Original artwork, not a still
Fahrenheit 451 · 1953
It was a pleasure to burn.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Six words, and the trap is set: the narrator enjoys destroying the thing the book is about. Bradbury makes the horror intimate by starting inside the pleasure rather than outside it. The line is often cited among the best openers in science fiction, and the pleasure draining out of Montag across the story is what gives the ending its weight.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for Fahrenheit 451Show the scene
The very first sentence of Fahrenheit 451, on page one of Part 1, "The Hearth and the Salamander". Guy Montag is a fireman in a future where firemen set fire to books and the houses that hide them. On the night the story begins he walks home from work and meets his young neighbour Clarisse McClellan, whose free-thinking starts to make him question his life. The title page explains the title as the temperature at which book paper catches fire. Bradbury grew the novel from his novella "The Fireman", printed in Galaxy in February 1951; the novel followed in 1953.
Sources (2)
- Wikiquote: Fahrenheit 451Part 1, first entry (p. 1, opening line)Reference checked
- Wikipedia: Fahrenheit 451Plot summary, Title, backgroundReference checked
Context reviewed
