Average Rating: 
Rating: - BURNING TO SWITCH SIDES
Bradbury's 1950's sci fi classic presents a plot frequent in futuristic tales: the rebellion of the protagonist against the mind-numbing status quo. Fireman Guy Montag knew the pleasure and psychological rush he experienced while burning books; it was privilege to ride the Dragon, to bear the Salamander emblem on his clothing. He delighted in destroying remnants of a previous era, when people foolishly believed and reacted to the printed word. Seeking ever more speed, noise and violence to substitute for lack of intellectual and emotional stimulus, this culture has become shallow, enjoying superficial interactions and slavish obedience to mass mentality. This was a disposable society, where the government manipulated war and city officials doctored the news--to keep an audience or merely save face. But Montag gradually realizes his own dis-ease, as doubts creep into his mind; he begins to stash forbidden books in a secret chache, and to seriously consider the ideas of the school girl next door, whose family has been watched and labeled as antisocial for years. It is very dangerous for an individual to question or defy the prescribed pattern for Happiness, as dictated by mass media techniques. Was there some secret--vital to mankind's happiness and peace of mind--hidden within those scorned and banned books? Could one man save civilization from its own misgudied zeal? This gripping tale (under 150 pages) depicts a society gone amuck; RB provides many serious themes for thoughtful readers of all ages to digest. The 1968 film, though inevitably different from the original, is also a powerful statement. I saw it as a student in Italy. While walking home from the theatre, my companion remarked grimly: "Nobody's getting My books!" It made us realize that we should not take books for granted or ever underestimate the power of the written word.
Rating:  - Astronomically Good Book
Sometime in the not-so-distant future, the world will change severely. Soon people's homes will be completely fireproofed, leaving no use for firemen as they are thought of today. But they will not be out of work; their role will simply change. In an ever increasingly television oriented society where yesterday's classics are now thought of as censurable tripe, firemen will be starting fires, not stopping them. Their new role will be of a secret police that search out the hated books and raise their temperature to the level at which books burn, Fahrenheit 451. This is the premise of Ray Bradbury's novel. Bradbury's story is an ominous look into where he fears society is presently headed. It is in many ways a warning against existing increasing rates of demoralization, drug use, addiction to non thought-provoking activities, and illiteracy. He easily communicates how such simple trends could evolve into societal brainwashing and individuals who say they are happy, think they are 'social,' and simply spend all their time in their parlors (the ultimate in new television technology). One of the self-proclaimed 'odd' people of this book went decidedly against the norm in saying, "But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?" However, this book is not solidly a story of doom and gloom. The main character is a fireman named Montag and he ends up providing hope for the reader. While he is not a godlike hero, made up of courage and thew, he does fit the quixotic template in that he is a sad classicist in a new and frightening time. After only a small jolt of reality from an imaginative child, he realizes the world could be made of truth and beauty, rather than the contemporary cheap thrills and insatiable cupidity. Furthermore, this tale has much in common with two other critically acclaimed classics. Montag's government is merely interested in controlling the people while waging war with other super powers, much like the opression in George Orwell's 1984. Additionally, individuals hold very little sacred, no one cares for human life and everyone is looking for a cheap (often-dangerous) thrill. This is a public where men who handle drug overdoses are not concerned that such matters happen "nine or ten a night," all of this general apathy is mirrored in the novel Brave New World. But, again, Bradbury is a creative author, and his visions of the future are not nearly as hopeless as 1984, or so alien and drug based as Brave New World. Fahrenheit 451's point is twofold. While it warns against where society is headed, it also shows that it only takes good people like Montag to bring society back from the brink of ruination. This faith in the goodness of the common man does not falter and shows optimism that is not always part of such works. Upbeat themes can be hard to find in such otherwise bleak forewarnings, and even in most normal classics it is hard to find a purely happy ending and/or main point. Seeing as this book was published over forty years ago one would assume that it is out of date, but this is not true. It is a science-fiction book without any unbelievable differences between this projected world and our own. Also, Fahrenheit 451 is easily read. The book communicates its point in a mere 160 pages, none of which are filled with incomprehensible vocabulary. It contains enough action for those who like it, and plenty of Montag's self-realizations for readers interested in seeing characters delve into their own mind's inner recesses. This book should be a joy to anyone who chooses to pick it up. Conversely, this easily enjoyed book carries with it some strong meaning. Montag's experiences are a warning to people who would get so used to their impersonal lifestyle that they would become desensitized to many of the world's horrors. Upon finishing the book, one is sure to be more guarded against choosing an easy path, and therefore becoming less of a human. Bradbury did well in bringing the way life became more and more impersonal and barbaric. "I put up with (my children) when they come home three days a month; it's not bad at all. You heave them into the 'parlor' and turn on the switch. It's like washing clothes." In likening children to annoying creatures which deserve as much attention as laundry, the character who made this statement both disgusts the audience and says the statement as if it were only natural. The author has a talent for letting his audience see situations both as they normally would and as the characters do. Even through the opening we see some of the book's many themes played out in Montag.
Rating: - Ideas Can Be Unpleasant
Ray Bradbury uses the idea of a book burning society in Fahrenheit 451 to represent the destruction that popular culture has wrought on the intellectual exchange that existed before the advent of mass market entertainment. If given the choice between easy and difficult, most people will choose easy. Books represent the hard things in life. They contain ideas and opinions that may be different from our own and that may challenge us to think and understand in ways that we never comprehended before.One key thing to understand about Bradbury's masterpiece is that the book burning didn't come from the government. It started with the populace progressively ignoring books because they upset too many people. It began with minority groups (anyone from Chinese to left-handed people) ripping 'offensive' pages from books and destroying them. So began the homogenating process that is popular culture and group identity. In F. 451, Guy Montag is a fireman. In this world firemen start fires, they don't stop them. They burn the houses that harbor the illegal books. Montag runs across a teenage girl named Clarisse who challenges Montag's view of the world. She gets him to do the most dangerous thing that any person can do: think. Once Montag starts to think about his world and what he does, he is destined to either rebel against this repressive society or kill himself (which many of Montag's fellow citizens opt to do). F. 451 shows that it's not books that are revolutionary but the free flow of ideas that they promote. The wall-tv in the parlor is everything that is wrong with Montag's world and our's as well. The wall-tv literally drowns out any chance that people will communicate once they set themselves in front of its addicting glow. The sweet irony of all this is that man has used his brain so well that we have come to a point where we no longer have to think to survive. We have created countless machines that do our thinking for us. In F. 451 no one really thinks about what they do, they just do it. It's what the do, it's what they've always done, so it's what they'll always continue to do. Until of course somewhere along the way someone steps outside of himself and observes himself going about his routine and questions it. The most dangerous man in the world is the man who asks not just how but why.
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