Most Overrated Book // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 8

Today is the eighth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "most overrated book".

I think you can tell a lot about a person by the books they consider overrated. Knowing what books someone likes and hates is revealing too, of course, but branding a book "overrated" has so many more layers. For one, to think a book is overrated means you have to think it is generally rated highly in the first place. This can give us insight into the sort of literary scene the person engages in. For example, I couldn't tell you what fantasy books are overrated; I simply don't know which ones are considered good or bad, since I am not at all involved with the fantasy book community. Secondly, do they consider a book that's highly-rated to be one that's critically-acclaimed, commercially-popular, or both? Finally, why do they think the book is overrated? This can be the most revealing question, in that it shows what traits they believe are overvalued in books, and thus which traits they themselves deem insufficiently appealing. Asking someone what books they think are overrated reveals how they perceive the views of society; in the process, it reveals how they believe themselves to be separate from them. Their choice of book is always as much a reflection on them as it is on the book itself.

With all that said, my choice for this challenge is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. 

When I say that Fahrenheit 451 is overrated, I mean that it is given too much praise within the realm of dystopian fiction. In order to understand my argument for this, you will need to have some idea of the novel's plot. Here is your usual Goodreads summary, as is becoming the custom here on Extra Libris:

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. 

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.  

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

Say what you like about Fahrenheit 451 - and I fully intend to - but you can't deny it has an alluring concept. The idea of book-burning is a striking image and so loaded with meaning that an author has to exert little to no effort to make it an effective symbol. That said, if the burning of books is a subject that comes with great depth to begin with, my complaint about Fahrenheit 451 is that it fails to go any deeper. This is my main issue with the novel: it is, in short, a shallow book.

This is a novel that reveres literature unconditionally. It presents the burning of books and the symbolic destruction of knowledge as being a great loss, with the recovery of this knowledge presented as perhaps the only possible remedy for the dystopian society it's set in. However, what exactly makes these books so valuable is not really addressed. Books are valuable because they are books, the novel seems to say. Furthermore, the particular books presented as valuable are generally the "greats" of the western canon, predominately those written by white male authors - the only exception to this that I can recall appearing in the novel is the Bible, so make of that what you will. The only clear indication of their value is typically presented in opposition to the vices of Bradbury's dystopia, where people stare at television screens all day and thus are depicted as not engaging in anything intellectually meaningful. The idea of "books good, censorship bad" as a message is communicated effectively enough simply in the image of book burning, so the fact that Bradbury fails to go beyond the basics of this in a full-length novel  (except to say that television is bad too) is quite remarkable.

I feel it is worth mentioning here, for those of you who believe in the importance of the author's opinion on their work, that Bradbury has infamously appeared to change his mind several times over the years with regard to the message of Fahrenheit 451. A few years after it was first published in 1953, Bradbury said in a radio interview that it was written as a response to McCarthyism and censorship. Decades later, Bradbury began to claim that this was not the case and that the book was actually meant to be a commentary on mass media and how television is bad for people intellectually. Before that, in his 1979 coda to the book, Bradbury directed his ire at minorities and their apparently censorial impact on literature, writing:

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse.

Later, in a 1994 interview, Bradbury had the following exchange with Anne Gasior:

Question: How does the story of Fahrenheit 451 stand up in 1994?

R.B.: It works even better because we have political correctness now. Political correctness is the real enemy these days. The black groups want to control our thinking and you can’t say certain things. The homosexual groups don’t want you to criticize them. It’s thought control and freedom of speech control.  

Perhaps this evident dislike of minority groups goes some way towards explaining why Fahrenheit 451 only ever glorifies the work of white, mostly straight, male writers. Perhaps it is also a testament to how prophetic Bradbury can be, as so many of his fans claim he is. After all, he would most likely consider me a member of "the homosexual groups", and here I am predictably attacking his book.

Let us return to the issue of Bradbury's flip-flopping over the true meaning of his novel. One could charitably say that so many meanings can be derived from Fahrenheit 451 because it is a book that addresses many themes and can be applied to many situations. Less kindly, one might say that Fahrenheit 451 is such a thematically and rhetorically weak book that you can slap its generic message on any currently-relevant political issue and claim that this is what it's been about all along. Take your pick.

Another thing that irks me about Fahrenheit 451 is what I see as its lack of compassion. It connects books and reading to a sense of superiority. Books are good and if you read them, you too are good. Television is bad, and if you watch it you are a mindless drone. Classic books are great because they are great, and if you disagree then you're advocating for censorship. It's simplistic and shallow, but it gives people a great sense of validation if they can agree with the author. You, the reader, are not like the rest of society, the people who gawk at televisions and don't think. You are a reader, and that makes you better (why, we do not know).

I can already see that some people may have looked at my quotes from Bradbury on the subject of minorities and felt that dredging these up was unfair. I would like to say that I did not bring these up to slam Bradbury as a homophobe, a racist, or even just a generally insensitive person (though he may have been that as well). Rather, I think these comments go to the heart of Fahrenheit 451's message and why I dislike it so much.

Fahrenheit 451 appeals to people who want to see themselves as radicals despite mentally adhering to the status quo. Just as the heroic characters in the book see themselves as revolutionary for deifying authors who have been widely acclaimed critically and commercially for decades, Bradbury considers himself to be speaking truth to power by damning the exact marginalised groups which have been vilified by wider society for centuries. The fact that those organisations most famous for book burning also hated these exact same minority groups seems not to have occurred to Bradbury.

In order to end on a slightly positive note, I will say this: at the time that it was created in the era of McCarthyism, Fahrenheit 451 may well have provided an interesting, fresh perspective. Yet this does not change the fact that it is lacking in depth, empathy, or any great relevance today besides perhaps giving an idea of the concerns of the 1950s. The fact that it could be considered by anyone to rank among timeless works of great dystopian literature is evidence, to me, that it is truly overrated.