Remember, the fireman are rarely necessary

“Remember, the fireman are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading on its own accord.”

Ray Bradbury from “Fahrenheit 451”

Upon hearing that the book “Maus” was removed for a library in Tennessee I had started to prepare a whole post about censorship. But, in retrospect, I’m hoping this was an isolated incident from a school board trying to do the right but making a mistake. I’m sure they learned something valuable and I don’t need another voice piling on that right now.

Farenheit 451 is one of my favorite books. It’s so visceral to me because I can’t read it without smelling the kerosene and hearing the sounds of the fire and the terrifying mechanical “hounds.” It’s haunting in many ways and so predictive of current cultural items like the flat screen tv, the smartphone, and quite possibly tiktok of all things.

If you haven’t read it my short synopsis is that it’s about a dystopian future where fireman are called to start fires specifically to burn books. It’s such a crime in the future to contain them that fire and death are the prescription for them. Guy Montag, a fireman who loves his job, is the protagonist and upon seeing a woman choose to be burned alive rather than to surrender her books; he starts to wonder what it so special about them that people would risk dying for them? And what’s the one book that’s considered the most dangerous?

It’s a fantastic read and I don’t want to spoil it here. But it speaks to how important books and ideas contained in them are. Obviously as a Christian, the Bible is vital to my faith. Learning about Jesus is near impossible without his word to reveal his intentions and desires. I’m not sounding the alarm that books are going to go away but I would definitely sound the alarm that the books are freely available and we just don’t read them. I’m always a sucker for a quote like the one I posted yesterday about how we can’t subsistute biblical study with media consumption. I know it’s 100% true for me as my overflowing podcasts subscriptions, impossibly long amazon wishlist, and endless watch list on the various streaming platforms can attest to.

I’ve been drawing all morning; time to read. 🤔