Posting this five years after the last post but, whatever.

I am always told that Fahrenheit is about suppressing information, which the book did not seem to be about to me. I think the idea of 'burning books' in a historical sense is all about ridding the world of information and ideas that a society or government felt to be harmful. I interpreted Fahrenheit 451 not to be about suppression of anything, but of a society which simply moved on from art. When you look at today's society where plenty of people don't read books, are proud not to read books, about the plethora of vapid, mindless entertainments that exist and how meaningful art has been almost pushed to the boundaries of society, this novel is more timely to me than 1984 (we are our own big brother now lol HELLO SOCIAL MEDIA, how you doin?)

Guy Montag's wife loves her parlor, with the wall-sized television screens, and her complete absorption in them, as she watches 'the family', was like Bradbury saw reality TV coming. Instead of spending her time watching film, she is watching life instead of living it, and get involved with the lives of those she watches. Was the advent of television, or in my interpretation reality television, a huge factor in art going by the wayside? Bradbury wrote his novel before the explosion of 'pop fiction' when novels were still primarily about art and ideas than simply about telling a story.

The way I see the novel, society got so wrapped up reality TV and vapid entertainment that they eventually became afraid of art and the ideas behind them thus they decided to start burning books because they were daunted by books and by words and having to think. Society became radical about books as they can become radical about anything when they are so afraid of the power of something they don't understand, or that is different. The portrayal of the 'bums' (for lack of a better word) that Montag runs into outside of the city are the remaining few who still believe in art to the point they would rather be vagrants and live without the amenities of society, of home, and choose what is then considered to be a criminal life because they place that much importance in art. In many ways, they are martyrs for art. Montag is a character who, despite his job as a fireman, becomes enchanted by art and realises it is worth sacrificing everything for, because (in my words) art is the one thing that separates man from the rest of the world, and without art, we are simply animals with air-conditioning.