Fahrenheit 451 Posted December 20, 2005 at 11:03 pm

I recently had occasion to finish Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi classic Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury’s haunting vision of a dystopian society has aged remarkably well over the past 50 years. There’s already a wealth of literary analysis concerning his work, but I’m not seeking to repeat such efforts here.

One thing I did find very interesting, however, was the coda added to the 50th Anniversary printing of Fahrenheit 451. The coda contains comments from Bradbury following the revelation that his most famous work had been, amazingly enough, edited for expletives in earlier, school-bound printings. He also responds to the mass of individuals over the years that have sought revisions of his works more favorable to particular aesthetics (gender, ethnic, etc.). Bradbury’s remarks really put the absurdity of such requests in perspective for me.

Lest we forget, “There is more than one way to burn a book.”