Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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.

For such a short book, I took my sweet time reading reading it. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic, must-read book for everyone. A book written in the 1950s, really does foretell the way our society is today and what it may turn out to be in the future if we stop reflecting on what literature can tell us about ourselves. Things like reality TV, social media, cellphones, etc. actually cause us to connect less with our world and the people in it. We need time to talk with others face to face, reflect on the situations characters in books face, and determine the type of people we want to be. Books, movies, plays, etc are the words and stories we relate to as human beings. They are the common texts which bind us together as a civilization. If we lose these stories.....we lose ourselves.

Guy Montag begins to question the actions of his world when he meets a teenage girl named, Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse takes the time and effort to talk to him and actually sees him as an individual. Montag begins to wonder why firefighters are told to start fires as opposed to stopping them. Why do the firefighters want to destroy books? The fire captain, Beatty shares with Montag why books are dangerous, but this makes Montag question even more why he should not be allowed to read them. When he recruits the help of a former professor named Faber, Montag finally begins to change the mundane world he was used to.

I can't recommend this book enough! Wow!!! Bravo Bradbury!