How to live forever: Brushstrokes on the author
The author of “How to live forever” in Dandelion Wine, is now approached in what he deems his only sci-fi novel: "Fahrenheit 451. Check this interview here where most of the thoughts below mentioned have been extracted from:
Cándido proposed the reading of Fahrenheit 451 to the Reading Club and truly, triggered by his profound admiring of Bradbury which I / we absolutely back, we incorporated the novel into our program. A book on books being burned, censored, and banned is absolutely a must for book lovers, as Cándido stated. There is a long history of orchestrated book burning:
The Roman Empire burned up countless books over the course of its long reign. The first emperor, Augustus — objecting to books of “prophesies and destinies” — ordered more than 2,000 books to be reduced to smoke and ashes, according to “Book Burning” by Haig A. Bosmajian. One of the greatest losses of literature was at the Library of Alexandria, established under Alexander the Great in northern Egypt around 331 BC. The library was burned down at least three times over hundreds of years and is now permanently erased. At one point, the Library of Alexandria held over half a million documents from multiple nations, including present-day Syria, Greece, Persia, Egypt and India....Nazi Germany’s incineration of 25,000 “un-German” works on May 10, 1933, is perhaps the most infamous book burning event because photos and videos of the event can still be seen today. Source here
“Fahrenheit 451” unspins the dystopia of the world without books, where books are forbidden, burned, and may compromise the stakeholders.
Bradbury mentions in this interview how passion-oriented he is and how committed he had been to writing as a naturally driven force inside him: “I never worked a day in my life,” he adds that he followed a passion rather than a job. Aside from any intellectualization that might have broken the pace of his throbbing heart on a throbbing machine, Bradbury confesses himself as a self-taught man who has lived in libraries all his life. Libraries and books being burnt as well as his fantasies and admiration for the fire department where his uncle worked might have been the seeding bed for building a story arch. “Fahrenheit 451” started in the cellar of UCLA where typewriting machines could be rented for a few cents an hour. With a recently born baby and a small house, Ray Bradbury took a bag of dimes and embarked on the writing of an earlier version of “Fahrenheit,” which was completed in 9 days in 25, 000 words. “The Pedestrian” had him started in the writing among many other tales, or stories from his other books. In "The Pedestrian," he recounts an unfortunate encounter with a policeman who reprimanded him and his friend by mere walking and talking on the streets. This might lead to establishing connections with Montag's unexpected encounter with Clarisse at night time.
The title was brewed through inquiring research about the temperature at which paper burns. He contacted the Chemistry department to know but no certainty was given until he realized he could phone the fire department, it was then when the title was rendered: Paper burns at 451 Fahrenheit, and he repeated Fahrenheit 451.