Fahrenheit 451 (Classic Radio Sci-Fi S.) (New Portway Large Print Books)

by Ray Bradbury

[inlibrisveritas]

I debated on weither or not to review this on here. I mean after all it’s an older book and I’m sure there are a ton of reviews on it, and there is a movie already. I know that people are aware that this book is worth reading, they don’t really need me to tell them that. But I went to type up my review in Goodreads and realized that I have to put on here…my reaction to this book almost demands it. So here it goes.

Starting off I figured I was going to have a pretty standard classic on my hand, and that it might be similar to 1984 in style. I was both right and completely wrong. It’s “standard” in the fact that it stands the test of time and still has something it can teach, and it’s style is only vaguely similar to Orwell’s. Bradbury’s style for this book is jarring in it’s delivery, it’s quick and to the point but at the same time it’s incredibly descriptive and it nearly forces you to feel the emotions of the moment. I had some trouble with it at first because I am unaccustomed to words controlling my pace, no matter how I tried to slow down the words just kind of rushed at me. It was overwhelming in the beginning, and truthfully it never really went away I simply gave in.

The world that Bradbury created is incredibly chilling and really makes you think about society at the present moment. It’s about more than just books, it’s about censorship as a whole…the dulling of society so that everyone is “content”. At first it seemed like people were rather happy in this society, even if they were a little…off. But the more I read the more I realized that their happiness is so fake that even they can’t see it, the way people acted throughout this was frustrating and scary. So mindless and yet at times increasingly cruel, in their content lifestyle they built not true connections with anyone and so nothing ever matters. It’s just scary…which is probably why I had two nightmares based on this book. The third section was just as eye opening as the first and I love the fact that Bradbury didn’t completely kill off books, that in some way they will survive as long as there are people who have read them.

Despite the fact that this scared me, it’s something I will never regret reading. It’s fantastic and I think the fact that I missed out on this in high school is a shame, this would have been one of those novels that I would have begged the teacher to let me keep. A truly awesome book and I’m happy to say this one is going to stay with me for a long time.