Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Title: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury (American, 1920-2012)
Originally published: 1953
Page count: 145

Dates read: 5/15/22-5/22/22

2022 book goal progress: 13 out of 21

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Mindful Readers' Family Bookclub 

genre/theme: May - Satire

Read my other book reviews for my 2022 goals HERE.


Description on back of book:

Montag had been a fireman for ten years. He knew the pleasure of the midnight runs, the firetrucks screaming through the dark, the clean smell of kerosene, and the joy of watching the books consumed by flames.

Then, one night, he encountered an old lady who refused to leave her house when the firemen came to burn her books. He also met the girl, Clarisse, who knew something of the past, when there were no informers and people were not afraid. That was the beginning of Montag's doubt about himself and the society he lived in.

First sentence:
"It was a pleasure to burn."

Favorite quotes:

"There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing."

"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"

"A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who know who might be the target of the well-read man?"

"Thats the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 8.6/10 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 9
Atmosphere   - 9
Writing Style - 9
Plot                - 8
Intrigue          - 9
Logic             - 7
Enjoyment     - 9
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

This was an incredible book. It is short and rather simple, but it still packs a punch. Although it was published in 1953, it still has relevance today. The story is about book censorship on the surface but is really about avoiding conflict and any deep thinking (politics, philosophy, sociology, religion/spirituality, etc.). It just wants to keep base entertainment and nothing else - because, supposedly, people would be happier that way. Those that want to save books, are not doing it so much to save books, but to preserve free-thinking and creativity.

As with many dystopian stories, there's a taught altered history - such as that firemen were always meant to burn books (and not set up to put out fires). One thing that bothered me was that Jesus and/or God were still used as profanity, but with the controversy tied to it, I'm surprised those phrases are even allowed as swear words. The book made me want to watch the movies Equilibrium and The Book of Eli again.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and it had a more positive/inspirational ending than I expected from a dystopian novel. Why the title Fahrenheit 451? That's the temperature at which paper burns.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Ray Bradbury have the last words:

"There was a silly damn bird called a Pheonix back before Christ, every few hundred of years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Pheonix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation... And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddam steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up."