Fahrenheit 451 in Pop Sugar's Annual Ultimate Reading Challenge

Apr 21, 2018 Stephanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: claaaassic, thoughtful-things, backlog-books, famous-titles, reread-2018

Re-Read 2018:

I read this book for the first time in high school. At some point. Supposedly. The only thing I remember was that it was overwhelming with its descriptions. It can get pretty dizzying. I felt that now too, but the message and the world and the *sadness* of this world really stuck with me more as an adult.

I feel like society uses this book as a torch for anti-censorship, in a sense being anti-Christian since Christians and separate conservatives usually ban one book or another becaus Re-Read 2018:

I read this book for the first time in high school. At some point. Supposedly. The only thing I remember was that it was overwhelming with its descriptions. It can get pretty dizzying. I felt that now too, but the message and the world and the *sadness* of this world really stuck with me more as an adult.

I feel like society uses this book as a torch for anti-censorship, in a sense being anti-Christian since Christians and separate conservatives usually ban one book or another because it is too dark or sexy or has magic!!! oh no!!, but I don't think that's entirely true. I mean, the Bible is even used as a book to memorize in Fahrenheit 451. It was written in the late 40s, so I'm sure the Bible was a regular book that people at least had in their homes even if they didn't read it, and therefore, it is a book that makes sense to mention. But that's a bunny trail.

The point is that I'm surprised, reading this in 2018, that society censored itself. It wasn't corporate, it wasn't some administration. And I can...I can see that. You might not see censorship if you're on Twitter, mad about whatever everyone else is mad about, but I know that there have already been plenty of non-hateful, non-violent channels and videos and pages taken down just because they don't lean a certain way politically.

That's PRETTY. BAD.
HELLO.
THAT'S PRETTY EFFING TERRIBLE.

Like even now, I, as I type this review, a reasonable, nice person, am afraid (AFRAID) to say things like "I'm a Christian" because someone~ somewhere~ is going to assume that I'm some gun-toting hateful racist monster. That's what the world is like now. That's why I left Twitter. Identity politics are the worst. And that's why Fahrenheit 451 meant something to me. I'm halfway excited for there to be a movie/series whatever coming out this year, but I'm not sure if it will stick true to the actual problem outlined in the story. It will probably just be the same recycled Big Company Big Religion is Bad. Who knows. The book will literally spell out for you that once you try to stop offending everyone - and not thinking for yourself and letting others think for themselves and letting actual respectful discourse happen instead of shutting people down hard and yelling louder - then you get this weird world set up where thoughts don't actually matter that much. Why bother? Please enjoy your fun times on your screens, don't contribute to the society around you, don't build good local communities, don't take responsibility for your actions.

God, I'm moving to Montana. ...more

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