Customer Reviews

Farenheit 451

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Farenheit 451 was first published in 1953, so as I started on my first reading of the book I wondered if it would feel dated. After finishing it, I've decided that this book is even more relevant today than when it was first written.

Farenheit 451 is set sometime in the future (Bradbury wisely chose not to set a specific date for his story), and is the story of Guy Montag, a professional book burner, or "fireman." In Montag's time, American society now focuses primarily on constant pleasure seeking without inhibitions of any kind. Intellectual pursuits such as reading or writing are strongly discouraged, and those found owning any banned piece of literature (which by this time includes almost any piece of literature) are punished by imprisonment, while their homes are burned with the offending books inside. It is a time of apathy and lawlessness, and most of the population spends almost their entire lives focused on vacuous entertainment which massages the minds of the masses into an intellectual sleep. Montag's contentment with this existence is disrupted one day when he meets a young girl, Clarrise, who engages him in a conversation that begins to awaken in him the desire for a more meaningful life. Ultimately, Montag rebels and finds himself a fugitive from the very society that has created him.

To be upfront, I will admit that I hate modern television, specifically the drivel of reality tv that consists of watching the antics of dysfunctional individuals in all their horrific glory. I will be the first to admit that I enjoy television shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica which actually seem to have a story driven plot, and are delightfully complex. Still, I am blown away by a recent statistic that states that the average American spends 7 hours a day watching television. At this point, you are probably wondering, what does television have to do with Farenheit 451? This is not a novel about censorship, although that certainly is present in the novel. Bradbury has stated that the novel is primarily an exploration of how the obsession with television and mass media can or will destroy our desire to read. I find Bradbury's idea of the future frightening, especially when I consider that so many of my own acquaintances can't even remember the last time they read a book for enjoyment. In fact, that is the reason I was primarily attracted to book blogging. I wanted to find a place to share my love of books with others, and I couldn't seem to fill that need in my local community.

I found the coda that Bradbury added in a later edition to be especially interesting. As I was listening, it was spooky when I considered how many aspects of the novel have an equivalent in our modern society. One example that jumps out to me is the "seashell" device that Montag's wife Mildred is wearing almost continuously throughout the novel. Bradbury later wrote:

"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."

This book is a classic, and it deserves to be. If you haven't ever read this book, or if it has been a while, give it a try. If nothing else, it will give you plenty to think about.

I am a 10th grade teacher so I read all of the books that I will teach my students. One of these was Farenheit 451. I know it's a classic and I love Ray Bradbury but this book is famous more for the idea than the actual story. This is the type of book that you could discuss but not the type of book I would recommend for pleasure reading. Some of his other works and short stories I find much better than this including the one he references in the book, The Pedestrian. Ray Bradbury is great but don't read this book thinking that you will be completely engrossed from page one. However, if you want something to really think about and an idea that is incredibly interesting this is the ticket.

Fahrenheit 451 is one of the most famous works of science fiction, and with "Brave New World" and "1984" represents one of the most memorable and haunting dystopias. In a future world, books are banned and firemen actually set fires instead of extinguishing them. The state exercises a form of social control through controlling what sort of information people have access to. It turns out that not all books are banned, only those that we would today consider "great works" - Plato, Shakespeare, The Bible, Darwin, etc. For me one of the biggest surprises about Fahrenheit 451 was the rationale that was offered for the burning of those books. In a nutshell, they offended politically correct sensibilities and the authorities felt that they would undermine the social cohesion. This expunging of the classics from the culture has an uncanny resonance with the attempts over past few decades to expunge them from the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum. And rationale is also similar: these books are not "diverse" enough and may offend the sensibilities of an ever-increasing list of "minorities." It is hard not to wonder if a milder, softer version of dystopian future that Bradbury was worried about in the early 1950s has not in fact arrived.

Bradbury's writing and ideas are somewhere between those of George Orwell and Philip K. Dick. His style is very engaging, and even poetic. His writing is at its best when one of his characters engages in a prolonged monolog. However, the plot development could use some improvement. There is very little in terms of transition from one scene to the next, and most scenes are overly compressed. It is very hard to follow the plot developments at times. Nonetheless, Bradbury is a wonderful stylist and unlike much of science fiction this book is a pleasure to read on a purely literally level as well as for its sweeping ideas.

As a last note, I found it incredibly ironic that I read this book on Kindle. Based on this alone I am fairly optimistic that reading and great books will not only survive but in fact thrive well into the 21st century.

My son needed this book for his HS literature class. He needed a particular publisher. The book was not the one that was pictured when I ordered it. I think it was an older printing, but it was Del Ray Publishing which is what he needed. I didn't read it, but my son said it was OK.

My sis recommended this book and I must say I was impressed and would recommend all public schools make high school kids read this book as food for thought as they go out to shape the world. This book is just as relevant today if not moreso- as TV's take over our lives and being different or voicing opinion is being considered unpatriotic or made one viewed as an outcast. I couldn't help but keep rooting for the protagonist and definitely appreciated how the book ended. And it left me wanting more. It definitely makes you think about how we value material pleasures in life as the fire chief goes into his extended description of the fall of society and the creation of "Book burners". Our world is becoming so PC we are moving towards a world like that of the book in each day which is why I support the ACLU, boycott city hall on police state policies, and will NOT sacrifice my liberty when the government uses Terrorism as a scapegoat for scare tactics and control over citizens and I was one of the pedestrians running in downtown NYC on 9-11 when it came down. As our forefather said, Give me liberty or give me death.
fans of 1984 and Naked Lunch will love this one.

I read this book in high school, and I'm sure that it was assigned because it has a number of interesting ideas contained within it. However, it was written at the dawn of the nuclear age, and it is very dated. Many things that seemed plausible back then are simply established to be impossible now. Still, the book was so good, that I am constantly reminded about the ideas in it when I see the rise in "infotainment" and nightly celebrity worship shows (ET, Access, ...). I would recommend reading it as if you were living in the 1950s. If you do, you will be richly rewarded.

Just try to imagine how could be our world today with every book with a death sentence... it would be worst that it is today.
This is a terrific story, which comes from a desperate internal scream of liberty, `cause our freedom is made in the cements of the knowledge. Bradboury paints us a history perfect to be the worst nightmare ever; every detail was clearly study step by step, to gain us into a wonderful story that mede me feel at first horror and later a little bit of pain, just to think that once the world not far enough was tried to get ruled by an enmey of the many expressions of thinking.

The main message of this history is to valuate and feel a posetion feeling of our information, but mainly of the imprent information, which it has been leaving behind by this generation.

I sometimes think people rate classics high because they felt they were supposed to and not because they are a good read. I am trying to read more "classics" and am fairly consistently disappointed. This book was no exception to that. While I found it entertaining at times, I didn't find it captivating or life changing. In fact, it was somewhat difficult and disjointed at times. I am glad I read it (if only because I felt I was supposed to) but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it to others. Let's see what other Bradbury books say to me.