The Burning Point

A friend of mine once told me her favorite book was Fahrenheit 451, a book she, and many others, read in high school. Reading has been kind of hit or miss for me since I first started. If I had enough interest, I was a pretty efficient reader, but if it was something forced on me, or even something chosen from a very small selection, it was easy for me to reject. I would plow through Goosebumps books faster than I could afford to buy them (Monster Blood!), then I would struggle to comprehend one chapter of something required for a book report. Didn’t stop in Jr. High, high school, or college. I know what you’re all thinking, ‘but weren’t you an English major?’ Yep. Just a really clever one. What happens after I graduate? Well, I’ve read more books, cover to cover, in the 4 years since I graduated than the 10 years I was being forced to read in school. The most recent completion is Fahrenheit 451.

Besides now knowing how to spell Fahrenheit without looking it up, I learned a lot while also enjoying it. The initial premise from my friend intrigued me (a bunch of firefighters that start fires instead of put them out), but the takeaway was drastically different than I anticipated. I was never required to read the Ray Bradbury classic in high school, so the experience was completely fresh. Long story short, I encourage you all to read it, if you haven’t already. But clearly, ‘long story short’ is not the making of my writing. The point for this is, even if you have read it, I encourage you to reread it.

Fahrenheit 451 was a great read, once I had the environment to dedicate some time to it (like my car breaking down and taking 3 hours of public transportation a day). But the truth of the matter is, I wouldn’t have appreciated it, at all, if this happened ten years ago, and for two reasons. The first was already touched on, assuming the only reason I picked up the 1953 sensation was because my Sophomore year English professor had an entire unit dedicated to dystopias and made us read, discuss, analyze, write, and eventually prove our knowledge of the book through a series of classroom quizzes and discussions. Needless to say, I believe this can take away from some of the excitement of reading a book. Sorry, but if I had to break down and analyze everything I watched, read, or listened to, nothing would ever feel exciting.

The second reason I might not have reacted the same way ten years ago compared to how I felt this afternoon is because, well quite obviously, it was ten years ago, so I was only fifteen, didn’t know shit about shit, and most assuredly would have scoffed at the symbolism laced between the lines, half for a lack of understanding the depth, and half because I probably wouldn’t have agree. At fifteen, we’re highly influenced beings. But I’m sure it wasn’t the protagonist in the Grapes of Wrath that got us nicknames in high school. And I’m sure it was the author of some seemingly dated book using archaic language and bewildering analogies. At least for me, my influences came from musicians and athletes and celebrities, so what did literature have to offer? Writers and characters. Doesn’t quite hold a candle to what the rest of the world can offer. Playing football might make you more popular, or introduce you to more like-minded classmates, but even the sweetest character in the world was only so amazing between your ears. It’s like trying to describe someone how life-changing your dream was: there’s no way you convince someone of something they’ve never heard of or experienced.

This isn’t a plea for you to read more, claiming the swell of knowledge will pay off tenfold compared to the mindless walls of TVs that are programmed into you, even if it’s true, and Bradbury might like that. This is a challenge to anything you experienced before you had a chance to become something new. In a way, I’m glad I neglected so many reading assignments when I was younger because it opens up a world to me now that I can actually appreciate. It might not change my life in the possibly dramatic way it can alter the path of a wayward teenager, but for me, there wasn’t a book I could have picked up in high school that would have had that effect. I’m proud of who I turned into, regardless of my previous reading habits. Clearly, it doesn’t just mean you’re a bad, lazy person. It makes you statistically average (no statistics were used in my previous sentence).

I’m not saying the path I chose was the right one, but what I do know is that I can look at a title like Crime and Punishment, a reading assignment that had some of my closer friends on the brink of committing a crime, regardless of the punishment (what a brilliant way to teach), and actually want to read it. There is so much that we experienced before our minds were in a position to comprehend, process, and understand. An under-developed mind stuck hating the very novels meant to inspire and stimulate the youth is a shame. But hopefully, as you continue to mature and grow into the person you’ve sought to become, your thirst for knowledge, perspective, and experience never ceases. Sometimes, we have to look in our past to find something that will change our present.