Monogatari Series - Volume 31 - Chapter 16

Hitagi Salamander

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a book about a world in which publication regulations, oppression of the freedom of speech and censorship are strengthened whenever those issues cause discord in society; a book about book burning, but you could also read it from a completely different point of view and see that it's an outstanding piece of entertainment written with a playful mood, and yet it still makes a sly bastard like me enjoy it. Surprisingly, it may be more interesting to read this book without any preconceived notions. To start with, the protagonist, Guy Montag, is one of the people who burn the books. He's a book burner who dresses like a firefighter, douses books with kerosene and burns them to ash. Sounds almost like a rock star, doesn't he. Well, eventually, he meets a 17 year old girl named Clarisse and slowly begins to change. You could even take it as a very well written "boy meets girl" story, although Montag isn't exactly a boy at his age.

"I've read Fahrenheit 451 before, if that's what you wanted to talk about," Senjougahara said in a cold voice; she has an attitude like she doesn't even want to chat with me. Though in the case of an indiscriminate reader like Senjougahara, she may not like that I talked about a masterpiece in that way. Sort of like how a mystery fan would hate for Sherlock Holmes to be talked about like it's a character-driven story and not a piece of detective fiction. But how I read a book is my choice. All the different ways of reading a book are equal, and there are no better or worse ways. If you set out to limit that, it's probably no different than suppressing the freedom of speech.

I knew Senjougahara would feel uncomfortable if I brought that up, so I pointed it out right away, and once I did she seemed even more displeased than before... Naturally.

"Don't play games with me, that wasn't what I was thinking at all. My memory is just a bit fuzzy since I've read it four times, and my impression of it was different each time. Since the first time was when I was in second grade, I read 'Fahrenheit' as 'Farrah N. Heit' and thought, 'who's that?'"

"How can you expect me not to make fun of you after hearing that? If I can't make fun of you, who am I going to make fun of?"

As soon as the words left my mouth I thought, "crap". I should have just ignored her little anecdote and continued the conversation. The moment I accidentally replied like that, I was caught up in her clever rhetoric— I was careless. My arbitrarily criticizing her slip-up has changed this from a simple exchange into a rally. This melodramatic girl has a sense for turning the person she's talking to into her audience by making a fool of herself. It's an unsuitable style of deception for me, personally.

"The second time was around the end of elementary school. I thought 'Isn't 451 degrees the temperature paper burns at? Wouldn't a person burn before it even got that hot?'"

"You were a twisted little brat, weren't you."

"I can't help it, I was inhospitable for a while."

"Inhospitable?"

"My tongue slipped. I meant that I was in the hospital for a while."

"..."

Senjougahara continued, ignoring my silence, "The third time... was when I was in middle school; I read it for my summer homework. I wrote quite the exemplary book report on it. I even singed the edges of the paper a bit for some added effect. The teacher got quite mad at me though."

"That's what I'd call a good teacher. What about the fourth time?"

"The fourth time was when I was in the first year of high—" Senjougahara began and, as if suddenly remembering something unpleasant, she bit down on her lower lip, forcibly stopping herself from speaking. She bit it so hard she might even have bit her tongue. I wonder, what could it be that she would go so far to stop herself from saying?

Well, it may not have anything to do with her impressions or the contents of the book. She probably just doesn't want to tell me about the time that she read it, that is to say she doesn't want to talk about when she was a first year in high school. It's almost certainly because back then was when I met this girl, although that could hardly be called "boy meets girl".

"… Anyway, I read it four times, but I never got the impression that it was the kind of story you were saying it is. I guess you could say that the fact that the interpretation of a novel depends on the reader is what makes them one of the best ways to tell a story."

"I'm just shocked that there's someone out there who'd read the same book four times."

"I wonder how book burning is going to happen once digital books have become more widespread. I don't think most electronics would burn at 451 degrees."

"It'd still be hot enough to destroy them."

More importantly, if you want to erase digital data there are more efficient ways of doing it than burning the device it's on.

"I see," said Senjougahara. "No matter what it was like in the 1950s when Fahrenheit 451 was published, with all the other different types of media there are these days, it may not even be worth it to cover books in kerosene and burn them now."

"Are you saying that humanity's two greatest inventions, fire and paper, are already out of date? I wonder about that, I don't really feel like that's the case."

They say that people aren't interested in literature anymore.

Apparently the number of people who read books is dwindling.

Apparently you barely even find people reading books on the train anymore. Is that really the case? From my personal experience, you'd rarely ever get on a train and not see at least one person reading a book.

"Well, even if it's not exactly 'boy meets girl', our book burner, Montag, does eventually start having different thoughts and ideas once he meets Clarisse. What do you think about that?"

"Hmm?"

Considering she seems to want to end this conversation with me quickly, Senjougahara brought up a question likely to expand the topic— Even though it would be fine if I lied, I decided to answer honestly.

"I was very moved, of course. He's a book burner who has a change of heart when he learns the beauty of books and is influenced by them; I couldn't help but think of myself."

"..."

Senjougahara fell silent for a while, then sighed disappointedly and said "Actually…"

"I, of all people, almost foolishly thought, 'even a person like you sometimes has a change of heart someday, right?'"

"Didn't you do that, have a change of heart?"

"Yes, but that was..."

"Not a change of heart, but falling in love," she murmured, and for the first time today, she smiled.

I wanted to say that there must have been something more behind her words, but just this once, they didn't seem to be part of some carefully planned statement, so I decided to just ignore it.

I didn't really feel like touching upon the topic.

I'd probably get burned if I brought it up; she's fairly hot-blooded. The lesson I should take away from this is, even though there's that old saying that 'you can count yourself among the friends of the wise men of old by reading books', you can only call yourself someone's lover by living in the present with them.