Reviews - Farenheit 451 | The StoryGraph

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26.4k reviews for:

Farenheit 451

Ray Bradbury

3.86 AVERAGE

cassandrablock's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Fahrenheit 451 is sometimes a bit of a hard read but probably most interesting to someone who is already into science fiction or thinking about alternative futures. The world that it presents is definitely a bit dark and less vibrant than our world today. There is no excitement in their lives other than the fires that they create. Though the characters reside in a large city, it does not feel like they know very many people or have a lot of social interaction beyond their social circles.

At the start of the story, the protagonist, Guy Montag, works as a “fireman” burning books, possession of which has been disallowed by the government. He lives with his wife Mildred, reports to his boss Beatty, and has a neighbor named Clarisse. Clarisse is a bit of a mysterious figure who has some strange views about the world they live in

but disappears only a short time into the story.

The technology in their world is similar to ours but is an imagined future based on the 1950’s, so he uses some outdated terminology.

Eventually, we learn that Montag has secretly been investigating books recreationally and has a few hidden in his house. He reveals this fact to his wife, which starts a downward spiral in his life resulting in his contact with a former university professor, Faber, who is also into books. After a near-mental breakdown and learning about her husband’s books, Mildred turns Montag in to the other firemen, and Beatty figures out that Montag owns some books. Forcing him to choose between the books and his life, Montag kills Beatty with a flamethrower and escapes to the countryside where he sees the whole city destroyed in an enemy attack due to the war.

The book is definitely at a level where you have to have suspension of disbelief to allow yourself to get into it and keep going. It’s best done quickly so that details don’t get lost in the process. It might even be a good idea to take notes as you read to have something to reference because the plot moves so quickly that it can be hard to remember all the little things that make up Guy Montag’s world. Mildred was a sad character who can really show the danger of not engaging in the world but was a good foil for Clarisse, whose quirkiness and personality were interesting due to how out-of-place that kind of thing had become in society.

Despite taking place when there are clear tensions with an unnamed foreign power, the war that appears at the end of the book is not nearly as important as the true war - the war of knowledge - that occurs throughout the novel.

Guy Montag has a different kind of perspective and personality from everyone else in the world around him. Society and its agents, such as Beatty, want to stomp out any interest in making or gaining knowledge because it can lead to dissent. They don't want people questioning things or not conforming to their expectations. The idea is that everything functions better when people are simply inert recipients of what the world wants to tell them.

When Guy starts to wonder and it turns out that he has owned books the whole time, the reader’s perception of him kind of shifts. Why is he still a fireman when he seems to be so interested in books? We get part of that answer later on, but it is still an open question early on. When the firemen show up at his house and Beatty reveals that he knows it all, our opinion of him changes as well. He’s been going with the flow so he doesn’t stand out, but he’s actually a lot more like Guy than he would be willing or ready to admit.

Overall, I would recommend this book, especially with a re-reading to catch more details. It does something to the imagination and engages the audience in a lot of unexpected ways.

smol_cactus_'s review against another edition

2.0

Is it bad that I kept zoning out while listening to this?

lizlange's review against another edition

4.0

i definitely understand why little me didn’t like this book, but wow wow wow i have so many just highlighted sentences and paragraphs that feel like events that are actively going on and that is so terrifyinggg

dannymarvel32's review against another edition

4.75

reflective tense fast-paced

publicgibbon2194's review against another edition

5.0

What's wild about this book is it was written in the 1950s and feels so close to being plausible, regardless of how much time has passed. I read it fifteen years ago and thought we were just around the corner from this being a reality... I'm glad the books are still here.