Fahrenheit 451 in Reading the Classics

Feb 24, 2019 Chuck rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1000, 1001

Somehow, like many others, I never read this book in high school or college. I even went through a SF phase as a kid and missed it. But maybe this was the best time to read it after all. Besides being a powerful story of threats to personal choice and freedoms, it rises above the trappings of the SF category into something beautiful and timeless, albeit darkly. The longings of its characters, both those expressed and repressed, are always palpable.

With that said, I experienced a level of amazeme Somehow, like many others, I never read this book in high school or college. I even went through a SF phase as a kid and missed it. But maybe this was the best time to read it after all. Besides being a powerful story of threats to personal choice and freedoms, it rises above the trappings of the SF category into something beautiful and timeless, albeit darkly. The longings of its characters, both those expressed and repressed, are always palpable.

With that said, I experienced a level of amazement similar to what I experienced after reading Asimov's "I Robot" a couple of years ago. I found that the conversation Asimov was introducing in that novel on A.I. in the 1940s(!) was no longer SF, yet somehow he was able to anticipate the moral and scientific dilemmas now on our plates.

Perhaps now, in hindsight, "Fahrenheit 451 was even more prescient. Totalitarian rule, technology that creates virtual friends and family for folks (social media) to "ease" their worry, young people in educational systems that lead to abandoned hopes and an increase in suicides. Apparently inspired by the McCarthy trials in the 50s, Bradbury accurately saw the loss of freedoms preceded by a systematic compression of data, news, literature, etc. so that society became accustomed and satisfied with much less than even a Cliff Notes version of everything. Everything seems the same because all the markers are in place, but all the detail that gives information meaning has been cleaned out leaving only hollowed out representations of the original.

In turn, people become hollowed out as well. There are glimmers of hope - the central character Montag, has a personal awakening that he chooses not to snuff out but to face the consequences of living with integrity. Academics who have been cast out of educational institutions have become the hobos of the world who hold the stories that remind us of our humanity.

The events that have taken place since 2016, our crumbling and lost educational systems, increasing numbers of youth feeling so lost and alienated that they resort to suicide, and the reductive outcomes of much of our current news media and, of course, social media make this "science fiction" novel from 1953 now a current events horror story that should be read or read again. ...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Ash rated it it was amazing

"He saw himself in her eyes, suspended in two, tiny drops of water, himself dark and tiny, in fine detail, the lines of his mouth, everything there, as if her eyes were two miraculous bits of amber, that might capture and hold him intact."

Ray Bradbury's words drip with poetic honey on each page of this dazzling book. For me, reading this book I could find no flaw. There is such an incredible lot that goes into why I find this book so fascinating, entrancing, and mesmerizing, so I will leave it a ...more

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Sep 10, 2018 Dorum rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is not an easy reading, although it is short. In spite of it, there are some gems and jewels in this book that make you stop and think. I think for this reason I gave it 5 stars. It was a breath of fresh air compared to the rubbish that I've read lately. ...more

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