Fahrenheit 451 / Book of Eli

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a graphic novel I read by Tim Hamilton . Although both Ray Bradbury and Tim Hamilton are American this story had a real plot for books and literacy that I had to comment on it. This story is about a fireman Guy Montag. The firefighters in this book do not fight fires, they start fires. You heard me right. They start fires. What amazed me and frightened me is that in this book reading and books are illegal and punsiable by death by fire. They would burn the books and if you did not get out of the way they would burn you too. If you did leave the house you would be arrested. They had a concept that too much knowledge (and reading contributed to more knowledge), made you unhappy because you questioned things. So everyone had a telvisionator that projected on your walls and showed you only what they wanted you to see and beleive. Reading was illegal they were burning all the books they could find. What else was scary was the fact that if you were smart you were a fugitive at large. University Professors were all wanted fugitives hiding out just for being smart and wanting to read and save books. It really made me think about what it would be like if they took our right to read away. Said our books were illegal and we should all have the same amount of knowledge. If you were a curious individual like that of the 16 year old girl Claisse McClellan who loved to ask questions of everything. She loved to ask why, she was very inquisitive so she was labeled crazy by her society and eventually killed. The thought that this could happen; if any government decided books caused the greater good to be bad and destroy not only them but the people who seek to read them, is devasting and very frightening.  The people who lived in a doomsday scenario outside of the cities decided to memorize books then destory them to evade harm if they are stopped with the books on them.

 I recently watched a movie "The book of Eli" written by Gary Whitta born and raised in London England and directed by Albert and Allen Hughes also known as the Hughes Brothers. These brothers had a African American father and Armenian American mother. In this movie Eli is the last person in the world whom carries the actual copy of the Holy Bible. Many men with evil intensions want this book. They see it as a way to domainate the world. They are killing people for the books that are left. The story line is similar to Fahrenheit 451. In the end Eli who has memorized the bible helps monks translate and republish the book. I had the same uneasy feeling when watching this movie. How scary is that to lose your basic right to read and have books? To kill people for the books that are there? Throughout history there has been many instances in which destorying our knowledge has set humans back. In 212 B.C The Chinese emperer Shih Huang had all books burned and only one copy saved then he had that copy destroyed with his death. The Nazi regime did this to students in 1933. Destorying all books that they felt were "Un-German".  There are many more instances of this throughout history. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.

- Cassa Arnold