Fahrenheit 451

Rating:
Summary: "I'm seventeen and crazy"... but I loved this book
Review: Bradbury has created a shockingly realistic future for us, where the desire to be happy overrules the need to be informed. The most frightening part, perhaps, is that this style of censorship is practiced in high schools across the country. As a high school senior, I have witnessed several instances of attempted "book bannings" from school libraries, mostly led by misinformed parents who could not see through the 4-letter words or "disturbing" situations to the true worth of the novel. Unlike 1984 or Brave New World before him, Bradbury's world is closer to ours, and much more attainable.

The theme of Fahrenheit 451 is seeing through the clutter and propaganda to what is truly important. Not necessarily books in particular, but the essence of life which they capture and present in sometimes startling ways. Guy Montag, Clarisse McClellan, Faber, and few others can see that butterfly in a landfill essence of truth, and their contrast against the rest of the world shocks the most disillusioned reader into realizing that, in literature, there is truth. In a world where science and technology are increasingly more important, Fahrenheit 451 is a far-sighted message from the past telling us, indeed, the arts are what puts us above the primates.

Rating:
Summary: A Dark Look into the Society of the Future
Review: Fahrenheit 451 is a story about a sick and twisted future in which books are forbidden by a Totalitarian Regime. The concept of this story originates from the time of WWII in which Hitler's Regime was burning libraries across Europe in an attempt to prevent the distribution of knowledge and other negative ideas that could affect his rise to power. This book is an exciting tale about a world in which firemen no longer extinguish fires, but instead start them. The firemen in this world burn all the books and the houses in which they are contained.

We feel that this store, despite its dark tone, is a well-written modern day classic that makes the reader better respect books and not take them for granted. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wishes to read a thought-provoking story that provides insight into our future. An interesting aspect of this novel is how well it connects with our world today. Our society is becoming more and more reliant on technology and is becoming less interested in education, which sadly enough, is the same story in Fahrenheit 451. Could this be a reality for our world in the near future?

Rating:
Summary: A book about book burning.
Review: I am not such a fan of Ray Bradbury but his book Fahrenheit 451 is excellent and is now among modern classics in the same line as 1984 and Brave New World. Most new versions of this book carry with it a great introduction from Bradbury about how he typed his manuscript on a typewriter that cost 10 cents to use every half hour. The story was first published by Playboy magazine. Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which books burn.

Inspired by Hitler and Stalin book burning, 451 tells the futuristic tale of a fireman, Guy Montag, who works for the government as an emergency book burner that sets fires to books which have been banned. They storm houses, dig up floor boards, find books, destroy them and then arrest the owners.

Montag begins to question the controlling society that he lives in. Why is he burning books? Inevitably this leads him to seek out books for himself and with it the paranoia of being found out while working for such an oppressive regime. There is some very good plot twists and the story is full of tension, suspicion and mistrust.

You will read 451 in a day or two. It is less than 200 pages long and easy to get through. A modern classic that you should not miss.

Rating:
Summary: Definition of a classic...
Review: I've heard so many people say they've been influenced by Bradbury (writers and others) and I can see why--this is simply a great novel. Bradbury is really a national treasure. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak, don't miss him. His stories are priceless. (Especially the one about his anger at people telling him for years that he was crazy to believe man would set foot on the moon in his lifetime. He said he called up every person who laughed in his face the night Neil Armstrong did--and pretty much laughed in their faces!) There is a fantastic one-on-one interview with him in the Walt Disney Tomorrowland-Disney in Space and Beyond DVD (interviewer is Leonard Maltin). His friendship with Disney (a fellow futurist) was fascinating. But it's the sense of wonder and child-like curiosity and optimism (not childish or blind optimism as he clearly understands what can create a dystopia) that make you realize why he is a national treasure. He's inspired me to look to the future, to look up, to look forward, to always be wary and alert to what can go wrong, (and the dangers of closed or lazy minds) BUT not to let any of that stop you--that anything is possible in a world willing to believe, in a free world with open and curious minds.

Rating:
Summary: A Prescient Warning
Review: Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is perhaps among the greatest books on censorship ever written. At times, it may seem heavyhanded in its approach, and the action, as some reviewers have pointed out may seem a little farfetched. Indeed, who can imagine firemen dousing homes in kerosene and setting them ablaze? But this is not where the value of the book lies. Its value lies in the warning about the type of society we may become, and perhaps already have. A society where serious thought, questioning, and insight are little valued for fear of causing societal unhappiness and where people coast along in life fed by a constant stream of meaningless and useless information via television, unchallenged in their concepts of life by thoughts that may trouble them.

We have now in our society a movement - political correctness - that is dominant on college campuses, a movement that seeks as its ultimate goal the suppression of any thought or idea that may in the least be offensive to another individual or group. In Fahrenheit 451 Fire Captain Beatty explains how Bradbury's society of the future came to burn books. Minorities of every stripe complained about how they were portrayed in this book or that book, tearing out page by page those sections that were offensive until the day when the "libraries were shut and minds closed forever."

There are further fewer active readers in American society today than 50 years ago. The great majority of Americans now have their worldview filtered to them through television, and children are raised on the offerings of mass entertainment from Disney and MTV. It is entertaining sometimes, but it is not the stuff of life. Fahrenheit 451 is indeed a prescient and frightening warning.