FAHRENHEIT 451

In the organizer's words:

READING FORBIDDEN! A state in which it is considered a serious crime to own or read books. Independent thinking is considered dangerous. Tracking down and destroying books is the job of the fire department. They are burned on the spot. Guy Montag is a fireman. He seems to function uncritically in this system, but secretly hides stolen books in his house. Through the young Clarisse, he learns about the art of words and the value of free thought. She asks him whether he is happy. Montag begins to question the society in which he lives. On one of his next assignments, an old woman chooses to commit suicide by burning herself to death with her books. Her death traumatizes Montag. He seeks help from the retired literature professor Faber. But he disregards Faber's warning to keep a low profile and is denounced by his wife to his superior. As punishment, he has to burn down his own house with the books using his flamethrower. With Faber's help, he manages to escape into the woods outside the city. There he joins a group of dissidents who keep books they have read in their memories in order to save them from oblivion.

ONE TOPIC - MANY GENRES Fahrenheit 451 is the best-known novel by American author Ray Bradbury (1920-2012). The book was published in the USA in 1953. The German translation was published two years later. The novel is based on Bradbury's 1951 novella The Fire Man. In 1966, French director François Truffaut made the book into a film starring Oskar Werner as Guy Montag. The theater version of the novel was written by Ray Bradbury himself.

ATTENTION - HOT! 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the self-ignition temperature of paper assumed in the novel on the Fahrenheit temperature scale commonly used in the USA. This corresponds to 233 degrees Celsius. Incidentally, books and their care and distribution were very close to Ray Bradbury's heart. He was committed to the preservation and operation of public libraries well into his old age and was particularly committed to teaching children to read.