レイ・ブラッドベリ『華氏４５１度』あらすじと感想～書物の焚書と管理社会の戦慄
今回ご紹介するのは１９５５年にレイ・ブラッドベリにより発表された『華氏４５１度』です。
私が読んだのは早川書房版、伊藤典夫訳の『華氏４５１度』です。
Let's take a quick look at the book.
華氏451度ーこの温度で書物の紙は引火し、そして燃える。451と刻印されたへルメットをかぶり、昇火器の炎で隠匿されていた書物を焼き尽くす男たち。モンターグも自らの仕事に誇りを持つ、そうした昇火士のひとりだった。だがある晩、風変わりな少女とであってから、彼の人生は劇的に変わってゆく……本が忌むべき禁制品となった未来を舞台に、SF界きっての抒情詩人が現代文明を鋭く風刺した不朽の名作、新訳で登場！
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この作品は映画化もされていて、そちらで知っている方も多いのではないでしょうか。
私は映画を観たことはありませんでしたが、この作品はいつか読んでみたいSFの筆頭にずっとあり、この度ようやく読むことができました。
Before I go any further, let me say that this book is amazing...! The first half of the book was difficult to read because it was hard to get into the worldview, but from the middle part of the book, I was pulled in at once. From that point on, I was so absorbed in the book that when I finished reading it, I was in a state of lethargy. I was so absorbed in reading the book that I was in a state of lethargy at the moment I finished reading it. It had been a long time since I had such a great feeling after reading a book. That's exactly what it was, pure white. I felt as if I was completely possessed by this work.
This work is set in a future world where books have been banned, and the protagonist is a man named Montag who works as a "fire ascendent" to burn books.
As you can imagine when you are burning books, this world is an ideologically controlled and managed society. What is good and what is bad is decided by the state, and people are thoroughly educated from a young age. And to the peopleExcellent."Entertainment and distractions are also given. This area is1984."rather thanThe Wonderful New Worldに似ている世界観です。徹底した監視社会と憎悪と不安で人々を支配するオーウェル的世界観ではなく、人々の苦悩を消し去り、幸福な世界を夢見させる方向で管理していく世界ですね。
But even in such a world, there are, of course, heretics. And they generally have books. The fireman's mission is to find such books and burn them down. Finding heretics is also a mission, of course.
The main character, Montag, is also a fire ascendent, so he too was a man amenable to this kind of worldview. However, he felt a little uncomfortable in this world. His wife was so absorbed in this world that she did not try to understand him at all. Such differences were also eating away at him.
Then, as mentioned in the synopsis above, an encounter with a girl sets his wheels in motion. He realizes the strangeness of the world he had taken for granted. He is horrified by the fact that he had been burning books as "evil" as a matter of course. And he finally decides to commit the forbidden act...
This is the general flow of this work.
この作品でも物語の中盤から後半にかけて、この世界をよく知る人物からこの世界の成り立ちと仕組みを暴露されます。『一九八四年』も『すばらしい新世界』もそうでしたが、この暴露がやはり秀逸です。焚書に至らなければならなかった経緯の解説はまさに息を呑むほどです。これは未来のディストピアを描いたフィクションですが、今まさに私たちの身に起こっていることを驚くほど正確に言い表しています。
What is the information we consume every day? What do books bring us? While technology has made it easy to access information, what are its downsides?
これらが明快に語られます。私はこれを読んで心底恐ろしくなりました・・・１９５５年に発表されたこの作品があまりに現代を的確に言い当てていることに戦慄を覚えました。これは今を生きる私たちに対しての警告です。絶対に知っておいたほうがいいです。このことについては次の記事で改めて紹介していきたいと思います。
The feeling after reading this piece was extraordinary. It may have been a long time since I have felt so blank.
However, to be honest, the first half of this piece is not very interesting. I dare to be harsh because I like this work. It would be fine if it was just that the worldview peculiar to SF was difficult to understand, but in addition to that, the story was redundant and the language was not suitable for me. This is my personal feeling, and I am sure there are many people who have other impressions. However, I think that many people may have been frustrated by the first half of this work. I myself have thought about stopping reading it many times...
However, the story starts to get interesting from about the middle of the book. Once that happens, there is no stopping. I was surprisingly immersed in this work. If you manage to get through the first half of the story, the rest of the story is terrific fun. So, please don't give up and read the first half of the book in a skimming manner, but go on to the middle part of the book anyway. If you do so, you will surely get a sense of how interesting this book is. To be honest, it changed my impression of the book so drastically that I thought it might have been written by someone else.
This work is a masterpiece of science fiction dystopian fiction along with "1984" and "A Wonderful New World". I highly recommend you pick up a copy. I highly recommend it!
以上、「レイ・ブラッドベリ『華氏４５１度』あらすじと感想～本好きの方に特におすすめ！書物が禁止された世界で人はいかに生きる？」でした。
次の記事では引き続き『華氏４５１度』から、ファストフードならぬファスト情報の恐ろしさについてお話ししていきます。現代社会を生きる私たちはメディアやスマホを通じて、ほぼ常に情報にアクセスしています。その情報が私たちにどんな影響を与えているのか、その弊害、恐怖をこの作品から見ていきたいと思います。ぜひぜひ引き続きお付き合い頂けますと幸いです。
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