Fahrenheit 451 in Never too Late to Read Classics

Apr 24, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics, rory-gilmore

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 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.
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