Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 208
Duration: November 2007 to February 2008

Description:
From Amazon.com:

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don’t put out fires–they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury’s vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal–a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, “Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs…. Don’t give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television “family,” imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

 

Review:

I’ve heard about this book for a long time and being an English teacher, you would thought I would have already read this book, yet, I seem to be resistant to the books you are “supposed to” have read or the “classics.” When my non-reading husband decided to read this book as extra credit, I decided it was high time I read it too. We started by listening to the story on CD on our was to a show. I got so interested in it in the 30 minute drive that I insisted we take it with us inside and I read while we waited the hour for the show to start…then during intermission I read some more. I was quite taken by the book. Amazed by it’s similarities to today’s world, even though it was written over 50 years ago when technology wasn’t near where it is today.

I did find this book hard to read. The sentence structure or the ways ideas are tied together, throws me off a bit, which is way it took me so long to finally get to the end of the book. I can’t say I love the book or that everyone should read it, but I do believe that if you are going to read a classic, this is the classic to read, but read it with someone. It’s one of those books, that you don’t read to enjoy, you read it to talk about it, to share ideas, to question things–that’s the whole point of the entire book, so you need at least one other person to do that with.