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Fahrenheit 451

3.92 of 5 stars 3.92 · rating details · 514,789 ratings · 12,907 reviews

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires...

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning ... along with the houses in which they were hidden.

Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames... never questione...more

Paperback, 50th Anniversary Edition, 158 pages

Published 1991 by Ballantine Books (first published 1953)

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Mar 28, 2013 notgettingenough rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

28 March 2013: given the announcement that Amazon is now goodreads, I am now boycotting goodreads until this changes. SHAME ON GOODREADS.

My reviews can now be found at wordpress where I keep my other blogs too.

Please find this one here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

187 likes · like · see review

Jul 15, 2011 She-Who-Reads rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, booksaboutbooks, thoughtprovoking

Somehow, I have gotten through life as an English major, book geek, and a science-fiction nerd without ever having read this book. I vaguely remember picking it up in high-school and not getting very far with it. It was an interesting premise, but far too depressing for my tastes at the time.

Fast-forward 15 years later. I just bought a copy the other day to register at BookCrossing for their Banned Books Month release challenge. The ALA celebrates Banned Books Week in September, so one BXer chal...more Somehow, I have gotten through life as an English major, book geek, and a science-fiction nerd without ever having read this book. I vaguely remember picking it up in high-school and not getting very far with it. It was an interesting premise, but far too depressing for my tastes at the time.

Fast-forward 15 years later. I just bought a copy the other day to register at BookCrossing for their Banned Books Month release challenge. The ALA celebrates Banned Books Week in September, so one BXer challenged us to wild release books that had at one point or another been banned in this country during the entire month. Fahrenheit 451 fits the bill -- an irony that is not lost on anyone, I trust. (Everyone knows Fahrenheit 451 is about the evils of censorship and banning books, right? The title refers to the temperature at which paper burns.)

I didn't intend to start reading it. I really didn't. Somehow it seduced me into it. I glanced at the first page and before I knew it, it was 1:00 in the morning and I was halfway through with the thing. It's really good! No wonder it's a modern classic. Montag's inner emotional and moral journey from a character who burns books gleefully and with a smile on his face to someone who is willing to risk his career, his marriage, his house, and eventually his life for the sake of books is extremely compelling. That this man, product of a culture that devalues reading and values easy, thoughtless entertainments designed to deaden the mind and prevent serious thought, could come to find literature so essential that he would kill for it...! Something about that really spoke to me.

It raises the question: why? What is it about books, about poetry, about literature that is so essential to us? There is no doubt in my mind that it is essential, if not for all individuals (although I find it hard to imagine life without books, I know there are some people who don't read for pleasure, bizarre as that seems to me), then for society. Why should that be? Books don't contain any hard-and-fast answers to all of life's questions. They might contain great philosophical Truths, but only subjectively so -- there will always be someone who will argue and disagree with whatever someone else says. In fact, as Captain Beatty, the evil fire chief, points out, no two books agree with each other. What one says, another contradicts. So what, then, is their allure? What is it that made Mildred's silly friend start to weep when Montag read the poem "Dover Beach" aloud to her? Where does the power of literature come from?

I think the reason that books are so important to our lives and to the health of our society -- of any society -- is not because they give us answers, but because they make us ask the questions. Books -- good books, the books that stay with you for years after you read them, the books that change your view of the world or your way of thinking -- aren't easy. They aren't facile. They aren't about surface; they're about depth. They are, quite literally, thought-provoking. They require complexity of thought. They require effort on the part of the reader. You get out of a book what you put into the reading of it, and therefore books satisfy in a way that other types of entertainment do not.

And they aren't mass-produced. They are individual, unique, gloriously singular. They are each an island, much-needed refuges from an increasingly homogeneous culture.

I'm glad I read Fahrenheit 451, even if the ending was rather bleak. It challenged me and made me think, stimulated me intellectually. We could all do with a bit of intellectual stimulation now and then; it makes life much more fulfilling.(less)

272 likes · like · see review

Nov 29, 2010 Keely rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, novel, politics, reviewed, dystopian, american

Farenheit 451 has been analyzed and reinterpreted by every successive generation to change its meaning. This is chiefly because the book is full of assumptions and vague symbolism which can be taken many ways, and rarely does anyone come away from the book with the conclusion the author intended, which would suggest that it is a failed attempt.

There are grounds to contend that even the title is inaccurate, since contemporary sources suggest paper combusts at 450 degrees Celsius, which in Farenhe...more Farenheit 451 has been analyzed and reinterpreted by every successive generation to change its meaning. This is chiefly because the book is full of assumptions and vague symbolism which can be taken many ways, and rarely does anyone come away from the book with the conclusion the author intended, which would suggest that it is a failed attempt.

There are grounds to contend that even the title is inaccurate, since contemporary sources suggest paper combusts at 450 degrees Celsius, which in Farenheit would be more than 800 degrees. The truth is, paper combustion is gradual and dependent on many factors; even if some paper might combust at 451F, his title is at best an oversimplification, but Bradbury was more interested in a punchy message than in constructing a thoughtful and well-supported argument.

It's not a book about book censorship, but a book about how TV will rot your brain. Bradbury himself has stated this again and again, as evidenced in this article which quotes Bradbury and in videos from Bradbury's own website.

This book falls somewhat short of its satirical mark based on this cranky lawn-loving neighbor's message. Then again, it was written in the course of a few days in one long, uninterrupted slurry (mercifully edited by his publishers, but now available utterly restored). Contains archetypes, misconceptions, and an author surrogate; but can still be seen as a slighting view of authority and power, and of the way people are always willing to deceive themselves.

Unfortunately, Bradbury did not seem to recognize that reading has always been the province of a minority and that television would do little to kill it. More books are written, published, and read today than at any other point in history. Most of them are just redundant filler, but so is 90% of any mass creative output, books, art, movies, or TV, as Sturgeon said. And there's nothing new about that, either: cheap novels have been a joke since the Victorian.

Television is a different medium than books, and has its own strengths and weaknesses. Bradbury's critique of TV--that it will get larger, more pervasive, and become an escape for small minds--is just as true of books. As for television damaging social interaction, who is less culturally aware: the slack-jawed boy watching television or the slack-jawed boy reading one uninspired relic of genre fiction after another? I read a lot of books as a kid and watched a lot of TV, and each medium provided something different. Neither one displaced the other, since reading and watching aren't the same experience.

There is an egalitarian obsession that people are all capable of being informed and intelligent. We now send everyone to college, despite the fact that for most people, college is not a viable or useful route. The same elitism that values degrees values being 'well-read', and since this is the elitism of the current power structure, it is idealized by the less fortunate subcultures. Bradbury became informed not because he read, but by what he read. He could have read a schlocky pop novel every day for life and still been as dull as the Vidscreen zombies he condemns.

He has mistaken the medium for the message, and his is a doubly mixed message, coming from a man who had his own TV show.(less)

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Sep 27, 2012 Shan Jago rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

‘Take your chances
and build your wings on the way down’ – Ray Bradbury

Ya know, all this time I assumed my love for the poetic stemmed from my initial absorption of the Welsh booze-bucket Dylan Thomas, but I’ve come to realize it started much earlier with the prose of that crazy ol’ graveyard stumbling sun starred meteor soul Ray Bradbury. I found out about Bradbury’s departure from planet Earth this past summer on my birthday. His kind, lively face was in the paper and I knew he’d left us and h...more

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Dec 18, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: best-reads

Visionary writing from the very skilled writer/artist Ray Bradbury.
The plot and characters all done well. He writes about an era where firemen create fires to burn books, one fireman decides to see what all the fuss is about and one day keeps one book for himself. This sets himself on a deadly path of self-discovery that turns him into the hunted. His life turns upside down, eventually he meets a group of people who have memorized and preserved books to memory, this society wanted to keep book...more

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Nov 02, 2012 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic-literature, personal-favourites, science-fiction, popularity-contest, dystopian, books-with-films

It was a pleasure to read.

I was somewhat blown away by this novel. Perhaps it is simply my personal taste. I seem to enjoy novels about the future and in particular ones with a dystopian element. (see my reviews of Brave New World and 1984 for example)

I have read a handful of articles about how in analysing this novel most people miss the target. They claim it is a novel about book censorship whereas Bradbury claims it is more a novel focusing on talking about whether other forms of media would...more
It was a pleasure to read.

I was somewhat blown away by this novel. Perhaps it is simply my personal taste. I seem to enjoy novels about the future and in particular ones with a dystopian element. (see my reviews of Brave New World and 1984 for example)

I have read a handful of articles about how in analysing this novel most people miss the target. They claim it is a novel about book censorship whereas Bradbury claims it is more a novel focusing on talking about whether other forms of media would destroy our stories. However this is not a didactic text with only one main message (and there are a handful of those which I believe exist). This like all books is one which can be interpreted in various ways without missing the fact that at its heart this is a novel written for entertainment.

Bradbury in his after-word mentions that no one would print a book that featured book censorship at the time he intended to publish it. And book censorship is certainly one clear theme although not necessarily intended to be the main theme. It just so happened that Fahrenheit 451 was published at a time when such a topic was controversial. I doubt however that we can necessarily read a historical or political motivation as such into the novel more that it so happened to be released at that time.

Curiously also in the after-word Bradbury mentioned that his inspiration came through five other stories he had written. Each of them also focusing on books and encounters with the law. He also mentioned that he was inspired by the burnt library books at Alexandria and the Salem witch trials. Curiously the Salem witch trials were the focus of another personal favourite - the play The Crucible - which was written at a similar time and used the witch trials to challenge McCarthyism.

Personally what I saw in the novels were various themes and issues being discussed. I saw a tale about scapegoats and about totalitarian control through the media. I felt that Bradbury's story reveals a lesson about humanity. That we seek to throw blame about human evils upon tools like guns and books but in the end they are just tools. I don't perceive any book as possessing inherent evil although I do believe that there may be ideas contained within them which could perhaps be perceived as such or are at their heart morally flawed. In Fahrenheit 451 the society attempted to destroy the tools to remove such perceived ideas and yet ultimately they replaced the ideas in books with flawed thoughts of their own. (view spoiler).

I highly recommend this novel. Bradbury's prose is beautiful and poignantly lyrical. It's sparse and he uses very few elaborate phrases but he has a way of cobbling phrases and metaphors together to beautiful effect. There are times when the writing appears to be in the manner of stream of consciousness but Bradbury writes it well. In fact while his story is a harrowing and on the whole haunting (and somewhat bleak) portrayal he writes it with care, devotion and artistry.

The tale of how firemen become book burners and how one fireman decides to read the forbidden material will not be easily forgotten by me. And I feel that this is a novel which has well stood the test of time and deserves to be called a classic and read and studied by future generations.(less)

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Oct 14, 2012 Emily May rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, dystopia-utopia, 2012

As I write this review, the year is 2012. We do not live in a perfect world; in fact, in many ways we don't even live in a good world. But one thing I believe with all my heart is that we live in a world which, on the whole, is better than it was fifty years ago. Now, I know I'm writing with limited perspective and that progression and development hasn't been the same all over the globe and even the definition of those words can change depending on what part of the world you live in. But here's...more As I write this review, the year is 2012. We do not live in a perfect world; in fact, in many ways we don't even live in a good world. But one thing I believe with all my heart is that we live in a world which, on the whole, is better than it was fifty years ago. Now, I know I'm writing with limited perspective and that progression and development hasn't been the same all over the globe and even the definition of those words can change depending on what part of the world you live in. But here's what I do know: the average world life expectancy is higher, the infant mortality rate is lower, access to education is greater and the amount of countries that hold regular, fair elections has increased.

On average, people today are smarter than they were fifty years ago. And I know this is where older generations throw up their hands in indignation and start yelling about how exams were much harder in "their day" and they really had to work for it. I am not disputing this, I have no idea if it's true or not. But what is true is that more people today than ever before are going on to further education after high school, the barriers that once stopped the working class from being as smart as society's more privileged members are slowly starting to break down bit by bit. Literacy rates have been on the rise the whole world over:

It's true. We have entered the age of computers and electronics, social networking and personal media players... and the world has not ended, the robots haven't taken over and people haven't become so stupid that they feel the need to rage a war against books. And this is the main reason why I think Bradbury's dystopian tale is out of date and ineffective. The author was writing at a time when technology was really starting to get funky, the digital age was still decades away but people were doing all kinds of crazy things like listening to music with little cones plugged into their ears. Bizarre.

Readers often choose to view Bradbury's story as one about censorship instead of technology because that allows a more modern reader to connect with the world portrayed. But taken as it was intended, I just don't share the author's sentiments. Not all technology is good, but I'm of the opinion that the good outweighs the bad: medical advancements, entertainment, access to information via the internet... I'm the very opposite of a technophobe because, in my opinion, forward is the way to go. And I'm sure it's because of the age I was born into, but I cannot relate to the apprehension that Bradbury feels when he tells of this true story (note: this is not in the book):

"In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction."

I know many still think today that we are becoming a completely unsociable species because of mobile/cell phones, social networking sites, etc. but I have made friends from all over the world thanks to technology. I have talked to people that fifty years ago I would never have known, I have learned about different cultures and ways of life because I have access to most areas of the world through the web. So, no, I'm not scared of this so-called technological threat that is somehow going to turn our brains to mush and create a society where we cannot concentrate long enough to read a book. And here is where I (finally) get on to details of this novel.

What I am supposed to believe in here is that - because of technology - humanity has become so stupid that they couldn't concentrate on books. So books were simplified at first for easier understanding, then banned, then burnt. Why? I am okay with the realistic aspect of "people have short attention spans because of technology so they don't want to read books", but why burn books? I don't see why this would need to happen and why it would become a criminal offense to have books in your home. This is where I understand why so many people prefer to apply this novel's message to censorship, because it works so much better that way. The argument for the technological side of it is weak - even for the time in question.

The best thing about this whole book is the discussion about the phoenix and the comparisons made between the legendary bird and humanity: in the same way that the bird dies in flames only to be reborn again from the ashes, humanity constantly repeats mistakes made throughout history and never seems to learn from them. Secondly, to give credit where it's due, the writing is suitably creepy for a dystopian society and I understand why people who do actually share Bradbury's concerns would be caught up in the novel's atmosphere. But, overall, this wasn't a great dystopian work for me, I didn't agree with the point it was trying to sell me and I don't think it made a very successful case for it. Furthermore, I had some problems with the pacing. The book is split into three parts and the first two are much slower and uneventful than the last one - which seems to explode with a fast sequence of events in a short amount of time and pages. Disappointing.
(less)

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Aug 25, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

Review from Aug2012 when I listened to the audio version (d/l from local library) excellently read by Christopher Hurt:

From Wikipedia: "Bradbury has stated that the novel is not about censorship, but a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature, which leads to a perception of knowledge as being composed of factoids, partial information devoid of context." That's scarily familiar, isn't it?

- It has biometrics. Montag comes home & sticks his hand in the glove on his doo...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Alex rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, reading-through-history

"The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies."

That is a very unpleasant metaphor, and Fahrenheit 451 is an unpleasant book. If I were a teacher I'd give it a B- and not let my daughter date the weird little kid who wrote it.

Its protagonist, Montag, lacks any character; he changes as Bradbury's shitty story requires him to, from the dumbest kid on the world (his cousin once offered to pay him a dime to fill a sieve with sand and he sat there for ages crying and dumping sand into it - I understand that's a metaphor, but it's a metaphor for a moron) to a mastermind (telling Faber how to throw the Hound off his scent). You ever see film of someone skipping a pebble in reverse? Me neither, but I bet it's like this: plop plop skip skip wtf?

Each other character exists solely to advance the plot. There's the hot underage Manic Pixie Dream Girl - "her face fragile milk crystal" - who teaches him how to smell dandelions (and whose beauty is harped on endlessly) and then disappears off-stage; Faber, who's all of a sudden like best friends and then disappears off-stage; the bonfire circle of retired professors who happen to be right there when he stumbles out of a river looking for them.

There's his wife - "thin as a praying mantis from dieting, and her flesh like white bacon." He seems to loathe her, and all real women.

"Millie? Does the White Clown love you?"
No answer.
"Millie, does - " He licked his lips. "Does your 'family' [TV entertainment] love you, love you very much, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?"
He felt her blinking slowly at the back of his neck. "Why'd you ask a silly question like that?"

There's a real conservative streak to this book. It looks backwards, as conservatives do. Bradbury blames his world's disgust with books on "minorities," what we nowadays call "special interest groups":

"Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it."

These are the only specific examples given during Captain Beatty's central speech about why literature has been banned.

There are some nice moments here. A disturbed and immature but intelligent kid flailing around will hit a few marks. The central idea? No, no props for that; book-burning was invented centuries ago. But the moment when the TV instructs all citizens to open their doors and look for Montag, that's nice. And the suicidal Captain Beatty is the book's only living character, although his speech is littered with what I swear are just random quotes. I even like the idea of a circle of book-readers, each responsible for remembering a certain book - but it's dealt with so lamely here. "We've invented ways for you to remember everything you've ever read, so it's no problem." Well, in that case I got like half the Canon, y'all can go home. Losers. Wouldn't it be cooler if these people had to work for it?

Point is, those little flashes of competence are so overwhelmed by terrible philosophy and so ill-sketched themselves that I have no idea how this book has escaped the bonfire of apathy, the worst and most blameless fire of all. It's just a lame, lame book.

I wouldn't burn this or any book. But I'll do worse: I'll forget all about it.(less)

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Aug 02, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s time to do it, isn’t it? You know it is. We’ve all done it before, no sense in resisting the temptation to do it yet again. The sun has set, the skies have turned a sensational shade of indigo, the interior lighting is seductively dimmed. The house is otherwise empty, and not expecting additional occupancy any time soon. The blinds are down, curtains drawn tightly. The stereo is playing softly; isn’t that your favorite slow-jam? Of course it is.

Thwart all possible interruptions; turn off...more

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Oct 18, 2009 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-about-books-about-books, dysto-teque, littry-fiction, my-summer-of-classix

so i decided that this is the summer i read all the books i "should" have read by now- all the classics i have not gotten around to. this was, oddly, sparked by that asshole that said to alyssa "this is why small bookstores are better - no one in big bookstores knows anything about books". which is, of course, inaccurate and ridiculous - poor alyssa is a nineteen year old girl who has not read any philip roth, and wasnt able to recommend a title to the (fifty year old) man but has probably read...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Brian Hodges rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, bloody-brilliant, dystopia

Believe me, I'm not the kind of guy who gushes over classics simply by virtue of the fact that they are classics, but this one was worth all the legend that it carries with it. I'm glad I never had to read this book in highschool. First of all, we would have ruined this truly awesome story by overanalyzing every mundane literary aspect, detail and device. Second, the story is SO much more profound in the year 2008 at the age of 30 than it could have been at 17 in 1995.

I always thought this was...more Believe me, I'm not the kind of guy who gushes over classics simply by virtue of the fact that they are classics, but this one was worth all the legend that it carries with it. I'm glad I never had to read this book in highschool. First of all, we would have ruined this truly awesome story by overanalyzing every mundane literary aspect, detail and device. Second, the story is SO much more profound in the year 2008 at the age of 30 than it could have been at 17 in 1995.

I always thought this was a book about the evils of government and how the folks in charge will try to restrict thought. After all, as the title of the book indicates, this is that story about "burning books." But Bradbury goes way deeper than some mere indictment of fascism. Taking place in the future, people of society have withdrawn from each other, focusing all their attention on mindless entertainment in the form of giant TV rooms and earphones. Books in this society are banned and "firemen" are put to work burning down the houses of anyone caught in possession of them. But as one character points out, government doesn't do anything that the people aren't already calling for and this assault on books is really just the natural byproduct of a society full of self-absorbed people who are pulling away more and more from any kind of thought deeper than what their television asks of them.

Reading this book in a year where reality TV, a thousand different video game consoles and half a billion mindless internet sites provide a good chunk of our mental stimulation, and where people routinely drown the world and everyone in it out via their iPod headphones, it's eerie just how prophetic this story is... considering it was released in the 1950's.

But this book isn't merely some kind of morality play. The story itself follows the transition of Guy Montag, from a book-leery, burn-happy "fireman" into a man who is on the run for not only possessing books, but killing a fellow fireman to protect them. There's action. There's intrigue. Ther's violence. There's character development. There's a story that you can actually follow and stay interested in. There's one particularly vivid and chilling description of a woman's final moment of life before a nuclear bomb goes off over her head. And yes, woven seamlessly into the exciting narrative are plenty of ideas to ponder regarding our direction as a society and the danger of never pursuing knowledge deeper than who got booted off 'Big Brother'.(less)

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Mar 28, 2007 Tara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-reads

one of my top 5 favorites of all time.

Favorite Quotes

Have you ever watched the jet cars race on the boulevard?...I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly...If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! He'd say, that’s grass! A pink blur! That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows.

There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You...more one of my top 5 favorites of all time.

Favorite Quotes

Have you ever watched the jet cars race on the boulevard?...I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly...If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! He'd say, that’s grass! A pink blur! That’s a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows.

There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.

...The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

...Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might as well just not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

We’ll go on the river...or we’ll go that way. Or we’ll walk the highways now. And we’ll have time to put things into ourselves. And someday, after it sets into us a long time, it’ll come out her hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We’ll just start walking around today and see the world and the way the world really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after awhile it’ll gather together inside and it’ll be me. Look at the world out there. My God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face, and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it’s finally me, where it’s in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get a hold of it so it will never run off. I’ll hold on to the world tight someday. I’ve got one finger on it now. That’s a beginning.(less)

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Mar 21, 2013 Jason Koivu rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fahrenheit 451 is more statement than story.

Indeed, if I'm not mistaken, it was originally just a short story that later was fleshed out into this slim, almost novella of a novel. To this reader's eyes it never progressed beyond its short story status. No, I never could love this. It's too bare. The story, the world, the characters, all are but limbless trees stripped of their bark, stark and still but for the occasional gust. All of these set pieces are in place awaiting the arrival of the mai...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Cecily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-or-futuristic, dystopian, american-canadian

I love the fact that this book is a paean to the power of the written word: that people will live and die for it, and will wither without the transformative power of fictional worlds and the insights of others. Books "stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us".

It is set in the near future, where all books are banned because they are elitist and hence cause unhappiness and division. Instead, the population is fed continuous inane soap operas to lull their minds into so...more

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Apr 26, 2008 Alison rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: book-lovers, everyone!

Shelves: rgbookclub

Guy Montag, the book-burning fireman from Farenheit 451 is a dystopian Jerry Maguire of sorts. After years of burning books and living with an overly-medicated wife in a society that focuses on distraction, entertainment, and "happiness", he doesn't write a mission statement...he decides to start reading banned books on his search for something *real*.

Bradbury claims that it's not about censorship here. Rather, it's about a society that asks "how" over "why"...that would rather watch mindless, c...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiftyfiftyme

Bradbury wrote an early 25,000-word draft of Fahrenheit 451 in nine days on rented typewriters in a basement at UCLA. This is the kind of thing I love knowing because it demystifies the novel's status as a classic (even as it launches another, entirely separate mythological origin story).

Fahrenheit 451 is not a timid book. There are instances where it shows its pulp colors, so to speak, and feels like something dashed off in a basement. There's an urgency to the prose, a breathlessness that's bo...more

Bradbury wrote an early 25,000-word draft of Fahrenheit 451 in nine days on rented typewriters in a basement at UCLA. This is the kind of thing I love knowing because it demystifies the novel's status as a classic (even as it launches another, entirely separate mythological origin story).

Fahrenheit 451 is not a timid book. There are instances where it shows its pulp colors, so to speak, and feels like something dashed off in a basement. There's an urgency to the prose, a breathlessness that's borderline hysterical. But it works. We're dealing with a man in crisis. The foundations are crumbling beneath him and he's seeing things in a new light. Of course he's going to be a bit overexcited/paranoid/delusional.

As a work of high-concept science fiction, Fahrenheit 451 shows incredible restraint. The main conceit is that firemen start fires instead of putting them out, and their chief occupation is the burning of books, which are illegal. Although it's set in the near future, only a handful of things are different from the world we know today. People get up, go to work, come home to their families, watch TV, and go to sleep. This world is recognizably our own.

In some instances, Bradbury is eerily prescient. Take this description of the protagonist’s wife, Mildred: "And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind." Sounds like Mildred is listening to a podcast.

When Mildred takes her earbuds out, she watches her wall-sized television. The programs feature a featureless cast of characters she refers to as her "family." Bradbury is intentionally vague here but the implication is that it's not a show per se with stories and stars, but a (dare I say "reality-based") vehicle upon which the viewers project their own hopes and dreams, which the state aggressively suppresses through its book burning measures.

In many ways, the book mirrors the show. The sci-fi elements are mostly alluded to, allowing the reader to project his or her own vision of the near-and-not-so near future on the novel's blank canvas. The book works as an over-the-top sci-fi thriller AND as a bedroom drama. (It's interesting that in Francois Truffaut's adaptation, the director made significant changes that Bradbury embraced when he produced a Fahrenheit 451 for the stage.)

In any case, the extent to which one thinks that it-can't-happen-here will determine whether Fahrenheit 451 is a fantasy or a satire, a warning or a wake-up call.

One of my favorite scenes comes at the end, when Montag, the disgraced fireman, encounters a group of refugees, each of whom has a book memorized and waiting for things to settle down so he or she can publish it again. It's reminiscent of the scene at the end of Cormac McCarthy's The Road where the father instructs the son (somewhat cornily) to "carry the fire."

For me, I suspect the image of a young Bradbury feverishly feeding dimes into a typewriter machine is the one that will endure. There’s no question that he had the fire.

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Mar 10, 2008 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. One of the classics. First of all, I had heard from a source or two that this book is a dystopian novel prior to reading it, and I wish to stop this here: this book, as Bradbury himself says, is about censorship and book-banning. It has slightly dystopian elements, but it is far from that. A primary part of a dystopian novel is a certain social order or hierarchy whereby one groups tries to maintain order. This is not apparent in 451 - the only kind of social groups one learned about is the fire...more One of the classics. First of all, I had heard from a source or two that this book is a dystopian novel prior to reading it, and I wish to stop this here: this book, as Bradbury himself says, is about censorship and book-banning. It has slightly dystopian elements, but it is far from that. A primary part of a dystopian novel is a certain social order or hierarchy whereby one groups tries to maintain order. This is not apparent in 451 - the only kind of social groups one learned about is the firemen, whom have no special ranking, and book-readers, whom there is no discrimination about, so anyone, even, one would presume, a high-ranking government official.

The only reason this novel did not receive a five from me is because it does not pick up until the second part. Part one essentially sets up the story and lays the groundwork for all of the action that is to follow. Although some would say that Guy's conversations with Clarisse are the most important part of the part one, possibly even the book, I put higher importance to his discourse with Captain Beatty about there society came to be the way it is. It has shaped my views on censorship more than any other part in this book or anything elsewhere, because it's true. I can see it in my day. I do not know if Bradbury was making a prediction or looking around his world, but this book speaks to me on that level. The minorities must not be upset at risk of upsetting them. one must censor words out of books for children lest there simple minds become oh so corrupt!

The book is about the characters. Not their environment or anything like that, but just who each person is as an individual. First you have Guy, whom is struggling to accept the fact that books must be burned, even though so many people want to possess and read them. As the main character he obviously changes as the story progresses - going from someone who is weary of even hiding a book in his house to going on the wrong for killing a fire chief. Then there is the fire chief, Captain Beatty, whom is supposed to be the embodiment of the antagonist in the book - censorship. While he does fill this role quite well, I think there's more to him than that. He is Guy's pusher; if it weren't for Beatty being the type of scary and powerful man he is, Guy would never have been able to work up know just how much gutso he needed to achieve. Next there is Mildred, or 'Millie,' whom is the wife of Guy, even though it's clear that the two have no physical passion. She spends her time with the 'family' that comes on the wall-TVs, pretty much forgetting about Guy except that he is occasionally in the same house as her. She kind of embodies one side of the internal conflict with Guy; being passive to the world around you, accepting everything as is, being happy with the mindless drivel the states gives you, and not trying to upset the balance; this becomes even clearer with the fact that they live together and are separated by twin beds. Next is Faber, the old English professor who helps Guy understand the beauty of books and the world they used to be accepted in. Opposite of Mildred, Faber is the side of the internal conflict within Guy that wants to change the world, but doesn't know how, is afraid to step out of their boundaries, and has the passion for books. This is symbolized by Faber being able to speak to Guy for a while because of an earpiece (akin to a conscience) and Faber not comfortable with even stepping out of his house. Lastly there is Clarisse, the little girl who reveals Guy to the world he missed out on, one where cars don't have to go 55mph, one where people sat outside and talked and thought, one where people read books without having their homes burnt down. She appears very peculiar to Guy, but by the end of the novel, she seems normal, and he starts to feel her presence even though she was killed in a car accident.

I think the afterword and coda that were in my edition need mentioning, too. The afterword describes a play where where they gave a bit of a spin to Beatty. In the play, he has a library of books, one which he never touches. He most likely has every piece of classical literature in there, but everyday just shrugs it off. He describes his childhood as one obsessed by books, but once his world started to fall apart, he found that those that he most cherished were not helping at all, they were just offering false promises - which is what prompted him to become a fireman. I think this would have been neat to see in the novel, but Bradbury said he wanted to keep the book exactly how it was when he published it in 1953.

As for the coda, it is basically Bradbury ranting about censorship. He shares a couple of stories that reveal how censoring people can be - even a story about how 451 had been slowly censored over the thirty years since its first publication! If I could, I'd run around repeating the words to everyone.

I think I'll give it a five, actually.(less)

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Jan 25, 2008 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who enjoys thinking

Shelves: january2008, randomfiction, readforschool

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I have technically read this, but it was forced in the 10th grade, and remember nothing. So adding it to the list.

After reading this, there are bits that sounded kinda familiar, but overall I think I managed to not really "read" this in school. I think they should never force you to read any specific book in school, as it more often than not just makes you hate it on principle. But on to my review...

This book actually led to an hour long phone conversation with my mom (a sci-fi fan, Ray Bradbury...more I have technically read this, but it was forced in the 10th grade, and remember nothing. So adding it to the list.

After reading this, there are bits that sounded kinda familiar, but overall I think I managed to not really "read" this in school. I think they should never force you to read any specific book in school, as it more often than not just makes you hate it on principle. But on to my review...

This book actually led to an hour long phone conversation with my mom (a sci-fi fan, Ray Bradbury fan, and just an intellectual in general) before I was even done. I stuck lots of little sticky notes (a la my mother) making references to modern society. Even though it's a sci-fi book, because it was written 55 years ago, I anticipated at least some of the themes being dated. But I am disturbed that his social commentary in 1953 is still very much a social commentary on 2008.

I found what I consider to be direct references to ipods, Wikipedia, the Never ending movie quiz on Facebook, Who wants to be a millionaire, giant wide screen/flat screen/hi-def TVs, and Barack Obama. I just skimmed an article the other day about the overuse of c-sections, and there was even a mention of that (like why would you do it any other way). The idea of children being in school more days than not, and on the not days, basically plunked in front of the TV. People filling their lives with fluff, never having a spare minute, yet never doing anything that matters. I'm disturbed by the fact that in at least the last 55 years, nothing seems to have changed, we don't appear to have learned anything. Much like the point at the end of the book. We are a race of phoenixes. Stupidly driving ourselves into the ground, destroying ourselves (directly or indirectly), rising up, only to do it all over again. This isn't news, in one sense, but for some reason, the 55 years is what's bothering me. This book was possibly meant to be a warning (I have not yet read the introduction, as I thought I should wait until after), but we seem to have fallen into the story like it was a prophecy.

Ok, I know I'm all getting "philosophical," though I use the word cautiously. I guess if I were dumber, I would be more like Millie, and think the book was crap, and the warning was crap. So the fact that I don't makes me feel like there is some hope for me. Even just to remind me every week to read the news magazine that is delivered to my door, rather than seeking out supermarket tabloid trash as a way of making myself falsely happy and oblivious.

If you haven't read this book, or did in school like I did and don't remember it, I would definately recommend it.(less)

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Dec 28, 2007 Tyler rated it 1 of 5 stars

Few appreciate irony as much as I do, so understand that I understand this review. The message of this book is decent: knowledge should not be censored. However, the rest of the book is utter shit. I found myself actually screaming at several points as Bradbury spent minutes and dozens of metaphors and allusions referring to one insignificant detail of the plot. It is too damn flowery to be understandable by anyone! In other words, an English teacher's dream. In addition, the story was about the...more

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Emma Just read this book and I had to comment, this has been an interesting review and interesting debate on the merits of Bradbury's metaphors. I read it...more Just read this book and I had to comment, this has been an interesting review and interesting debate on the merits of Bradbury's metaphors. I read it for a book club and one of the members had outlined all the moments when the metaphors made her laugh, or just say "WHAT?!" This person is incredibly intelligent and extremely widely-read. She cited sentences such as "the leaves rustled like dry rain" as one of the moments that just made her throw up her hands. There's no such thing as dry rain! Of course...I loved the sound this sentence evoked in my head, I actually heard the dry rustling, but she snorted. The message is what makes her tick, was as I am more of a fan of how the message arrives in my head — whether its clear or tantalising I don't mind, and neither style is a dealbreaker for me.

This was originally a 25,000 word novel, and Bradbury's editors requested he write more. That might be why some of the sentences seem like padding (though there were so many way-out descriptions that gave me chills. The moment when he stops smiling for the first time since he can remember was soooo creepy!)

It's such a shame that the narrative style gets in the way of the message for some. Though I loved it, I can't help thinking that any flaws in the imagery etc were the result of the fact that the novella was written in something like 9 days, and he wrote it on a typewriter he rented by the hour and was probably writing it as a stream-of-consciousness because on a typewriter there are no rewrites :) An editor could have taken these issues to task, but no-one wanted to publish it so it wouldn't have got that far.

For trivia's sake, I had to add that it seems this was first published in the VERY FIRST edition of Playboy magazine (?!) because Hefner was the only person who would touch it. It was just too controversial.

Anyway, there are valid points on both sides of the fence. I devoured this book very quickly and wanted to highlight certain moments in pen so that I could quote them, which I very rarely want to do.
That clearer, more accessible, narratives are so popular now is a sign of the times, I think. Ugh, try reading books from the 1700s if you REALLY want to wade through a flowery sentence... :D

I think this is the most naive dystopia I've ever read, and because of that ironic juxtaposition it has a special place in my heart.(less)
Aug 09, 2012 09:30am

E. Matson I know this post is over five years old, but I still wanted to add to the discussion. I remember reading in the introduction that (as I'm sure many kn...more
Jan 23, 2013 07:01pm

Oct 14, 2007 Lindsay Jones rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fellow students

Lindsay Jones

Ms.Kuhn

October 7,2007

Hour 6

Interview with Guy Montag

1. How do you feel about your job as a fireman?

Im very confused about the obligations of a fireman. It feels as though helping people is not my job anymore. The only thing this city seems to worry about is the situation dealing with books and literature. Our job know is to burn any type of writing found,and I do not believe in what we are doing.

2. According to the First Amendment, it states that citizens are entitled to freedom o...more

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Jul 09, 2007 Jason Pettus rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ray Bradbury has never sat comfortably in the world of literature, nor with me; considered a "genre writer" by some and meant as an insult, a "serious writer" by others and meant as a compliment, it seems that I am always going back and forth about his merits in my head too, especially the farther away we get from many of the books' original publication dates. That said, how can you not love Fahrenheit 451, a virtual blueprint for the Cautionary Science Fiction Tale with Modern Political Overton...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Annalisa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, classics, speculative, sci-fi

I'm always amazed when speculative fiction stands the test of time. In 1953, Bradbury created a world where:
-people are so obsessed with TV that socializing is getting together and watching your favorite show; it's all anyone talks about anymore (Bachelor parties anyone?)
-characters on shows are your family, more real to you than your own family (I think this mentality started with Friends)
-people watch reality shows and police chases like a drug
-kids are so desensitized by what they see on TV t...more I'm always amazed when speculative fiction stands the test of time. In 1953, Bradbury created a world where:
-people are so obsessed with TV that socializing is getting together and watching your favorite show; it's all anyone talks about anymore (Bachelor parties anyone?)
-characters on shows are your family, more real to you than your own family (I think this mentality started with Friends)
-people watch reality shows and police chases like a drug
-kids are so desensitized by what they see on TV that vehicular manslaughter is a popular past time (okay we haven't gone that far, but we are desensitized and drawn to crashes on the side of the road)
-everyone drives at alarming speeds without seeing the world around them or thinking of the consequences if they crashed or hit anyone
-in his go, go, go society, nobody can be bothered to stop and think, to stop and see the world, to interact with people
-houses aren't build with porches any longer because nobody sits around and talks anymore
-advertisement jingles are fed to people everywhere so much so that it prevents anyone from thinking beyond them
-people are too impatient and disinterested in real knowledge and need things dumbed down for them (the kind of information you could get from a quick twitter; look at the difference in literature from the classics that teens can't even get through these days and modern literature where short, choppy, fragmented sentences are a must)
-the voice of minorities is strongest: political correctness (though the term and its way as social thinking didn't come about until the 1990s) is what spears people to get rid of books with portrayals of history that offend them as a minority (read reviews for Gone With the Wind; that book would never be allowed to be published now because of its real portrayal of the South during the Civil War)
-his society is so high on instant gratification and a sense of well being that they can't be bothered with guilt, remorse, morality, other people, anything that disrupts their mind-numbing, thinkless state of happiness
-TV is a babysitter for parents too busy and self-absorbed to be bothered with their own children (started with Sesame Street)
-families aren't important anymore nor is having children; people are just too preoccupied to be bothered with something that disrupts their lives that are busy, busy, busy about nothing

Bradbury's book has a definite 1950s feel to it, but the intrinsic message/warning in his society is more relevant today that it has ever been. It's scary how much he got right.(less)

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Dec 28, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, favorites

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was a mind blowing gasoline fire to the brain. While I rarely give out 4 stars on goodreads.com, it's even rarer to give a book a 5, which indicates the book is one of my favorites. This got 5 stars for me. As I sat stood ran in my mind crazy home with kids playing screaming fighting calgon take me away running getting dirty wondering why I didn't drink more often and who was going to pay the bills as I filtered out the blast bang from the weasel dinosaur singing o...more Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was a mind blowing gasoline fire to the brain. While I rarely give out 4 stars on goodreads.com, it's even rarer to give a book a 5, which indicates the book is one of my favorites. This got 5 stars for me. As I sat stood ran in my mind crazy home with kids playing screaming fighting calgon take me away running getting dirty wondering why I didn't drink more often and who was going to pay the bills as I filtered out the blast bang from the weasel dinosaur singing on TV and the ipad tablet going with sounds from angry birds and computer's singing out a tune unlike the mario brothers theme song I began to to wonder if the world ever slowed down or turned off. I realized I did not know a single person or family who didn't immediately turn on the boob tube for comfort relaxation down time after work school driving coming home. The radio was screaming was used to be called music the TV in the bedroom sang about brushing your teeth and the TV in the living room was screaming about the next presidential election when I sat down in front of the computer to check on notifications for goodreads and updates on facebook. This world where kindles are replacing books and flashing images on a screen are replacing self thought I wondered where we were all heading and where was my release escape quiet down time from this all consuming noisy hell? I remembered a time of sitting on the porch at my grandmother's farm watching the sun go down after a hard day's picking strawberries sipping lemonade waiting for the cabbage truck that would bring the farmer next street down and hopefully his three cute farmhands. I remembered playing outside in fields playing house in mud on swing sets hide and seek in corn fields imagination pretend under trees until the sky was pink purple blue midnight blue against black trees and porch lights coming on I was booking it home so as to not get in trouble for being so late lest I wouldn't be able to do it all again tomorrow. I thought about this crazy fast speeding world and listened to the crickets in the back yard and the beaded prisms I made hanging from the trees when I was pregnant on bed rest and forced to quiet times and self contemplation. I look at the flowers painted on the beams of the back porch I did using blues and reds and yellow. The green of the grass and trees and moss calls to me like a song rising about the yelling and noise of the house. But there is no one else, no time no room no place to escape, not now, with noise everywhere and kids yelling and dinners needing cooked and sticky fingers needing washed and diapers and beds needing changed. Instead I look to the computer and do bills and yell and scream Stop it! Don't touch that! I said no! Leave him alone! And I blow air at the escaped tendrils of hair on my forehead trying to get them out of my eyes, no time to run to the bathroom to even fix my messy ponytail. And I yell and scream Come here! Where is it? Do you want a timeout? Brush your teeth! And I pick up dirty laundry and cry inside and the noise gets louder and the kids start running and something crashes and my teeth grind and suddenly I can't stand it any longer and I lock myself in the bathroom and just try to breathe and see my book sitting on the counter and open it to read a few pages and...
Silence.
Serenity. Calm. I have found my peace. My head clears. My mind starts to work. The mush that used to be brain cells I used for computer programming start firing synapses again and I can breathe. All I have is this binding with some paper pages between and suddenly my world goes quiet and I can think again. I finish the chapter and lay the book down smiling. Ready to face what's on the other side of the door again. If I could be any of the hobos following the train tracks of Bradbury's book, which would I be? Leviticus? The Merchant of Venice? Paul Lawrence Dunbar? Ray Bradbury? As long as there are people like me out there, treasuring like the gold the written word, I can only dream the reality of Bradbury's world won't come to fruition. But the words so powerful entrench my soul and saturate my mind with thought and feeling and passion. So, for now, my thirst is quenched.

ClassicsDefined.com
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Jan 28, 2013 Angus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-of-the-month, reviewed-and-blogged

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

***

Burn Baby Burn

Fahrenheit 451 is about books being burned by firemen. In the period when this book is set, the firemen’s job is not to save houses from being razed to the ground but to burn books as soon as the concerned citizens report suspicious neighbors who are in possession of books. However, we see one fireman, Guy Montag, slowly break away from his fiery job as soon as he discovers the importance and pleasure of reading through encounters with various peop...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Kerri rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: disappointing-books, science-fiction, inspirational-thoughtful, 2-star, reviewed, dystopia

I heard that this was a great book, and I really wanted to like it. The title and the quips on the back cover caught my interest. Guy Montag is a fireman, but the job is flipped. Instead of putting out fires, he is creating them, and he likes it a lot. The first sentence, "It was a pleasure to burn", and the following description after, had me convinced that I would enjoy the book. Not only that, New York Times professes that the book is "frightening in its implications". With all that buildup a...more I heard that this was a great book, and I really wanted to like it. The title and the quips on the back cover caught my interest. Guy Montag is a fireman, but the job is flipped. Instead of putting out fires, he is creating them, and he likes it a lot. The first sentence, "It was a pleasure to burn", and the following description after, had me convinced that I would enjoy the book. Not only that, New York Times professes that the book is "frightening in its implications". With all that buildup and such a dramatic summary on the back, I was hoping that the book would make me think. Perhaps it would be a dark book, morbid, even offensive. It didn't deliver any of that, but that's not the problem; I don't judge a book based on whether or not it follows my preconceptions. It could have been a perfectly good book without any of that.

Maybe the writing style just didn't suit me. I was hoping that the book would be vivid, and one would expect that a book with so many descriptions and metaphors would be vivid. Nope, not for me. Everything is blurry. The people feel one dimensional, with the exception of Montag himself. The intended message feels flat. So, book censorship is bad, tv is bad. What am I supposed to think about it?

My real problem is that I don't feel anything when I was reading Fahrenheit 451, except maybe frustration. Things like a woman burning with her books should make me feel something like horror or sadness. The book doesn't have any effect on me because the metaphors and flowery descriptions are so distracting. Half the time I feel that they don't contribute anything, and my mind automatically skips over them along with some potentially important material. Then I'll try to read it again, but nothing is retained except for bits of flowery fluff. The writing in the entire book is disjointed and strange, and that should have been fine, because such a style has potential for creating a disturbing, off feeling; that would fit a dystopian book. Instead, I feel uncomfortably distanced.

Is there something I am missing about the book? Is there some profound message mired in all the purple prose? Go ahead and try to enlighten me. Who knows, maybe I'll be convinced by someone's argument.(less)

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Jan 31, 2013 Louize rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tfg-f2f

Written as a novella entitled ‘The Fireman’, Fahrenheit 451 is the fruit of Ray Bradbury’s hard work and patience with a rented library typewriter back in early ‘50s. For generations, readers have tried to interpret its message. Apparently, this book is not about book censorship, communism, or repression. Instead, this is about indulgence in technology. In television- to be more specific. According to Bradbury, television will make our brains mushy. If you have the 50th Anniversary Edition like...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Crystal Starr Light rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, science-fiction, banned-books

Guy Montag is a fireman. His night job is to respond to calls and burn down homes with books. He's going along in his life pretty hunky-dory until he meets Clarisse, his quirky neighbor, who abruptly jolts him out of his hum-drum life (and wife who is addicted to an interactive TV family and overdoses on sleeping pills).

In my endeavor to read a classic book a month, I chose this short book, a classic scifi/dystopian work. With all the dystopian books coming out after the success of "The Hunger G...more Guy Montag is a fireman. His night job is to respond to calls and burn down homes with books. He's going along in his life pretty hunky-dory until he meets Clarisse, his quirky neighbor, who abruptly jolts him out of his hum-drum life (and wife who is addicted to an interactive TV family and overdoses on sleeping pills).

In my endeavor to read a classic book a month, I chose this short book, a classic scifi/dystopian work. With all the dystopian books coming out after the success of "The Hunger Games", it's nice to go back to the roots and see the foundations of this genre. (And read some decent dystopians that aren't fluffed with stupid romances.)

Unlike 1984 or Brave New World, this book has a distinct writing style. Bradbury's work is much more poetic and flowery than either Huxley's or Orwell's. At first, this was jarring and annoying - not unlike my reaction to the Tahereh Mafi's fairly recent release, and romance masquerading as dystopian fiction, Shatter Me. (At least now I kinda understand where Mafi may have taken inspiration for her story from.) There were points when I nearly quit this book because the metaphors bounded off into the sunset with Tonto and his 8 flying reindeer (that is my sad attempt at a ridiculous metaphor, sorry). But after awhile, the language grew on me; it actually seemed to have a point, to showcase Montag's erratic mindset and do more than go, "Oooooh, look at these two kids, they are so in luuuuuuurve!"

Also unlike a lot of other dystopian relatives, "Fahrenheit 451"'s dystopian society doesn't arise from a tyrannical government. Instead, it comes from people censoring each other (the coda makes it clear that this was a concern very close to Bradbury's heart). It wasn't some wizard behind a curtain; it was society itself.

In this day and age, when groups actively try to ban books like this one (talk about the height of irony!) from school reading lists or libraries, the message rings loud and clear. I'm not saying I believe all censorship is necessarily bad; I do believe that 12 year olds shouldn't be reading books like "Fifty Shades of Grey" nor do I think that 7 year olds should be watching rated R films. And people who don't want to listen to music with explicit lyrics or movies with violence and sex can by all means censor themselves - that is their prerogative and I would never want to force a person to do something they didn't feel comfortable with. But whenever you start censoring, you have got to wonder: where is the line? Who gets to draw it? What should be censored and what shouldn't be and who owns the knowledge?

The other portion of the novel that stood out to me was how the people in this world, such as Mildred, Guy's wife, substituted the knowledge you get from books and thoughtful conversations with other people with the vapidity of TV families and mass entertainment. I think you can see where I am going with this; our society has made some people millions for being idiots or doing stupid things. Charlie Sheen, Kim Kardashian, and Snooki all come to mind. They aren't famous and wealthy because of their shrewd business acumen or a discovery of a cure for cancer or their dedication to the fight for equal rights. No, they became famous and household names because they acted like idiots, and we could laugh at them, pretending we were better than they are.

The character that I found the most interesting was Fire Chief Beatty. Here is a guy that is obviously well read, and yet he has no problems burning books. How does a guy get to that place? What scarred him? Bradbury, in the afterword, hints at Beatty's story, but I almost wish for more.

As fascinated as I was with Beatty, I found myself largely disinterested in the rest of the cast. We have the male protagonist who learns the truth and forges his own path (surprisingly, Guy acts far more human and cowardly than I would have expected a male character to have been written in this time period), the young woman who incites the rebellion, the woman who tries to hold him back, the male mentor that tells him to rebel, the other male figure that tells him to obey, etc. It's all pretty standard stuff.

Honestly, this book is more remarkable for the thought provoking discussion points than the actual characters, conversations, or plot. I thought the situations the book addresses - media, the place books have in our lives, and censorship - are more meaningful now than ever. So if you get a chance, give this book a read - and I would heartily recommend finding a person or two to read with you so you can talk about some of the topics this book presents.(less)

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Dec 22, 2007 Sithara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury has created a world that chillingly seems to reflect our present and near future. In this upside down dystopia, firemen burn books, women congregate with their fake wall (television) families, youth engage in high speed car chases, killing themselves and others, and products are promoted on 200 ft billboards, and hawked by Jesus Christ. In this world where supposedly everyone has everything one wants, no one is truly happy, no one loves anyone, and unhappy people...more In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury has created a world that chillingly seems to reflect our present and near future. In this upside down dystopia, firemen burn books, women congregate with their fake wall (television) families, youth engage in high speed car chases, killing themselves and others, and products are promoted on 200 ft billboards, and hawked by Jesus Christ. In this world where supposedly everyone has everything one wants, no one is truly happy, no one loves anyone, and unhappy people overdose on drugs. No one slows down to smell the flowers, taste the rain, sit by a fire, talk with friends, or just sit and think. No one cares that that the world seems to have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, with fighter jets streaking above their homes everyday. After all, no one has to sacrifice anything; its always someone else's spouse or child that dies.

Guy Montag was a faithful citizen of this world, satisfied with his job of burning books, until he has a chance encounter with his new neighbor, a strange, precocious 16 year old who is wise beyond her years. Clarisse McClellan changes his views of the world dramatically with her strange habits of tasting the rain, gazing at the moon, and asking pointed questions as to why he became a fireman, whether he loves anyone or whether he is happy. An awakened, transformed Montag, after failing to impress and change his shallow and depressed wife and others around him with his new-found wisdom, is discovered, hunted, and is forced to flee the city. He joins a vagabond group of outlaw-professors, who plan to restore the world by imparting the wisdom they have gained by memorizing books.

This is the best novel depicting our future world that I have read. Other books, like Brave New World present a frightening, realistic future, but have poor plot and characterization. On the other hand, books such as 1984 and Animal Farm are thrilling and well told, but really do not reflect our future very well. FAHRENHEIT 451 does both, and does so brilliantly. Apart from depicting a realistic and scary future, Bradbury writes a tight, exciting plot packed with suspense, including fires, chases, murder, suicides, and nuclear war. I could scarcely put the book down, wondering what Montag was going to do next. Although it is but a short story, the characters, including Montag, his shallow but deeply depressed wife Millie, the youthful but insightful Clarisse, the cowardly but wise Faber, and the disillusioned arrogant bully Beatty are engaging and fully realized.(less)

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Jul 12, 2012 Julie Davis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-good-story-is-hard-to-find-podcas

It was a pleasure for Julie and Scott not to burn any books during the recording of Good Story 38. Go listen before someone else pulls out the flame thrower.

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I've seen the movie at least twice but only read the book once, and that was long ago. I always wondered which of his famous books Ray Bradbury was proudest of and that was answered by his tombstone, "Author of Fahrenheit 451."

Therefore, it seemed only right to select it for A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast as a tribute to thi...more

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About Ray Bradbury

American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He bec...more American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.

His reputation as a writer of courage and vision was established with the publication of The Martian Chronicles in 1950, which describes the first attempts of Earth people to conquer and colonize Mars, and the unintended consequences. Next came The Illustrated Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451, which many consider to be Bradbury's masterpiece, a scathing indictment of censorship set in a future world where the written word is forbidden. In an attempt to salvage their history and culture, a group of rebels memorize entire works of literature and philosophy as their books are burned by the totalitarian state. Other works include The October Country, Dandelion Wine, A Medicine for Melancholy, Something Wicked This Way Comes, I Sing the Body Electric!, Quicker Than the Eye, and Driving Blind. In all, Bradbury has published more than thirty books, close to 600 short stories, and numerous poems, essays, and plays. His short stories have appeared in more than 1,000 school curriculum "recommended reading" anthologies.

Ray Bradbury's work has been included in four Best American Short Story collections. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, among others. In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City.

Ray Bradbury has never confined his vision to the purely literary. He has been nominated for an Academy Award (for his animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright), and has won an Emmy Award (for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree). He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television's Ray Bradbury Theater. He was the creative consultant on the United States Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair. In 1982 he created the interior metaphors for the Spaceship Earth display at Epcot Center, Disney World, and later contributed to the conception of the Orbitron space ride at Euro-Disney, France.

Married since 1947, Mr. Bradbury and his wife Maggie lived in Los Angeles with their numerous cats. Together, they raised four daughters and had eight grandchildren. Sadly, Maggie passed away in November of 2003.

On the occasion of his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, "The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or twenty years, and I hope you'll come along."(less)

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“Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you.” — 1,825 people liked it

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” — 1,151 people liked it

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