Firemen provoke fires, burning every and any book available. Why? Guy Montag is one of many firemen who are called to fulfill their duty, blindly burning books and the people who defend them. They are evil! Books are evil! Worse are writers of poets!
The Hound, an automated robot who seems to sense your “sins” of feeling and thinking, puts you down with a lethal dose of sedative if you happen to commit a thought-feeling-crime.
Everyone’s the same, every day is gray. To give your day color is to commit a crime. You’re not allowed to express you uniqueness, but rather become part of a populous tamed by constant, intrusive distraction.
Guy Montag is thrown out of the merry-go-round by seventeen year old Clarisse. With a few well placed questions his world slowly crumbles as the veil of lies falls. As truth springs out like Jack in the box, Guy is left to wonder about his gray-scaled world and how it operates under a spell weaved by a government thriving from a tamed crowd.
It all explodes when Montag keeps a book rather than burning it. Reading a few lines creates a colorful collage of thoughts that will completely disable the veil of lies. Truth is now clear, visible. With nothing left to do but fight to defend his forsaken humanity from a totalitarian regime, Montag risks his life for a righteous cause.
A stunning dystopian world created in a short novel; a cautionary tale that has left a valuable foot-print.
Brabury’s tale is inspired by at least three events in history:
The burning of the Library of Alexandria,
The Nazi book burning,
Joseph Stalin’s “Great Purge” where poets, writers, artsits, etc., were arrested and executed.
In all of the above-mentioned historical events, powermongers seek control through censure and destruction.
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