Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
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Book Reviews of Fahrenheit 451
Book Review: The Difference in Flames
Summary: 5 Stars
What began as a short story in 1950, evolved into one of the greatest American novels of all time. Fahrenheit 451, originally titled The Fire Man, was Ray Bradbury's first novel. It is ironic that the place that Bradbury chose to write a novel about book burning was in a book haven - the basement of the University of California's library. Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a future where knowledge is despised and thought of as an unequalizer. People are made to believe that in order for everyone to be happy and live in harmony they must be equals. Since books spread knowledge and knowledge is an unequalizer, most books are banned from reading and burned in order to be kept from society's hands. Due to the fireproofing of houses, firemen are no longer needed to put out fires. Instead, firemen set ablaze houses that contain illegal books, sometimes burning the people within the houses if they refuse to leave. Guy Montag was a fireman who loved to watch the flames dance in the sky and the books shrivel and die, that is until he met a young girl named Clarisse. Clarisse opened his eyes to the world around him, and no longer did Montag want to burn books, he wanted to save and learn from them. The story picks up when the protagonist, Guy Montag, is walking home from work with his baked on smile and the smell of kerosene hanging about him, having just finished attending a call from the firehouse. While nearing his house, he is accompanied by a strange young girl who introduces herself as Clarisse McClellan. They begin to talk and Montag realizes she is very different from everyone else he knows. She looks at the world around her and sees it for what it is and then takes the time to wonder why it is that way. Before they part, Clarisse asks him something that turns his world upside-down, she asks, "Are you happy?" (Bradbury 10). One might say that those three little words are the most important in the entire book because they set in motion the series of events that are to follow. At first, Montag tries to laugh it off saying, "Happy! Of all the nonsense." (10). However, as Montag entered his house and looked around the quiet rooms and at his silent, stone-like wife, he knew that he was not happy, he knew that something was missing.
Subconsciously, Montag knew he was not happy for a long time and had been collecting books from the houses he went to burn. After further discussions with Clarisse and much thought of his own, Montag realizes that there had to be a better way to live and that books could teach him how. Montag pulled out the illegal books he had been hiding and began to read them. However, try as he might, he could not understand and retain what he was reading. Bradbury compared Montag's struggle with sand and a sieve, "the faster he poured, the faster it sifted through . . . His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty" (78). The sand is a metaphor for the knowledge within the books and the sieve is a metaphor for Montag's brain. The more and the faster Montag read, the faster it slipped from his memory.
Montag continued to try to read and learn more from books and was found out by his boss, Captain Beatty. Of Montag's situation, Beatty makes an allusion to the Greek myth of Icarus, saying "Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings he wonders why" (113). In the story of Icarus, his father Daedalus builds him a set of wings, fastened together with wax, so that he can escape from the island of Crete. Icarus was reckless, though, and flew too close to the sun so that the wax melted, breaking his wings and causing him to fall to his death. For Montag, the island that he was trying to escape from was not a physical restraint, but a mental island of ignorance. Montag was reckless like Icarus and came too close to the sun, in his case, knowledge, which caused his downfall, according to Beatty.
Overall, I found this book thoroughly enjoyable and frightening at the same time. I look at the world around me and see it slowly turning into the world that Bradbury so vividly described. There are several students in my class that when given the assignment to read a book and do a report on it, opt to watch the video and skim the cliff notes instead. Movies and cliff notes merely brush the surface of books, which is what the parlor walls in Fahrenheit 451 do to all the information and stories it portrays. The idea of a future society where people do not think about their actions, the consequences, or of anything with substance is terrifying and yet incredibly believable in this day and age. It is this idea that kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book.
Book Review: The Temperature At Which Books Burn
Summary: 5 Stars
I give Fahrenheit 451 five stars because it is very interesting and pulls the reader into the life of Guy Montag, the main character and narrator. Ray Bradbury uses great imagery in this book so that the reader can picture exactly what Montag sees. Another thing that makes this book so great are the ideas that we take for granted such as thinking. In this book there are very few people who can think for themselves. It also makes you question things like, if there were no book would people still be able to think for on there own? This is a really great book.In this book you will read about a society that is very different from our own. This society takes place in the future. All the houses there are fire proof making firemen obsolete for their old job. There the firemen start fires instead of putting them out. Instead of using water they now use kerosene. Their job is to burn books and the houses they are in as soon as they are found. They follow strict rules which are1. Answer the alarm swiftly, 2. Start the fire swiftly, 3. Burn everything, 4. Report back to firehouse immediately, and 5. Stand alert for other alarms. According to them the first firehouse was built in 1790 to burn books. The first fireman was Benjamin Franklin. All books are banned from everyone. Being caught with a book is a punishable offense.
This was Montag's job. He never questioned why he burned them or anything else in his life. Until he meet a girl named Clarisse McClellan who helped him start to think for himself. She asked him questions he never thought of before such as if he was happy and she pointed things out that he never noticed like how the billboards got longer because the cars got faster. All these new realizations helped Montag open his mind to start thinking and opened his eyes to what the government was doing.
Clarisse spends her days outside exploring her environment and thinking about how strange the world is. She does not go to school because people think of her as anti-social when she just has a different idea of what being social is. Montag sees her doing some of the most peculiar things such as shaking a walnut tree or knitting a blue sweater. He saw her outside one day in the rain and she explained that she loved the way the rain tasted. Montag had never thought about how rain tasted and that day on the way to work he tilted his head back and opened his mouth to taste the rain. This was not the only time she told Montag something that got him thinking. One morning when they were talking and she told him she thinks dry leaves smell like cinnamon. Her odd revelations to him helped him think more and more.
Montag starts to question all the people around him but mostly his wife, Mildred. She does nothing all day except watch her three-wall TV. He realizes he does not truly love her because he does not really know her at all. One night Mildred has two friends over to watch the three-wall TV. Montag listens to there conversation. They were talking about the up coming war and one woman said that her husband is in the army. She talked about how her husband might die but its okay because it's the third marriage for both of them and she won't have ant trouble getting over it. This shows Montag that people are incapable of feeling also. They can't think or feel they just live life and care only of themselves.
Another person that helps Montag to start to think and question authority was an old professor called Faber. Montag had met Faber in a park a long time ago and Montag decides to call and then visit him. Faber tells him of a time when people read books and were not afraid of being caught with them. Faber lost his job as a professor when one year he came back to teach and only one student had signed up for the coarse. Faber thinks of himself as a coward because he loves book and believes that they should not be banned but he does not do anything to stop it. He was there when books were being banned and he said nothing because he was afraid. But Faber's compassion and wisdom give Montag courage. Faber stays in his house all the time and creates new inventions. One invention is a little speaker you put in your ear so you can talk to someone. Montag and Faber use this to there advantage.
These characters help Montag a lot through out the book. If it were not for them Montag would have never started to realize what he has to do. He must change the society in some way but how? He is only one man. It all starts when he confronts his fire chief, Beatty. But to find out what happens read Fahrenheit 451. This book is a page-turner and you won't want to put it down.
Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 Is A Must-Read...Literally
Summary: 5 Stars
Fahrenheit 451 is one of those books that will never show its age. Ray Bradbury wrote it in 1953 but it feels contemporary even today and its warnings are as applicable (if not more applicable) to today's society as society in the 50's. Like George Orwell's 1984, it comments on humanity by imagining its hypothetical future; a dysfunctional society conditioning itself into thinking that everything is OK when it really is not. Unlike George Orwell's 1984, however, Fahrenheit 451 is a fairly easy read, and can be enjoyed by pretty much anyone. This is definitely a good thing, though, because many casual readers would be turned off by Orwell's long philosophical passages questioning what defines reality. Fahrenheit 451 stands among 1984, Brave New World, and The Handmaid's Tale because of its significance, but because of its less technical and easier-to-read format appeals to a wider audience than any of these other books--giving it a distinct advantage for casual readers who still wonder where mankind might be headed.
As far as plot goes, the book follows its main character, Guy Montag, through a short period of time in his life. Montag is a fireman in the unspecified future--but it's far enough in the future that the meaning of the word "fireman" has changed. In Montag's world, instead of putting fires out, firemen start fires. In this future, reading books is illegal for purposes of mass censorship and anyone caught with books has their fireproof house burned clean of their contraband libraries. Montag lives a happy life with a happy wife and enjoys his job until one day a young girl named Clarisse teaches him to ask questions--something the government does not want its citizens to do. Ultimately, this causes him to "wake up" and see everything that is wrong with his life.
He is not in love with his wife (in fact, he can not even remember where he met her), his job is to ruin other people's lives, and he doesn't even know what happiness really means. Happiness to the masses is mindlessness; staring at wall-sized television screens in-between work and sleep. Obviously this pacification is no substitute for true happiness, and when Montag becomes aware of this and the fact that everyone else in the nation thinks they are happy as unthinking sheep, he feels the need to change it. He decides to read some books to find out how, effectively becoming a criminal.
The main reason this is a great book is because its implications are very important to our society. However, it is also just a well-written book. It doesn't get stuck at any part of the story with too much of Montag's thoughts and not enough action, but it doesn't leave out the thought-provoking parts, either; it's a careful balance that keeps you interested enough to want to keep reading and intrigued enough to want to think. The book also has great character development, as most of its main characters go through drastic changes over the course of the story. When Montag first talks to Clarisse it is obvious though the dialogue and narration that she really annoys him. Slowly, though, as he talks to her more, his opinion changes, and eventually, even though he is offended by her, he has taken a liking to her.
Still, what keeps this book important is what it means. In modern society many of Bradbury's predictions have come true--TV screens get bigger and clearer as people walk around with iPod earbuds blaring, ignoring one another completely. Reading may not be illegal, but the entertainment industry has a pretty strong grip on a huge portion of the population through television, discouraging reading by encouraging watching. The main thing Bradbury is promoting here is thought--the downfall of man in the book is ultimately attributed to losing interest in thinking. Which is why Clarisse has such a profound impact on Montag while doing something as simple as making him think.
And who knows? If you watch a lot of reality TV, this book may do to you what Clarisse did to Montag. That's right--turn you into a fugitive. Oh, and it might make you think, too. Hopefully it will do that instead of making you a fugitive. Fahrenheit 451 is a very interesting, enjoyable, and important book for modern-day readers to read. Even if you read it, end up disliking it, and find yourself wanting to set it on fire, at least that would somehow be ironically appropriate. Because Fahrenheit 451 is a very quick and easy read, you have nothing to lose by reading it, and if what it predicts is true, you may have everything to lose by not reading it.
Book Review: Fahrenheit 451, Not Just a Story but a Masterpiece.
Summary: 5 Stars
What makes an excellent story? Many people have their own thoughts and opinions on this subject. But, what makes a book a bestseller? How does Romeo and Juliet, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, and other legendary titles sell? Some of the reasons might be that the titles makes the reader comprehend their thoughts. Another reason could be that the story might make the reader gain knowledge of a life lessons or it might just make the reader emotional towards the story. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury does all three of those things. Fahrenheit 451 is a tremendous read because it makes the reader comprehend their thought about the consequences of their actions, gain knowledge about life lessons on how to be human, and makes the reader feel emotion through out the story.
Bradbury does a superior job in his book Fahrenheit 451 on making the reader think through their thoughts about the actions they take through out life. He introduces a confused and semi-depressed main character into his book named Guy Montag. Guy works for fire department in future America not putting out fire, but making fire to burn books. Right away one sees that Guy is not satisfied with his life at all. He is very puzzled about where he should go in life. Guy sees the pain and agony he brings to people because of his job. One day when he burns a women who would rather be burned with her books then die without them, Guy begins to reflect on why does he do what he does. The reader also starts to think about ones actions towards life. The reader begin to see that Guy has made the wrong choice in becoming a firefighter for it brings to much pain towards others and himself. The viewing of Guy's unhappiness forces the reader think about how ones own actions affect not only other people but one's self too. Seeing how one's actions affect one's self and other people is not the only thing that Fahrenheit 451 shows, it also show simply how to be human.
Reading through out the book the reader sees that Guy has tons of choices to make. Guy seeing that since people are prepared to die for their books there has to be something amazingly special about them. Guy starts to hide books for future reading. He has a choice to make. He can read the book and jeopardize his life or he can keep on living depressed, with out looking for answers on how to get better. He makes the choice to read the books so he might learn how to live. The reader can see that Guy made the choice to be human, to risk his life so that he might live life to the fullest. The reader picks up that in order to live life too, one will have to take risks also. Guy finds that poetry helps him become less angry and irritated when he reads it. Not everyone in his life thinks the same things. His wife and her friends think that literature is pointless and when he reads it to them, some go to complain. Through this the reader can see that making the right choice to live like one thinks a human should live doesn't always agree with everyone. The reader starts to feel emotion for Guy. What should guy do about this situation? The book does another victories job on making the reader feel for the book and the outcome.
Bradbury hooks the reader into the story by forcing one to be emotionally attached to the story. Guy is a character that everyone feels for because somehow one can relate to him. One can relate to Guy by knowing how hard it is to make risky choices, being depressed about life, having a job, or even not knowing what to do about certain situations. Guy has gone through all of those situations and more. After Guy's wife's friends turns him in, he goes back to his job and burns the book he was reading. Right after that the firemen gets called to go out to burn books. Guy finds out that he has to burn his own house. Guy can't stand this fact and kills the firemen and escapes from the law. The reader starts to get even more emotionally attached to the book by the suspension of if Guy will get caught or not. The book does a stupendous job of keeping the reader in the story the whole time. This is the best reason for why the book is not just a ordinary book but fanatic tale of a man who chooses to live rather then to die.
From getting emotionally evolved with the book, to learning how to be human, and even making the reader comprehend their actions, Fahrenheit 451 is an extraordinary book. The novel desires not only to be on being on the bestseller list of all time but deserves to be on every shelf of every house. For this book is not just a book but a masterpiece of art.
Book Review: For Banned Book Week 2009
Summary: 5 Stars
Twenty years ago I had to read Fahrenheit 451 as part of my required reading in the ninth grade. At the time reading wasn't my "thing". But for some reason, the book never left me, even though I could never remember why. Nothing about the book stayed with me, just the title.
Now twenty years later, I have reread Fahrenheit 451 and know, without a doubt, why the book stayed with me.
Imagine a world where books are burned. A world where firemen no longer come to the rescue to put out fires but come to burn your house down if you are caught with books. They no longer wield water hoses, but flamethrowers. That is the world that Guy Montag lives in. He is a fireman, and for years he's rejoiced in the destruction that his flamethrower produces, burning the hated nonsensical books of the past. And you know what the ironic thing about that is, books are illegal, yet not because of our government, oh no, because the citizens of our country made it so! It was the peoples choice to turn their backs on books. Life is not happy when you can think and criticize, form opinions, argue points. It complicates things. So what do they do? They dispense with anything that will allow for that type of communication.
But then one night after work as Montag is walking home he encounters a young girl, Clarisse. She is a strange one. But why is she strange? She is strange because she actually talks and listens and looks and observes the things around her. And Montag is fascinated by that quality. He begins to question his job, his life. And then to further tempt his questioning curiosity about books and the reason they are so hated, a job comes in. Another burning is to be done. But this time the lady whose house is the next victim of the torch, sets herslef on fire along with her books. She cannot bare to be witness to the destruction and still live. But before the bonfire begins, Montag secretly snatches one of her books. Disturbed and unstable, Montag goes home and we learn that that is not the first book that Montag has lifted from a burn site. He has collected many books over the last year, secretly wanting to learn what the big deal is about reading and books. His life is not happy like it is supposed to be. Everyone is supposed to be happy without books. Without needing to think, to question, to wonder. He wonders what life was like before life became "simple". But in reality, the simplicity of life is not the outcome from life without books. With murders and suicides and violence and life at high speed, life is very much complicated. People have only brainwashed themselves into thinking that life is simple and happy, because they no longer think for themselves.
I read this book just in time for banned book week. I find it very interesting the reasons people choose to ban this book or that book. Religious content, political views, profanity, nudity, sexually explicit, homosexuality. And you know what I gather from those reasons, the people making the fuss are simply insecure individuals. Each one of those reasons are part of our everyday life. If you are secure in who you are, then you would not feel threatened by its content. But you know, this whole thing with banning books due to content actually promotes the non-thinking, non-opinionated aspects of the society in Fahenheit 451 from happening. When a book is banned or is labeled controversial, it makes people wonder. It piques curiosity to learn what is within those pages that someone finds offensive. Take The DaVinci Code for instance. 80 million copies sold in 6 years! 80 million! That is a staggering number, especially in the short amount of time it's been in print. Now if you took away the controversy, and no one made a fuss, how many copies do you think would have sold? I doubt that many! So I say fuss over books, it brings them to light to some one who may not have known about it otherwise. It promotes critical thinking, opinions, and who are we without our opinions and thoughts? I don't agree with banning books, just because the content is written down doesn't mean it's going to become part of society, because you know what, it already is! So who cares if it's written. People do do drugs. People do have sex. People do say bad words. People are homosexual. And yes, people do have different religious beliefs. Just because you ban a book, doesn't make those things go away. We are individuals. We are who we are. And no one should be able to take that away by saying we cannot write this or that.