Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 is a masterwork of twentieth-century literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, … literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.more
Classic Bradbury, a dystopian society where books are burned. Citizens become puerile and shallow. Wonderful introduction to Bradbury.
Oldie but goodie. Feeling timely. Political fiction about manipulation and robbing people of the possibility of conscious choice. Praise readership as not only entertainment but also as reflection and the right to judge.
This book has my favorite opening line of all time:
It was a pleasure to burn.
Definitely an interesting idea. I can’t imagine book burning. I don’t think any book should be banned or burned. But what an idea for a futuristic world. The story got a little confusing at times-when the main character would be rattling off to himself. Felt sorry for his wife. She’s lost all touch with reality. But I do love a story where the main character has a change of heart from what we, the reader, considers a bad idea.
I absolutely loved reading this book!! During our enforced social distancing I also found it thru our library’s digital services on audio and I really enjoyed listening to it also!!
Classic. A worthwhile look at this society and at ours.
It’s the Christian Right meets the librarian
Published first in 1953 during the Cold War, this tale of censorship and mind-warping is as relevant now as it was back then.
Free-thinking is considered ‘dangerous’. Books are banned because they give people ‘the wrong ideas’ and ‘make them unhappy’. Firemen no longer put out flames but start them. Usually they will only set books ablaze, but entire buildings are not out of the question, along with the inhabitants if necessary.
People are ‘entertained’ through television screens that take up entire walls. In fact you should have as many wall-tv’s as possible so you are surrounded by the people who appear on the screens who refer to you as ‘cousins’ and welcome you to be part of the ‘family’. You are fed only the news and ‘facts’ that are good for you and please the state.
However, one fireman has begun to question his occupation. Montague has started reading the very books he’s supposed to burn and is questioning his world, his life, everything. But he must keep his activities a secret from his superiors and even from his wife, who pops pills and stares at the wall-tv’s for hours.
As war looms on the horizon for the state, Montague finds his life more and more intolerable. Soon he must choose to either stand with ‘the family’ or try to find others like him who wish to think for themselves.
A terrifying and thought-provoking read that will make you question what television tells you is ‘the truth’ of what’s happening in the world.
A brilliant short novel set about 50 years after it was written in 1953 – so that should be about now. Of course, none of what Bradbury predicted happened but this altered reality is a great place to visit as a reader.
The ’50’s pre-occupation with the invasion of TV, its negative impacts on the reading of books, and the expansion of the Cold War drive the events in this novel.
Montag is a fireman with a twist: one who starts fires, not put them out. He and his crew specializes in burning books and the dwellings that house them. A giant mechanical hound (modelled on the Hound of the Baskervilles) is programmed to wipe out miscreants – a.k.a. book readers – and nuclear wars begin and end quickly with devastating effects. Consequently suburban denizens are programmed to think only of having fun – like driving their cars maniacally along streets and killing pedestrians, or staring at the four walls of their parlours which project interactive TV, where even the viewers have roles in the programmes. The absolute emptiness of peoples’ lives is brought home sharply when there are mobile stomach pumpers patrolling the streets to quickly evacuate stomachs of people who have overdosed on tranquilizers. Montag’s observation, “crying at the thought of not crying over the death of his wife” indicates the utter alientation of people from each other, even spouses.
And meanwhile, marginalized intellectuals (former professors and academics) hide out in forests and shanty-towns, having memorized the classic books of history and literature, waiting for when the nuclear wars decimate the bad guys and create a vaccume that can be filled again with books and knowledge. Montag decides to cross over to this side and faces the dire consequences of losing everything he has and being reduced to quarry of the dreaded Hound.
The writing is frenetic and Bradbury gets you not only to feel the tension but to taste and smell it too. He also introduces great lines of wisdom:
“Those who don’t build must burn”
“Happiness does not grow upon happiness. Flowers need the black earth to grow”
“Good writers touch life often. Bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.”
There are the usual plausibility issues, especially when we have lived an alternate reality these last 50 years and are now supposedly resident in the very time when the events in Fahrenheit 451 takes place. I had several questions:
1) How did Montag learn to read when books had been outlawed before he was born?
2) Why is his annual salary only $6,000 as a well paid fireman with a stay-at-home wife? Hadn’t Bradbury figured on inflation? And had he concluded that women (without children) would continue to be content as housewives and not join the workforce?
3) How come evenly matched nuclear powers actually hurled bombs at each other rather than use their weapons for deterrence?
However, I was willing to forgive Bradbury the soothsayer, and embrace Bradbury the novelist – he has crafted a great novel and tour-de-force of imagination. I am also very glad that his predictions did not come true!
For anybody who loves written language; I hope this book inspires people to protect one of the hallmarks of society.
A classic that everyone should read.
Alas, soon there will be no reason to ban books: fewer and fewer people want to read anyway
Could this really happen? Worth thinking about.
The author has a clear, flowing, even poetic style that many people mistake for beauty. Just so you know, a perfectly boring character rebels against book burning in a perfectly stupid, extremely difficult way. If you like science fiction, give it a miss. If you’re a paid-up member of the eternal association of English majors, you will most likely love this book. Ugh. I just hated this book, every pretentious, pratingly precious word of it. This continues my long-standing, apparently minority dislike of Bradbury. I came by my dislike honestly by trying to read a lot of his work.The emotions of the characters make absolutely no sense, and neither does the technology, politics, religion, economics, science or future history of his stories.
Bradbury’s writing is pure poetry.
Ray bradbury gives an eye opening account of what the world cam be like when people choose to give up their power and go by the rules of society. Numbing ourselves from the reality and becoming puppets on the world stage and not by choice. When you choose to wake up from the dream and see whats really going on, be careful of not being made the enemy, accept the possibility that you will become the enemy if you become a threat in breaking through the facade of this controlled world. Don’t drink the soma, read the words in all the books you can gather and free your mind.
a frightening vision/a warning. a simple recipe of observation plus logical progression. required reading if u claim to be a nerd, n a story I would push on anyone regardless. I think it’s just too important
Scary because it could (and did) really happen.
Big Brother is here. Read all about the heroic people who opt to save our literature. Think how easy it is to change or lose digital material while reading this. I read mostly digital these days but there is nothing like holding a book in your hand.
GREAT CLASSIC