Fahrenheit 451
This is Bradbury's best-known novel. The science fiction tale concerns censorship and anti-intellectualism, carried on in an alternate society that conducts huge book burnings as part of the social agenda. It is a spooky and yet uplifting book.
Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then 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 where people could think. And Guy Montag knew what he had to do....
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."
Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.
Bradbury--the author of more than 500 short stories, novels, plays, and poems, including The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man--is the winner of many awards, including the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. Readers ages 13 to 93 will be swept up in the harrowing suspense of Fahrenheit 451, and no doubt will join the hordes of Bradbury fans worldwide. --Neil Roseman
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- ISBN: 9780345342966
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| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 15, 2007 Type: User Review |
Excellent Social Commentary; A Wake-Up Call Over 50 Years Later
With great prescience, Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 over fifty years ago. Today, this story is no longer prescient but instead insightful of the situation of the West as it stands. Pluralism which was celebrated in the past has become a...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 15, 2007 Type: User Review |
Exhilirating page-turner, a scary reflection of what our world is becoming. Additional Material a bit disappointing
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury has created a world that chillingly seems to reflect our present and near future. In this upside down dystopia, firemen burn books, women congregate with their fake wall (television) families, youth engage in high...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 11, 2007 Type: User Review |
One of the best 'classics'
This is a book everyone should read. It's not a long book, or a complicated one, but the ideas expressed are worthy of great philosophical discussion. It seems an almost surreal world that these people live in, and yet it could so easily be...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 11, 2007 Type: User Review |
A very hot read!
Ray Bradbury's story of how he wrote this genius book in the UCLA basement on a manual typewriter at 10-cents an hour is such a perfect start. The nine days in dimes that he spent came to so much good. This is a classic because it is...
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| From: Amazon Posted: Apr 09, 2007 Type: User Review |
Bradbury's classic novel only improves with age
"The whole culture's shot through. The skeleton needs melting and reshaping. Good God, it isn't just as simple as picking up a book you laid down half a century ago. Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading...
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