live in a world where people spend their free time out of their minds on narcotics; licensed, prescription or otherwise.  Where people are addicted to interactions through a handheld device which drip feeds them bullshit whilst it simultaneously strokes their alter egos until they think the virtual version is the real them.   It’s not like this is the only time any ‘reading’ goes on because most of the time people are staring at screens that drench them in whatever the current desired world view may be.  And we would never point and sneer at anyone daft enough to suggest that the world we are told we live in might actually be something else.  No that couldn’t happen.