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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' is a dystopian novel, describing a world where books are illegal, and where humans exist without history or knowledge, but where they are bombarded with loud entertainment.
The book follows a 'fireman' called Montag, who changes from a book burner to a book lover in a surprisingly short time. The story itself is not very strong, but some scenes are harrowing, like the painful emptiness of Montag's relationship with his wife Mildred, whose life revolves around instant entertainment, provided by a shell in her ear, and huge television walls. Another great scene is when Montag frightens Mildred's friends with his atypical behavior at the dinner table. Also interesting is Bradbury's description of how this world of shallow entertainment came to be. Some of the described events are remarkably prophetical.
Bradbury's writing is delirious, almost dreamlike, and follows Montag's emotional state closely. The novel isn't as powerful as [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1374989696p2/3706.jpg]'s [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313], and Bradbury's world isn't as well-developed as Orwell's, but 'Fahrenheit 451' is still a great read. The story may be shallow, it's still a novel that will make you think.
The book follows a 'fireman' called Montag, who changes from a book burner to a book lover in a surprisingly short time. The story itself is not very strong, but some scenes are harrowing, like the painful emptiness of Montag's relationship with his wife Mildred, whose life revolves around instant entertainment, provided by a shell in her ear, and huge television walls. Another great scene is when Montag frightens Mildred's friends with his atypical behavior at the dinner table. Also interesting is Bradbury's description of how this world of shallow entertainment came to be. Some of the described events are remarkably prophetical.
Bradbury's writing is delirious, almost dreamlike, and follows Montag's emotional state closely. The novel isn't as powerful as [a:George Orwell|3706|George Orwell|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1374989696p2/3706.jpg]'s [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348990566s/5470.jpg|153313], and Bradbury's world isn't as well-developed as Orwell's, but 'Fahrenheit 451' is still a great read. The story may be shallow, it's still a novel that will make you think.
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Oui je sais, c'est un peu la honte quand on aime tant les livres, de ne jamais avoir lu celui ci ! L'erreur est réparée, je suis traumatisée de ma lecture, parlons en 😳
Publié en 1953, ce roman est plus que d'actualité. Comment l'auteur a t il pu prédire tant du pire de 2025 ?! Entre la dépendance à la télé, l'abrutissement par les médias, la désinformation... On est dedans, nickel.
Je suis donc traumatisée de ces scènes où les livres brûlent. Ces livres interdits par "l'état", mais aussi par les citoyens eux même. Ça raisonne quand même fort avec ce qu'il se passe dans plusieurs endroit du monde !
Je n'ai pas grand chose à dire sur l'écriture, nous sommes dans la tête de Montag, un de ces pompiers qui mettent le feu plutôt que de les éteindre. D'ailleurs, même si j'ai aimé l'évolution de ce personnage principal, ainsi que sa prise de conscience, émotionnellent il m'a laissé de marbre.
J'ai beaucoup aimé la fin et la façon dont les textes sont transmis. Plus qu’une critique de la censure politique, c’est une veritable alerte contre la mort lente de la culture. Et encore une fois, nous sommes dans les années 50, cela en dit long sur la prévisibilité de l'être humain. (ça se dit ça ?)
Publié en 1953, ce roman est plus que d'actualité. Comment l'auteur a t il pu prédire tant du pire de 2025 ?! Entre la dépendance à la télé, l'abrutissement par les médias, la désinformation... On est dedans, nickel.
Je suis donc traumatisée de ces scènes où les livres brûlent. Ces livres interdits par "l'état", mais aussi par les citoyens eux même. Ça raisonne quand même fort avec ce qu'il se passe dans plusieurs endroit du monde !
Je n'ai pas grand chose à dire sur l'écriture, nous sommes dans la tête de Montag, un de ces pompiers qui mettent le feu plutôt que de les éteindre. D'ailleurs, même si j'ai aimé l'évolution de ce personnage principal, ainsi que sa prise de conscience, émotionnellent il m'a laissé de marbre.
J'ai beaucoup aimé la fin et la façon dont les textes sont transmis. Plus qu’une critique de la censure politique, c’est une veritable alerte contre la mort lente de la culture. Et encore une fois, nous sommes dans les années 50, cela en dit long sur la prévisibilité de l'être humain. (ça se dit ça ?)
dark
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
I think everybody should read this book. The future shown there is the one ours is heading towards, after all. Anti-intellectualism is becoming a real problem these days.
The one character that stood out to me the most was, surprisingly, Mildred. She has been so brainwashed, so brain dead that I was SCREAMING in my head, "Girl, snap out of it!". I also liked how Montag's realisation shook his entire world, made him angry and forced him to take losses he probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. This book was both engaging and reflective, and I wholeheartedly recommend reading it!
The one character that stood out to me the most was, surprisingly, Mildred. She has been so brainwashed, so brain dead that I was SCREAMING in my head, "Girl, snap out of it!". I also liked how Montag's realisation shook his entire world, made him angry and forced him to take losses he probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. This book was both engaging and reflective, and I wholeheartedly recommend reading it!
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
sad
To paraphrase the Robot Devil: "This [book's] as lousy as it is brilliant!"
It feels somewhat pointless to review a classic of the literary canon; better read persons than I have done it more competently and I'm just some mook, so while all reviews are to a certain extent merely the impressions of the reader masquerading as an objective analysis of literary merit, I won't hide the pretense; all that follows are my personal fee-fees.
There are a few main feelings that arose while I was reading this book:
1. Irritation. As an avid reader and a librarian, I don't enjoy being pandered to. The worship of books and of libraries - especially in fellow librarians - only serves to make my job more difficult and encourage higher ups to pay us less. Much like in the gaming industry, when librarians are just so happy to be allowed to do their job of working with books, they are more willing to be underappreciated and underpaid. "Vocational awe" is the buzz word, and it truly is a cancer. Books are wonderful magical things, yes, and they are also just sheets of paper inside cardboard, plastic, and/or leather - what matters is the ideas they represent, not the books themselves. This was an idea Bradbury doesn't get across until deep into the second act, prompting me to roll my eyes a whole heck of a lot up to that point.
2. Eye-rolling (okay that's not an emotion so maybe... mild contempt?). It was hard at various parts of the books not to call to mind the image of Abe Simpson yelling at a cloud. Other books, like Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings for instance, couch their message in (admittedly overwrought) metaphors of the old natural world in conflict with the coming industrial or technological era, and how the simple things of the past need to be preserved and maintained for the soul of humanity. I can respect and agree with this stance - heck, Science, the harbinger of industry and technology agrees with that stance. But Bradbury was content to lecture the reader directly with how people don't talk to each other anymore or appreciate nature or care about Aristophanes or whatever, and boy was it irritating.
3. Disquiet. In practical terms, Bradbury didn't do too much revolutionary with his sci-fi. Cars, TVs, and radios/telephones all existed within his time, and apart from a robot "hound" and the blood replacing EMTs at the beginning, all the technology in the book is just exaggerations of those already existing things: really really fast cars, really really big TVs, and wireless communicators. Despite that, the disquiet stemmed from how much the criticisms of a man in 1954 regarding attention spans, commercialization, and censorship resonated a half century later. YouTube shorts come to mind, as well as the long lost Vines and presently popular TikTok. In a scene ripped out of this book, I recall sitting in the break room at an old job and seeing the only other person in the room at another table scrolling through TikToks that seemed to all be of the genre "trashy people yelling and fighting with each other" and it was bone-chilling. Commercialization needs very little to no explaining. After all, I'm reviewing this book on Goodreads - a property owned by Amazon which started as an online book retailer. Go buy this book on Amazon! (that is sarcasm)
The last of those: censorship, is a weird one and is a major theme throughout the story. We control the populace by making sure they are always "happy" by ensuring that they do not engage with anything difficult. In modern parlance, they don't engage with anything that might be "triggering." This is where nuance is needed because "cancel culture" is such a stupid cudgel to swing around when people call you out on your shit, but there is a difference between the population choosing not to monetarily support difficult/problematic art or the work of a problematic creator of their own free will and attempting to legislate away their ability to create that art. It is their right as free thinking human beings to create their art just as it is our right to condemn it, criticize it, ignore it, or extoll it. It is NOT our right to prevent them from creating their art (obviously excluding things like CP or revenge porn which are illegal for reasons not related to creative expression). The way that Mildred and her friends reacted to poetry and demanded they destroy the book right then and there was eerily reminiscent of so much online discourse today regarding art that make some people uncomfortable.
Overall, I was mostly surprised by how little book there was. It's less a bit of classic sci-fi literature and more an exceedingly long and overly stylized essay or series of essays on why it is important to think for oneself and not insulate oneself from difficult ideas. In that sense it is significantly more artless than most classic fiction I've ever read. Still, whether I enjoyed it as a novel is irrelevant; it is at the end of the day an important and influential work with plenty important to say, no matter how ham-fistedly it says it.
It feels somewhat pointless to review a classic of the literary canon; better read persons than I have done it more competently and I'm just some mook, so while all reviews are to a certain extent merely the impressions of the reader masquerading as an objective analysis of literary merit, I won't hide the pretense; all that follows are my personal fee-fees.
There are a few main feelings that arose while I was reading this book:
1. Irritation. As an avid reader and a librarian, I don't enjoy being pandered to. The worship of books and of libraries - especially in fellow librarians - only serves to make my job more difficult and encourage higher ups to pay us less. Much like in the gaming industry, when librarians are just so happy to be allowed to do their job of working with books, they are more willing to be underappreciated and underpaid. "Vocational awe" is the buzz word, and it truly is a cancer. Books are wonderful magical things, yes, and they are also just sheets of paper inside cardboard, plastic, and/or leather - what matters is the ideas they represent, not the books themselves. This was an idea Bradbury doesn't get across until deep into the second act, prompting me to roll my eyes a whole heck of a lot up to that point.
2. Eye-rolling (okay that's not an emotion so maybe... mild contempt?). It was hard at various parts of the books not to call to mind the image of Abe Simpson yelling at a cloud. Other books, like Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings for instance, couch their message in (admittedly overwrought) metaphors of the old natural world in conflict with the coming industrial or technological era, and how the simple things of the past need to be preserved and maintained for the soul of humanity. I can respect and agree with this stance - heck, Science, the harbinger of industry and technology agrees with that stance. But Bradbury was content to lecture the reader directly with how people don't talk to each other anymore or appreciate nature or care about Aristophanes or whatever, and boy was it irritating.
3. Disquiet. In practical terms, Bradbury didn't do too much revolutionary with his sci-fi. Cars, TVs, and radios/telephones all existed within his time, and apart from a robot "hound" and the blood replacing EMTs at the beginning, all the technology in the book is just exaggerations of those already existing things: really really fast cars, really really big TVs, and wireless communicators. Despite that, the disquiet stemmed from how much the criticisms of a man in 1954 regarding attention spans, commercialization, and censorship resonated a half century later. YouTube shorts come to mind, as well as the long lost Vines and presently popular TikTok. In a scene ripped out of this book, I recall sitting in the break room at an old job and seeing the only other person in the room at another table scrolling through TikToks that seemed to all be of the genre "trashy people yelling and fighting with each other" and it was bone-chilling. Commercialization needs very little to no explaining. After all, I'm reviewing this book on Goodreads - a property owned by Amazon which started as an online book retailer. Go buy this book on Amazon! (that is sarcasm)
The last of those: censorship, is a weird one and is a major theme throughout the story. We control the populace by making sure they are always "happy" by ensuring that they do not engage with anything difficult. In modern parlance, they don't engage with anything that might be "triggering." This is where nuance is needed because "cancel culture" is such a stupid cudgel to swing around when people call you out on your shit, but there is a difference between the population choosing not to monetarily support difficult/problematic art or the work of a problematic creator of their own free will and attempting to legislate away their ability to create that art. It is their right as free thinking human beings to create their art just as it is our right to condemn it, criticize it, ignore it, or extoll it. It is NOT our right to prevent them from creating their art (obviously excluding things like CP or revenge porn which are illegal for reasons not related to creative expression). The way that Mildred and her friends reacted to poetry and demanded they destroy the book right then and there was eerily reminiscent of so much online discourse today regarding art that make some people uncomfortable.
Overall, I was mostly surprised by how little book there was. It's less a bit of classic sci-fi literature and more an exceedingly long and overly stylized essay or series of essays on why it is important to think for oneself and not insulate oneself from difficult ideas. In that sense it is significantly more artless than most classic fiction I've ever read. Still, whether I enjoyed it as a novel is irrelevant; it is at the end of the day an important and influential work with plenty important to say, no matter how ham-fistedly it says it.