Learn from Literature: the importance of literature

It is a well-known principle amongst book collectors and word lovers alike that literature is a multifaceted phenomenon. Books aren’t only repositories of information that we, ourselves, use to also become such repositories – there is something so much richer and more soulful about literature that goes far beyond the boundaries of mental stimulation.

It is this sort of philosophical clarity which I found in the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this work the main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. However unlike modern day firemen, Montag does not put out fires, but instead starts them, in a socio-political bid against books.

One where books, with their dangerous detail and metaphysical poetry, became ammunition in the hands of a fantasist

In this universe, literature is seen as a medium working against cultural hegemony. The status quo is never fast enough, the everyday never too simple, and the government manipulates societal structure using the radio and television – a modern invention that dominated Bradbury’s time.

Bradbury, however, saw the rise of digital media as numb and tasteless; a way to broadcast ‘non-combustible data’ to polished, empty minds; a way to distract the masses from the philosophical and political issues of the world. Deeply disturbed by the decline in literature, and the surge of mechanical nothingness rushing to replace it, he imagined a future where books were eradicated altogether. One where books, with their dangerous detail and metaphysical poetry, became ammunition in the hands of a fantasist.

Ray Bradbury’s future is bleak. Everything appears as if shrouded in darkness, “burnt-corked” by the fires that rage in the libraries of scholars. Here, books are our only saving grace – providing an insight into a world that was once peaceful, rapt and most of all detailed – a romantic concept in this novel. The importance of detail is raised early on when Clarisse, the first character to force Montag to question his reality, states that drivers must look at a green blur, and see grass. “A pink blur? That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows.” And yet, when she informs him that there is “dew on the grass in the morning,” and a “man in the moon,” he cannot remember if he knows this or not, having discarded peaceful experience so long ago.

He poses literature as not only a pleasure, but a necessity 

This proposal of experience as a necessary and bona fide method of education is one often raised in creative works through time. In this particularly stunning work by Bradbury, such beautiful, sensual knowledge is proclaimed as something obtained most effectively through another’s eyes. We cannot truly know or appreciate something until we see it through a thousand pages, as if writers distil their souls in ink and leave them there for us to gobble up word by word.

He poses literature as not only a pleasure, but a necessity – a city without it will soon turn to dust, and an individual nothing but an emaciated shell. Literature breathes perspective and colour into every crevice of life on Earth, and allows us to not only see, but also remark the things we might not otherwise. Montag is discontent with the bliss this ignorance is supposed to bring – he craves intensity, passion, and the despair that comes with comprehension. He wants to feel love as it burns, see death and cry at the loss.  Fahrenheit 451, in this light, swells with something like dystopian romanticism, with every emotional human experience having validity.

Reading Fahrenheit 451 was a pivotal moment for me. It reminded me why I was pursuing literature so desperately, despite its dwindling popularity amongst people today. It reminded me why I wanted to contribute to this mass collection of worldly works. But most of all, this particular story of Guy Montag, and then all stories both preceding and after, taught me to appreciate not only literature, but life as it is, how it is. To treasure detail, both gritty and sensuous. To value knowledge, both rational and obscure, for the questions it raises, more than the answers it provides. And to preserve all these gifts carefully, because at a temperature of 451, it could go up in bright, clean flames.