Fahrenheit 451
Ratings1,520
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings1,520
Average rating3.9
The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.
The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.
Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades on from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.
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Reviews with the most likes.
It's interesting to see that the same issues existed over 70 years ago. The parallels to today are striking and thought-provoking. It's interesting to see how fast the main character goes from conforming to thinking as an individual.
There were many parts of this book that I found problematic (the absurdly flat, semi-misogynistically-written female characters; the incoherent critique of television) but could have chalked up to interesting ambiguities until I read the Afterword and Coda by the author, who turns out to have written this polemic/parable as an ill-considered response to criticism (you know, censorship by women's-libbers and homosexuals) and new media.
Otherwise, Bradbury is clearly a virtuosic writer in a showoffy way, but the story pacing and structure is pretty strained. Although Captain Beatty is a pretty terrifically villainous bad guy.
Science Fiction with an impact at one of it's highest levels. The story follows a man a future society where he works as a fireman – only firemen don't put out fires. Instead, they burn books. This heavy handed symbolism for the issues of the 1950's surrounding communism and a general fear of new ideas. It's interesting to think what kind of an affect this book had on our society.
