Rating: 
Summary: A look into the future
Review: In the year 1953 Ray Bradbury wrote a book about something that, I think, could very well happen in the year 2000 and the years thereafter. The whole book, "Fahrenheit 451", is about the banning of books. This issue has gotten worse over the years and if it continues maybe firemen will indeed be paid to burn our books.In "Fahrenheit 451" Guy Montag, the main character, is a fireman who realizes people should have the right to read books. He realizes that books mean a lot to the people who own them and after years of never thinking twice about burning a house down he watches a woman burn herself with her house because she wanted to die right along with her books. Guy comes up with a plan to get revenge on other firemen in an effort to stop book banning. At some points of the book Ray Bradbury's writing was a bit confusing. He brought up different characters and stories out of the blue and I really had to think to figure out how those events pertained to the main story. "Fahrenheit 451" was the second science fiction book I've read by Ray Bradbury. I also read "October County", a book of short stories. I do have to say that that book was also confusing, but was good because of the author's great description of places and people. "Fahrenheit 451" is good if you like to think while you read. I think it has a good message about the banning of books and I'm glad I spent my time reading it.
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Summary: A Possible Solution
Review: Fahrenheit 451, was a very thought provoking piece. Through out the book, I found my self comparing incidents to those of the WWII book burnings. The WWII book burnings were performed to "un-educate" the people. Unlike the cause for this in Fahrenheit 451, the reason for them burning the books was to protect them, so they thought. The "racial writings" that could be found in the literature were outlawed. Fireman, were sent to destroy books that were found, buy burning them. Guy Montag, the central character in this story, is a fireman. After being challenged by a younger girl, with her simple question "are you happy?" Guys life soon after changes with his new realization of the emptiness and sadness all around him. A series of events, his wife dying, finally leads him to not show up at work. This leads to his boss coming to his house and giving him a well-rehearsed speech, explaining how this happens to everyone. This even does not seem all to unrealistic, with the new choice of T.V. over a book; reading has become more of a chore than an enjoyment. With the touchy feelings of society, the "un-colorblind" culture has become a serious problem. With all these problems presented burning of books does not seem all that unrealistic. This book will capture the eye of readers to come for years.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are 2 books I've been wanting to read for a long time. The ideas behind them certainly interest me, and I've heard them hailed many times as masterpieces. I'm currently reading 1984 right now, and I can tell you right from the beginning that it's a better choice. That isn't to say, of course, that Fahrenheit 451 is a bad book. Far from it, the characters are, for the most part, well developed, and the idea behind the book is an interesting one. Ray Bradbury's idea of a censored future where war is a constant, yet supressed, issue is interesting, yet borrows heavily from 1984. My two major problems with the book, though, are the character interactions and the ending. Perhaps it's just Ray Bradbury's way of character development, but by the way the characters talk you would think they were all deeply mentally disturbed. They talk for pages and pages, constantly changing the subjects on a whim. It gives you the idea of a future where people never dwell too long on anything, but it also makes the book uninteresting. Oftentimes you can't tell the distinction between a character's ramblings in their own mind and a character's actions. I had to double-take a couple times just to make sure something really happened and the character wasn't just thinking about it. My second problem is the ending. It almost seems like Bradbury ran out of steam and couldn't think of anything else to put in the book, so he decided to nuke the city. Yes, it was a suprising ending and an interesting way to conclude the book, but it seemed like a rushed afterthought. Bradbury could have done so much with the characters after Montag left the city, but he decided to end it right there. If you're interested in this kind of book, I'd suggest it. It kept me captivated at times, even if in the end it was less than what it was made out to me. If you have to choose between 1984 and 451, go for 1984. If you can pick up both, do so.
Rating: 
Summary: Fiction? Really?
Review: "Fahrenheit 451" is a simply great book. Yes, it's quite distressing and unpleasant to read - because what Bradbury describes is much closer to truth than we'd like it to be. And that is precisely what makes the reality of the book so alike our own - it's more pleasant not to think about such things, and therefore one can merely say the book doesn't suit one's taste and go 'get entertained' in front of the TV. The disturbing thing about the book is that, unlike many other books that deal with the distant future, "Fahrenheit 451" (written in 1953) hasn't been proved wrong simply by time itself. Not at all. Actually, what is shocking to realize is that we've come quite close to the society Bradbury writes about. Perhaps books haven't been banned yet, but it is indeed the entertainment industry that controls people's minds, the political correctness has reached ridiculous levels, there are ads everywhere and now we even have Segways so that we don't have to walk anywhere... And, of course, we can get a thousand page long classics shortened to a hundred pages - or, better yet, simply watch the movie. The book also has other qualities besides making one think (which is, judging by some other reviews, one of its biggest downsides). One cannot but admire the brilliant way Bradbury uses absurd and creates a completely surreal feeling by using the methods of expressionism to describe the feelings and thoughts of the main character. Bradbury sure had things to write about - and that can be proved by even something as simple as the fact I've spent the last half an hour writing a review on the Internet rather than reading a good book or looking at the world...
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Summary: A message that grows more important every day
Review: It was a pleasure to burn. So begins, with this absolutely perfect opening line, Ray Bradbury's celebrated exposition of the dangers of censorship. Everybody knows that Fahrenheit 451 is a novel about book-burning, but this story goes much deeper than those not having read it may suspect. Its message truly does become even more germane and prophetic with every passing day. The skeleton of the plot is rather basic, really. Guy Montag is a fireman whose job it is to burn books and the houses in which these dangerous manifestations of inane scribbling reside - usually hidden. No one even remembers a time when firemen actually put out fires. We join Guy's life as he enters into a cusp of uncertainty. He has dared to pilfer a book here and there and stash them in his house, a most dangerous crime indeed. He soon meets a free-spirited teenager who breathes life into his state of uncertainty and opens his mind to brand new thoughts and possibilities. When she makes him admit that he is not happy, his life is changed forever. He can't take the lack of substance all around him, the wife who thinks of nothing but "the family" (a type of interactive programming that dominates the living room), the impending war which everyone essentially ignores. He knows there must be something else in life, and he comes to believe that the enlightenment he is after must surely be contained in books. Montag's conversations with his Fire Chief on this subject are quite astounding and revealing, and between this and Montag's friendship with an old former professor, we learn how Montag's world came to be this way. The government did not simply ban books overnight. Censorship started slowly and at low levels. Some minority group complained about this - deleted; another group complained about that - gone; these fellows over here object to so-and-so - zip. So many little pieces of books were removed that, over time, the very essence of books was destroyed. While the government has now come to insist that reading books is a crime, the horrible truth of the matter is that the society itself, in its fractious ways, is the party responsible for this tragic state of affairs. Can there be a more timely topic for our own time? We continually see history books being rewritten, "objectionable" words, phrases, and (horror of horrors) ideas removed from novels and poems so that no one can possibly be offended by anything under the sun. Censorship is a cancer on society, and the world needs visionaries such as Ray Bradbury to forcefully draw attention to the cold hard facts that a majority of the population seems to ignore or fails to acknowledge. Once the true meaning has been chopped out of the books lining our shelves, it will be too late to reverse the momentum without the aid of some kind of miracle. Fahrenheit 451's message is one that all people should be exposed to, and this novel is such a quick (but powerful) read that everyone really should read it. As horrible as it is to envision, I fear that this type of censorship could indeed happen here.
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Summary: Not 1984
Review: I've heard some people say that this book rips off 1984, that is NOT true. It's essentially the converse of 1984. In Orwell's masterpiece (I won't deny either of these books that title) the government has absolute power. 1984 has been called "The end of all Utopias" because the people can't win. In Bradbury's work, however, the government is not all powerful, and still has those who work against it that it foolishly ignores. Furthermore, the war is not to permanently distract the people, it is a real thing to win or lose. The people aren't closely monitored, they can even have ideas so long as they don't have books. In the end this is the beggining of a Utopia, in 451 the government can't win, they will eventually fall and a new age of learning will rise...to fall again, and again, and again, but as Bradbury points out unlike the Phoenix we may eventually learn NOT TO JUMP IN THE FREAKIN' FUNERAL PYRE, OR EVEN TO BUILD IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Fell short of expectations¿
Review: I heard so much about this book before I finally picked it up. And when I did get around to reading it...I wasn't impressed. Yes, the author's ideas are scary: That in the future, firemen set fires to burn books. One firefighter, Guy Montag, begins to look at his life more closely and discovers how empty it is. He begins to take books home from many of the places he has destroyed. Clarisse, Guy's next door neighbor, and seemingly the one that set his book-stealing into motion, is one of the most interesting characters. Unfortunately, she disappears without much explanation. I did see some good messages in this vision of the future, but I felt a little bit cheated too, because I wanted to get a better glimpse at this society that spawned this fire fighter-book burners. I'm not debating if it should be a classic or not, I'm just saying it was not personally a very good book to me.
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Summary: READ MY REVIEW ON THIS BOOK...
Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury seemed very confusing and weird just from reading the back of the book. Soon after reading the first few chapters, finding out this novel wasn't bad at all, actual pretty well written and interesting. It broadened my view of censorship and the fascinating situations in this book that have extreme resemblances to a world that doesn't seem so far from our own.
Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to find hidden books and burn them. Even from the start it is made apparent that Montag had a discomfort about his job. His new neighbor Clarisse McClellan helps to make his realize this and that reading and learning is not bad. His boss, the Fire Chief doubts his dedication to this job as is he. In a world where knowledge is strictly prohibited, Montag discovers the importance of literature. All the characters in this book are clearly described to come a live, made to imagine there actions and words.
This book will make you wonder what it holds for us in the future, a world without books. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone searching for a beautifully written novel for all ages.
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Summary: Fahrenheit 451
Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is a novel about a futuristic society where censorship reigns supreme and independent thought is deeply scrutinized. This is a world where the televisions talk to you, vehicular manslaughter is an innocent charge as long as you have insurance, and fireman burn books instead of putting fires out. The main character in this novel is a fireman named Guy Montag, a man happy with his job, his wife, his place in society, and life in general. All of this holds true until one fateful evening, after a successful night of setting millions of pages ablaze, Montag runs into a wistful teenager named Clarisse. She is an introverted girl by this future society's standards because she doesn't enjoy playing sports, or driving fast. Her main interests are thinking and talking about what she's thinking--very anti-social to everyone else. Clarisse is the catalyst for Montag's rise from subservient book burner to independent thinking intellectual. Montag begins to take books from the houses he burns and hide them in his air conditioner, promising to read them one day. One night, the firemen come to an old woman's house where they are to burn her collection of books. Beatty, the firehouse captain, douses her collection of books with kerosene, but instead of letting that be the end of it, the old woman decides to set herself on fire along with her treasures. Montag becomes very sickened by this event and decides not to be a fireman anymore. This is where one of the most crucial scenes comes into play, Beatty comes to Montag's house to talk him into staying a fireman, using all of his cunning and sly words to tell him how things were, and how they are better now. Montag makes a choice not go with what society wants, and to become a rebel. Montag meets with a professor to learn how to fully understand what he's reading, and they come upon an insidious plan to plant books in fireman's houses and call alarms on them, effectively destroying the idea that books should be burned if the burners themselves want them. Montag decides to go into work one last time, and after they get a call, much to his surprise, they arrive at his house. Montag's own wife Mildred had called in an alarm, and quickly left. Montag kills the other firemen and goes on the run, eventually meeting a gang of old college professors in the woods, and becoming one of them.
The character I felt I could most relate to was the main character Guy Montag. Montag was really confused with his life, and how it was turning out, he didn't know if he liked the person he had become. I think I would do the same thing as Montag did if I were in his position. Montag's society reminded me of today's society slightly where censorship is still a problem, but to only a small extent. Also, the only way people in Montag's society could enjoy anything was if it was fast paced and devoid of any need to think, sometimes I feel that holds true with our society as well. Take our sports for example: football, basketball, hockey, all of these are extremely violent and fast.
I did not like the book for a few reasons. The first is that I felt the view point of the novel was too extreme, and it lost some of its value because I just could not relate to it as well as the novel wanted me to. Another was the characters, outside of Montag, all the characters are static and flat, not one of them changes. I did enjoy the digressions in the book, the time Bradbury took to stretch his own personal talents with beautiful, and sometimes scary, descriptions of what Montag was thinking. But, I felt that Bradbury was trying to hard to fit into an Ernest Hemingway style of quick thoughts without explanation, giving the reader the opportunity to figure out what is being said like a puzzle. It just didn't do it for me.
My recommendation is that people should read this novel because it can give insight to how any society works. But I do not believe it is an important novel because it just did not get its point across well enough. Read this novel if you dislike censorship and wish to see it completely abolished, but this is the only type of reader I feel could totally enjoy this novel.
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Summary: "There is more than one way to burn a book." -R. Bradbury
Review: Each piece of Utopian literature provides a different perspective on how and why society became no more than a living nightmare. "Farenheit 451" is no different. Whereas "1984" implies that the downfall of the elements of language and pure animal instincts led to the degredation of society and "Brave New World" argues that beauty and truth are essential, "Fahrenheit 451" places its claim on the existence of literature. This fast-paced novel transports the reader to a world where firemen don't put out fires, they start them, and where philosophers and lovers of books don't have a place in a college classroom, but rather as bums on the streets. With descriptive passages and thought-provoking characterizations, "Fahrenheit 451" is a delightful novel.
However, I was slightly disappointed in the lack of depth it contains. I am an avid fan of Utopian literature, but I found it difficult to get swept up in the emotions of the novel. Without a doubt, it was pleasant to read, but if you're looking for a deep and enriching book that will make you laugh and cry and bring to light new perspectives on life and society, this isn't the most suitable novel for you.
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