“It’s a rare reader who doesn’t go to the novel looking for a kind of encouragement to live.” – Norman Rush
Fahrenheit 1500
Any self-respecting musical theatre lover can tell you how many minutes there are in a year. Likewise, any self-respecting classic literature lover can tell you the temperature at which paper burns. At least, they think they can.
Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451, takes its title from the temperature at which paper supposedly catches fire and burns. Fire as a notion is pretty key in the book – it tells the tale of a society where books are outlawed, and "firemen" are tasked with torching them to suppress free thought and intellectual inquiry. Obviously not something that would ever happen these days, right?.....
The story goes that, when Bradbury completed the manuscript, he had originally called it ‘The Fireman’. However, in a long tradition of original titles being somewhat … lacking … Bradbury’s editors felt the sobriquet was a little dull for this exciting new work. So, he went back to the drawing board. And apparently, to solve the conundrum, he rang up the local fire department.
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