Like most dystopians, Fahrenheit 451 is set in an imagined future. Published in 1953, the book is a pleasure to read... especially witnessing Bradbury's ability to predict future technological advancements, including large-screen televisions, security systems that recognize fingerprints, ear buds and, more nefariously, society's turning away from critical thinking and compassion in the name of superficial relationships, consumerism, and just plain old having "fun."
Bradbury even predicted the idea of Transformers (but that's a different story).
For all of his futurist genius, there was one thing Bradbury couldn't accurately predict... and that's inflation.
It always blew me away that when my father started a full-time professor position at Northern Michigan University, his starting salary was around $5000 a year... and they were able to get a mortgage on that salary.
Inflation is something else! And it's something to consider when you're writing, especially if you don't want your book to be dated. Stating specific prices, whether or not your work is set in the future, is something you should consider.
This is especially true when one is writing a novel set in the future, however. In Fahrenheit 451, Montag's wife spends most of her days in the "parlor" where three of the four walls are television screens. She longs for the day when all of the walls will be screens... and she even asks Montag when they will have saved up enough money to tear out the last existing wall to replace it with a television screen. She tries to comfort him by saying it's "only two thousand dollars."
Montag retorts, "That's one third of my yearly pay."
Considering that in the 1960s my father was being paid $5000 as a starting, tenure-track professor, it probably, in the early 1950s, seemed like an enormous amount of money to Bradbury that a fireman would be getting paid $6000 a year.
In 2021, the average firefighter pay is around $40k... almost seven times the amount Bradbury predicted. Based on his story "The Pedestrian" which Bradbury called a prequel to Fahrenheit 451, some speculate that the novel is set in 2053 or so... some thirty-odd years from now!
How much will firefighters be paid then? I don't know... and Bradbury certainly didn't know.
As much as I love Bradbury's novel about censorship and its dangers, that moment, when Montag is talking to Mildred about his salary... well, that moment always takes me out of the book for an instant. It makes me think of Bradbury, the author, and how off he was when it came to inflation.
Of course, people aren't going to stop reading the book because of that... but it is a glitch. And, it's a glitch that could have been avoided.
In my literary horror novel manuscript The Dance of Rotten Sticks, my main character and his wife bought a vacation property on a lake in northern Michigan. Isaac, my protagonist, visits the cabin with his brother. The brother asks how much Issac paid for the cabin.
In the novel, because of paranormal activity, the previous owners were looking to offload the cabin quickly. Now, my novel isn't set in the future. Still, I didn't want to bother with research to find out how much a cabin like his would be worth... and then also research a realistic price cut coming from a motivated seller. In short, I didn't want to deal with specifics.
I handled the scene like this (the excerpt below is mid-conversation when Isaac and his brother Adam are discussing the purchase of the cabin):
“Nice.” Adam crossed his arms, shaking his head in disbelief. “And you paid how much again?”
Isaac told him the price.
Adam whistled and shook his head. “God, that’s a steal. How did you even find this place?”
So, without being specific, I paraphrased "the price." Adam's whistle and his claim "that's a steal" take care of the idea that it was a really good price... without me having to look up the price.
It's something to think about as you deal with numbers/specifics in your own work. Imagine if Bradbury had done that. The scene in question in his novel would read differently... and might not jar readers like me out of the scene (the scene starts with Mildred expressing her love of television).
HERE'S THE ORIGINAL:
"It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in? It's only two thousand dollars."
"That's one-third of my yearly pay."
HERE'S HOW IT COULD BE REWRITTEN:
"It's really fun. It'll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed. How long you figure before we save up and get the fourth wall torn out and a fourth wall-TV put in?" She reminded him of the cost and spoke of the amount as though it were a pittance.
"That's one-third of my yearly pay."
In this instance, we still learn that these walls are expensive (and a selfish luxury for Mildred)... without being able to calculate that Montag's $6k salary is woefully out of line with inflation. In fact, we don't learn the specifics of Montag's salary at all... because we really don't need to know.
Just something to think about...
Jeff "Van" Vande Zande is an English professor at Delta College in Michigan. In 2022, Montag Press will publish his dystopian novel, Falling Sky. His latest collection, The Neighborhood Division: Stories, is now out through Whistling Shade Press and available: here.
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