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 wher...
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 wher...
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 neighbour 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.Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems--includingThe Martian ChroniclesandThe Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers aged 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense ofFahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman
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 neighbour 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.Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems--includingThe Martian ChroniclesandThe Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers aged 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense ofFahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman
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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 neighbour 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.Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems--includingThe Martian ChroniclesandThe Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers aged 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense ofFahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman
A review by Paradis on Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury November 2nd, 2004
Author's product rating:
Would you read it again?
Absolutely
Story
Good
Characters
Very ordinary
Readability
Good
How does it compare to other works by the same author?
Excellent
Advantages:
Entertaining
Disadvantages:
None
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Imagine living in a world where books are banned. Where no one is allowed to read, or learn from books...
This is the vision and premise of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. In a world that has gone mad, it centres on the war between censorship and freedom of thought. The protagonist, Guy Montag is the local firefighter, and he lives in an isolated society, where the totalitarian Government have tried to control independent thinking, by banning books.
The Government believe that people should be happy and carefree, and that books have a bad effect on them, by giving them ideas. They feel that the people are better off learning culture from their giant, wall to wall televisions that the Government is in control of, therefore, feeding the people all kinds of propaganda. It is the trivial information that is deemed important, and good, but knowledge is frowned on as the evil in society. People must all be similar, in order to be happy, at least, this is what they are led to believe. Independent thought is bad for a perfect society. But many people have a different idea of utopia, and it includes reading books. Rebels fight against the destruction of their beloved booked, as they horde them in their homes, and it is the the duty of all firefighters, to seize and burn all books they find. Firemen are seen as heroes, who rid the world of the ever creeping scourge of intellectuals and free knowledge. Bradbury turns the tables, and instead of firefighters, fighting fires, they start them, with books...lots of them.
So Guy Montag, spends his time burning books and goes home each night to his pushy wife, who, although she has wall to wall TV's all over the place, wants even more, and nags at him to work even harder in his already stressed life. Then, after Montag meets and talks with his young neighbour, Clarrise, he starts to experience a crisis of faith. He starts to secretly hide books around the place, he thinks there must be something in them, after all, there are people willing to risk reading them, and seem to believe in what they read. But his nagging wife reports him, and he goes on the run so that he doesn't get himself arrested. This leads to Montag joining up with a gang of like minded people, and they commit themselves to learning whole books to memory, preserving the knowledge the only way they can.
The title comes from the temperature at which paper burns, 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and in my opinion, is about the best work Bradbury ever managed to come up with. And that says a lot, considering he has managed a staggering 500 or so of assorted books, poems and plays. Fahrenheit 451 was originally published in 1950 as a short story, and was entitled, 'The Fireman'. It tells a cautionary tale of people so wrapped up in their wall to wall TV's, that they don't notice or care about issues happening for real, like poverty and warfare. None of 'that sort of thing' matters to these TV junkies, who just want more and more trivial, meaningless things to watch, in their perfect little cocoon worlds. Everyone is busy doing nothing, and thinking nothing.
There will always be those that want to feel secure in their little world, and have no worries or risk to their lives, and will grab that at any cost, and with the help of the regime, they are easily coerced into a neat little pattern. But there will also, always be those that value freedom above all, and will fight tooth and nail for it, at any cost, and this is the main plot of the story. People trading freedom for security is a very interesting idea. Books have a very big impact on us and our lives, and we generally take it for granted they will always be with us. But what if something like this could happen? What if some catastrophe happened that took away all our books? How would we cope with that?
Bradbury tells us in this book, censorship will result in the destruction of society, and we can never close our minds to the truth and to knowledge. This is a warning of what a totalitarian Government could do to a world, and the idea stems from WW2, when Hitler burned books across Europe to prevent the distribution of knowledge.
The sad thing is, if we examine our world more closely, we can see, that as we rely more and more on technology as the way forward, people will be reading less books than they used to. In this day and age, where people are always thinking big brother is watching them, and out to get them, this book fits in perfectly, and considering it was written in 1950 is even more remarkable. Bradbury's story is censorship to the extreme, and if you read this book, you certainly won't forget about it. It's quite a chilling tale.
So did I like this novel? Yes, I liked it a lot. I always enjoy a 'what if...' senario to dig around in. Fahrenheit 451 is an enjoyable science fiction classic, even after all this time. What didn't I like about it? Well, the main problem for me, was the book is under 200 pages long. This is a very short novel, and surprisingly, it only has 3 or 4 chapters. What about character development? There wasn't much in the way of development, the story rather focused on the plot, than the characters. So your overall opinion? I liked this the first time I read it, many years ago, and I liked it just as much this time. Fahrenheit stands up to it's advancing years very well, in fact, I will say it is a remarkable piece of writing, and a clever idea. Who could have come up with the idea of Firemen starting fires, rather than putting them out? Grab a copy now.
Advantages: Please read the op Disadvantages: Really, read the op, but there isn't any disadvantage
...by all...
WHAT IS FAHRENHEIT 451 ?
*** SUMMARY:
Before talking about the book, I will just explain the title. Actually 451°F is the temperature when paper begins to burn. Why the title ? Read my little summary.
In an unfortunately too-near future (no date is given by Bradbury, that avoids the problems of Orwell's "1984" for example), a fireman named Guy Montag is happy to do his job. The only hitch is that Bradbury's firemen don't fight against ... ...they don't have to extinguish the fires, but on the contrary their jobs consist in burning all the books they hear about. Montag is married with Mildred (does her name mean that she can't take a decision all by herself ?), a woman who spends her time watching television walls.
Two events will change his life forever. First, Guy meets Clarisse, a 17-year girl full of life. She doesn't go to school as the other teenagers. Instead, she loves wandering ...
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very helpful
12.09.2001
Fire Starter Review ofFahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradburyby
Azurel
Advantages: Good plot with interesting ideas behind it Disadvantages: The story has a sad, hopeless feel to it.
Fahrenheit 451 is a look into a future where books are condemned as dangerous and are therefore burnt. Montag is the central character in the book and is a fireman, but not in the sense we understand. Montag is paid to burn books not to stop fires, there is no need to stop house fires now anyway as all houses are fireproof. Even after you have finished reading the book, Bradbury's horrifying version of the future hovers in the mind, to be contemplated ... ...end Montag has lost his family and has to face the idea that the job he has been doing all his life was destroying the only thing he now lives for. Fahrenheit 451 is an interesting book, as much for the ideas behind it, as the story its self. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Farenheit 451 is one of the seminal books on state censorship and the creation of an artificial utopia. It ranks alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
Farenheit 451 is about Guy Montag, a fireman - but not in any conventional sense of the word. In this bleak future, firemen are employed not to put out fires (all the houses are now fire-proof), but instead to start fires... to burn books.
Books are evil. They spread malcontentment. ... ...- people can be spoon fed their opinions, their emotions. Pleasure is immediate, thought is a waste of time.
When Montag starts to find that he wants to read books he is scared. He is scared about the mechanical hound that will chase him down. He is scared that his boss Captain Beatty will come around and burn his house like he has done to others.
It is a parable of state domination and the ultimate in censorship, and is a warning to us all about ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: An absolute classic and comment on the world today. Disadvantages: None
...and in particular that book. Fahrenheit 451, is a book about books, a book about the burning of books. But behind it there is much more than that, as I saw in the book when I re-read it as an adult, and was even more blown away by it than when I first read it as a child. A story full of social commentary about modern society, a prediction of a future in which we now live. Up there with 1984 and Brave New World this is a book that predicted our world ... ...at which book paper burns, and in the story Montag the central character is fireman whose job it is to burn books. This is a world were all reading material is banned, and free thinking is against the will of the state. People are kept in line with state supplied drugs and huge screen TV’s in their homes (sound familiar yet?!) There is also the Hound, the robotic sniff dog that hunts down books and their owners. The Hound symbolises the world around ...
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26.10.2004
Quick review of Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury Review ofFahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradburyby
pisceanamol
The book covers a very burning topic of debate that too in a lucid and compose manner. A guy who likes to burn the books.
Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: Imaginative, rich and colourful short stories Disadvantages: A few stories are outdated and implausible
...Out of the plethora of science-fiction / fantasy writers, there is one author whose name immediately springs to mind. RayBradbury! Renowned for his works such as Fahrenheit451, the Martian Chronicles and the RayBradbury Theatre, Bradbury has over five hundred published works to his name easily adapting his innovative style to the differing genres of short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and poetry.
Bradbury though has always seemed to favour the short-story often presenting them within his trademark framing device. The Illustrated Man is a perfect example of he achieves this effect.
The frame is the illustrated man himself - tattooed from his neck to his waist - a vibrant living storybook. Each of the little tattoo illustrations is a "little story". Eighteen illustrations, eighteen stories just...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
very helpful 15.02.2007
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