Amph Fahrenheit 451: A Thread about the book!

This here is the nice thread about the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury!

Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors. I think I said this in my Martian Chronicles thread, but Bradbury has a very unique and poetic writing style that I think is very excellent.

I considered Fahrenheit 451 to be my favorite book for a long time. Now I don't think I really have a favorite favorite book, but Fahrenheit 451 is definetely up there at the top. I think I've read it about 3 or 4 times since 9th grade.

The movie, I did not like. Bleck. The new one better be good.

In this thread talk about Fahrenheit 451.

 

I like this book as well. I had to read it in HS and college for classes, yet liked it anyways. It is a neat idea!

 

I oughta get around to reading this again sometime...

I originally read it seventh grade and understood very, very little of it. I got the part about book-burning and all that, and the themes it presented. But it was a bit above my level, then. I remember I originally read it because then I was very impressionable, and as a budding writer of S/F, I decided I had to read some SF. Ray Bradbury's book was one of the first choices.

EDIT: Good lord, shoot me. I did not just use the word "understanded".

 

I loved this book. It's amazing how close we've come to the world he envisioned so long ago. Scary too.

 

I read this just the other day - I'll be doing it for English in a couple of weeks' time, along with 1984. I really enjoy it, as it's as much about literature itself and the act of reading than anything else.

The futureworld I love, and in particular the way that Bradbury pitches it in the grey zone between 'now' and 'distant future'. Like Pumpkin_King said, we're nearly at the same kind of stage (four-wall TV parlours can't be far away. Seashell ear-radios, in the form of iPod et al, we already have . . .) but not quite. It keeps the story grounded firmly in the 'possible'.

Also, and this is a big bonus for those studying it, it's a slim little volume, more like an extended short story than anything else. But I like it that way, because the story is simple and clear-cut as far as events go, and it doesn't feel rushed at the end.

 

Wasn't Fahrenheit 451 originally a short story to begin with?

I loved the book. It's scary how some of Bradbury's world in Fahrenheit have come true.

I wasn't aware they're doing a re-make of the movie. The orginal one was confusing and almost nothing like the book.

 

A good book but the lack of characterization makes me think that it's not as great as some claim it to be.

 

True, but I find the book to be more about the troubles of a possible future rather than the characters.

 

It's my favorite book. Period.

JediNemesis: Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought of the comparison between the Seashell radio and the iPod. I knew there was something evil about these things.

Seriously... you sit on a train and half the people around have white cables sticking out of their ears... It's creepy.

 

Seriously... you sit on a train and half the people around have white cables sticking out of their ears... It's creepy.

This also reminded me of a conversation I had a couple of days ago with someone, debating the best way to deal with people who sit next to you with their iPod turned so far up they might as well be holding a radio. Consensus seemed to be that the only adequate punishment would be to put superglue on the earphones.

And iPods are getting tinier and tinier. I give it ten years, tops, before they manage to get the hard-drive into one of the actual earpieces and Seashell comes into its own.

The 200-foot billboards belong to the fairly close future too, going by ever-increasing car use and abuse . . .

 

I love this book. It's outstanding.

 

I just wrote a review about this book for my website. Here's an excerpt:

"What is Fahrenheit 451? The temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. I first read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury when I was in Junior High School. At around the same time, I read George Orwell?s 1984 and Animal Farm. All three novels were about censorship and although I loved Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 had the most impact on me. As a lover of the written word, it?s painful to imagine a world in which books are outlawed material. A world where the burning of books is justified ? even welcome ? is a world in which I would hate to live. Years later, after reading the 50th Anniversary Edition of the novel, I can honestly say that it still has the same effect on me."

The entire review is a tad long, but you could read the rest at .

 

Okay, for some reason, the link to my article at g-pop.net didn't work. Well, I hope you don't mind the long post then:

What is Fahrenheit 451? The temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. I first read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury when I was in Junior High School. At around the same time, I read George Orwell?s 1984 and Animal Farm. All three novels were about censorship and although I loved Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 had the most impact on me. As a lover of the written word, it?s painful to imagine a world in which books are outlawed material. A world where the burning of books is justified ? even welcome ? is a world in which I would hate to live. Years later, after reading the 50th Anniversary Edition of the novel, I can honestly say that it still has the same effect on me.

In a world that now shuns all that can threaten to depress them, America has chosen to ban books. Instead of reading, Americans immerse themselves in non-sensical visual media with little plot or meaning, believing themselves content. Books are burned and wall-to-wall television is praised. Meanwhile, all around them, signs creep up that provide proof of the errors of their ways. A thoughtlessness presides and within that thoughtlessness, disaster resounds. Suicides spike to an all-time high. Murders abound. People drive their cars at 100mph and tell themselves it?s for the thrill and the adrenaline rush. Perhaps that?s part of the truth, but the other half of the coin reveals the reality ? an insatiable death wish.

Within all this madness resides Guy Montag, a fireman, in the very literal sense of the word. Gone are the days when firemen put out fires. Those days are long forgotten. For ten years, Guy has loved his job as a fireman, burning books and the houses they are hidden in, until one day, Guys does the unthinkable. In a rush of spontaneity, he steals one of the very books he is supposed to burn. Once he begins, he can hardly help himself and he continues the trend, hiding them inside an air vent in his home and praying that his indiscretions will go undiscovered.

One day, Guy meets Clarisse, a young girl full of life and wonderment. Guy begins a daily routine of talking to this girl and the realization hits home. Here is a person who is curious about everything around her, finds joy in the simplest of things, and she is truly happy. He realizes that he has never truly been happy in his life. Then one day, Clarisse is gone, a victim of the new thoughtless world they live in. Shortly afterward, the owner of a house that Guy and fellow firemen respond to takes matters into her own hands, deciding to die with her books of her own free will. Clarisse?s death and the suicide of this elderly woman bring things to a head for Guy.

He comes to the realization that he has had no free will in his life. In his theft of books, Guy was subconsciously acting out the smallest bit of rebellion against a life filled with a robotic obedience. Vowing never to burn another book, Guy opens one of his hoarded treasures and begins to read. His world is never the same again.

It?s hard to believe that this novel is 50 years old. That Bradbury could write something 50 years ago and have it come so close to today?s America is amazing. Not to say that people don?t still lose themselves in novels, but more and more people I know seem to categorize magazines as books. They would rather read little snippets and look at pictures than read full-length novels and let their imaginations be their guides. Visual media has become very big with this generation and anyone who says they don?t watch at least three hours of television a night is considered strange. Bradbury?s world is actually coming to be in bits and pieces and one can only hope that our world will never see its full potential of ignorance.

The 50th Anniversary Edition of Fahrenheit 451 contains extras that were not available in the version I read so many years

 

I love that book in the worst way because there's so much innate symbolism in the entire thing. The idea of censorship taken so far that you won't even allow yourself to live is so powerful.

 

I think the most interesting aspect about Bradbury's book is that unlike 1984, the censorship and totalitarian society aren't forced upon an innocent public. It's the majority of the public who take it upon themselves. He likens it to high school attitudes where conformity is expected and those that shine, show some intelligence or thoughtfulness that brings them above the average are ostricized and hated.

 

Yes. Although in 1984, IIRC, most of the Party's censorship etc. is directed at keeping the Party itself - those intelligent enough to be in it (doesn't Orwell mention a test at 16 that determines Party status?) - in line. The proles are kept happy on a diet of vulgar entertainment churned out on machines in the Ministry of Truth basement.

Now we need a "For Comparing Books With Numbers in the Titles" thread

I salute Mr. Bradbury once again. High school - I don't think a more appropriate analogy could have been found. With our 21st-century obsession with the technology fashion, it fits even better.

 

There is a lot of uniqueness to F451. A book that tells about book banning/burning The strength of Montag as the protagonist works well here throughout.

 

And IMO part of what makes it such a chilling vision of the future is that this has already been done, several times, by various regimes. Heck, banning books is still a common enough occurrence if you pick the right part of the world and the right (wrong?) book. People have always suppressed books that defy the regime in power - and in F451 all books defy the regime in power just by existing.

I like Guy Montag. Bradbury really makes you feel for the man, whose only real crime is to have retained a semblance of intelligence and curiosity. Plus he's married to Mildred, and the way she's described in the book - that mixture of pity and loathing - automatically earns my sympathy for her husband.

 

i am starting this book today!!

 

The ideas outshine the characters in all the modern dystopian novels. So I'd certainly say your charge of weak characterization is true, but I don't think that it's unique, given the genre.

 

I dunno. If you have both you have a classic, classic novel. Asimov could do it sometimes but at othertimes his characters were just blah.

 

I stand by this book as one of the Sci Fi greats of all time. It should be taught in every single English class in all English speaking countries. It is probably in my top 5 Sci Fi books of all time. It might very well be the best book I was forced to read in High School. I dunno... Catcher in the Rye was really great too.

 

It was one of the few books that I actually never returned to my high school...

 

It's a good and powerful book, and it's earned the classic title in my opinion.

It's not about censorship though, so I wish people would stop saying that. (not directed at anyone here, just at the general public).

It's about the apathetic tendancies of humans, and the pathetic mental state that comes from getting all your news and ideas from TV. It's a warning to think for yourself, don't let others do it for you.

And I agree, we are in that world right now. My swords stand ready to repel the firemen...

 

I don't know about that, but I do know that it was originally published in Playboy magazine. So maybe it was.