Fahrenheit 451

by Ray D Bradbury

The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden. Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires, and he enjoys his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames. He never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid and a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do.

• ISBN10: 0881030198
• ISBN13: 9780881030198
• Publish Date: 12 August 1987 (first published 10 May 1967)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 13 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Turtleback Books
• Edition: Bound for Schools & Libraries ed.
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 208
• Language: English

Reviews

[boghunden]

Another classical book read. Yay. This was a good one. A story about firemen burning down houses that contains books was just what I needed. It's thought provoking (and gruesom!) why they're doing it, and that helped me to keep reading.

While this book was a good classical novel, I didn't found it to be a good sci-fi novel. It wasn't exactly as much sci-fi as I was expecting, so I guess I was a bit disappointed at that. I did like it as a classical novel though, and the writing wasn't nearly as hard to read as I thought it would be.

The characters were a bit too vague for my liking. I didn't really emphatize with any of them and I kind of missed that. I know there's only so much you can do in 220 pages, but I would've liked it none the less. The beginning of the book was a bit confusing, and it took me a couple of pages to get into the story and get what it was really about.

This is a good book for people who wants to get into classical books.

[clementine]

I feel like this book was so clearly written as a Warning to Society about the dangers of television and censorship, and as such it kind of lacks as a novel. I appreciate what Bradbury was trying to do, and indeed there was some great prose, but overall this book was flat and disappointing.

The society depicted in the book seems so interesting. There are many tidbits thrown to us that are incredibly tantalizing - the 48 hour wars, the very fast driving, the erasure of history - but none of it was expanded upon in such a way to really flesh out the society and paint a vivid image of it. A lot of it reminded me of the society in 1984, which was MUCH better described.

A lot of threads were left hanging. I suppose that's intentional, but it was jarring. Every character seems to be introduced out of the blue and then eliminated quickly, without really getting a picture of who they are other than a few dense paragraphs of expository dialogue meant to construct their characters.

I really liked the angle Bradbury took where the members of society are responsible for its downfall, and not the government. They have brought censorship and depersonalization of interactions upon themselves, without government intervention. The government merely makes laws that cater to its citizens' desires. That, to me, was the strongest aspect of this book, because it's something you just don't see in other dystopian novels.

I don't know, it's a cool idea and parts of the execution were done well, but I was disappointed.

[jeannamichel]

This book was good. It ended as though it made me think there was a sequel. I don't think there is, though. A lot of it was confusing and made me think. I wouldn't have read it, if it weren't for AP literature. I'm really not into science fiction. Though the alternative universe of reading books as illegal, it got me thinking what I would do if there were no books either. I don't think I would go as far as the guy in the book did, but still- no reading books. Where would this website be?

[Eve1972]

Read this in school!