Name: Fahrenheit 451
ISBN: 9783257261042

Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But when he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

Fahrenheit 451

Danny White

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.

里森

vivian mizuno

Elina Berzina

Photine

Caitlin

film → television → YouTube → TikTok

Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.

He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

Huiying 

Picture it. Nineteenth-century man with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.

Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

It’ll be even more fun when we can afford to have the fourth wall installed.

‘Yes, I am!’ ‘It doesn’t show.’ ‘I am very much in love!’ He tried to conjure up a face to fit the words, but there was no face. ‘I am!’

‘Let’s talk about something else. Have you ever smelled old leaves? Don’t they smell like cinnamon? Here. Smell.’

We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out,”’ said Beatty. Stoneman glanced over at the Captain, as did Montag, startled. Beatty rubbed his chin. ‘A man named Latimer said that to a man named Nicholas Ridley, as they were being burnt alive at Oxford, for heresy, on October 16, 1555.’

Mild variations of this hardly seem absurd today.

Wasn’t there an old joke about the wife who talked so much on the telephone that her desperate husband ran out to the nearest store and telephoned her to ask what was for dinner?

Guy Mongag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames...never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do...
--back cover

Chase Leitner

Tim Robbins

Thought it was great, think abt censorship, which is definitely valuable at this time. Also the earphones and the walls made me self reflect a bit. Dystopian is an understatement, but interesting the weaponization of memory. Does a fish recognize the water it swims in? Super fire. 

Hugo Gebhard

A haunting cautionary tale told with beautiful language and philosophical depth. I knew the premise of the book before reading it, but I had no idea how dark and apocalyptic it truly is. 

 will stay with me for years to come, much like Ecclesiastes stayed with Guy Montag at the end of the novel.

Charlie Queen

A haunting cautionary tale told with beautiful language and philosophical depth. I knew the premise of the book before reading it, but I had no idea how dark and apocalyptic it truly is. Fahrenheit 451 will stay with me for years to come, much like Ecclesiastes stayed with Guy Montag at the end of the novel.

a fiction book that tells nothing but the truth. a very important read for everyone 

angie

So much Deja Vu. The idea of happiness only allowed to exist and nothing negative is terrifying and gives fascism. I also don't like the idea of burning books because it represents the destruction of free thought and freedom of speech. Just the idea of a group of people rewriting books from memory is astounding. I feel like that's a game of "telephone" gone wrong.

Susan

Farenheit 451

The prose containing such beauty, the message barely containing an inferno.

Blake Dickson

The ending was throwing me Off... Anyways the rest of the book was good! Super interesting and timeless

Celina Irena Kuhn

I'm speechless. This is a book that everyone should read at least once in their life, to maybe see and understand what dangers are waiting for us with how our society is staring to work...

Martyna

10/10 pero ahora tengo que acostarme un rato en el suelo.

nieves

Maureen

** spoiler alert **
           “Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”

***

I was happy to read this book because I’ve been meaning to read it for the longest time. Thankfully, it was required reading for the class. The story heavily reminded me of 1984 because it deals with censorship. However, the events didn’t feel as grim because of Bradbury’s colloquial writing style. I felt pity for Montag’s marriage because I felt like he wanted to fix their relationship—however, Mildred was indifferent to his requests. It didn’t surprise me that she eventually betrayed him. Beatty was also a morally grey character. On the one hand, he was their leader, but he never attempted to conceal his widespread knowledge considering books. I believe he was a secret reader just like Montag— this explains why he didn’t do anything to prevent his death. Perhaps it was his way of atoning for his sins.

The plot was disjointed, though. I felt like I was watching everything go by so fast, even though plenty of major events were happening. Due to the lack of worldbuilding, the story failed to connect with me entirely. But overall, I still enjoyed the book because of its unique premise. Interesting how they only preserve the “classics” at the end. It’s bound to generate some discourse because what exactly counts as a classic?

Mira <3

people who called ray bradbury crazy are now rolling in their graves

This was to say, a very interesting book. The plot, characters, and the overall emotion the author was trying to convey were amazing. It made me want to read more. The author was amazing by building a visual by only words. I will definitely reread this book when I am older to understand it better. 

Guy Montag is a fireman. However, instead of putting out fires, like in the real world, he burns books and the houses that contain it. He claims his hands have a mind of its own, and over the years he has worked, he has stolen a number of books. After he has seen a woman committing suicide for the honour of books and what they mean, he begins to question the very order of the world. In the city, where he lives, everything is superficial and fake with no one loving no one. With the help of an old man, he tries to make the world understand but fails. However, he does seem hopeful for a future where people will listen, waiting in the country with similar people like him. 

It made me question a lot of things in life, and to me, that means it is a good book. It made me realize how important books were, and that it lets us experience life even though we have never lived in place of that character or in this setting. This book, written over 60 years ago, holds true to our present world, and that, to me, is the most frightening thing ever.

Bria

The US is too "Christian" of a country to ever ban the Bible.

some dystopian mixed with bitter truth of reality. second time around reading this and I’m more appreciative of this text. The parallels  are unfortunate lol 

Jennifer Biedebach

Monicap

He could feel the Hound, like autumn, come cold and dry and swift, like a wind that didn’t stir grass, that didn’t jar windows or disturb leaf shadows on the white sidewalks as it passed. The Hound did not touch the world. It carried its silence with it, so you could feel the silence build up a pressure behind you all across town. 
I was surprised. See, I DON’T LIKE CLASSICS.
I don’t care how much you protest. Classics are the only good literature! Far better than that drivel we have nowadays!
You know what? nowadays, while there is plenty of drivel (trust me, I’ve read it (Prince of Wolves)) but we also have books full of witty dialogue and well-developed, believable characters, well-constructed plots, in-depth world-building and some of them even have pretty nice writing to boot.
Sorry bout the tangent.
I did not read this book for a class or anything. I picked it up because one of my best friends told me to read it or else. And you know what? I’ll bet I missed a lot of the symbolism and shit I would’ve noticed had I read with a class. But whatever. THIS IS THE FIRST (non-Shakespearian) CLASSIC I’VE EVER LIKED.
I could have done with a little more character development, but I liked it anyway.
I liked the plot. The plot was about a man discovering that his world was more than he thought, and that he had to escape. There was some good action to keep me interested. 
I liked the characters. Montag, Clarisse (view spoiler)[even though I think Clarisse’s death came a little out of nowhere (hide spoiler)], Faber (Especially Faber)
And I loved the concept. The concept, while undoubtedly terrifying (a world where books are illegal? Where they are burned?) it seems… plausible. Honestly, that it is the BEST way to try to control a populace. By taking away their knowledge. By taking away their books.
Think about that thought. Scary, isn’t it?

Luke Harkness

Got a lot of time for this story 

There were two things I loved about this book: firstly, I adored the writing style. Ray Bradbury knows how to make a scene feel quick and urgent with the way he writes and he's got a great way of using metaphors and illustrating the characters feelings. Secondly, I love the message this book gives. A future where books are banned because they give people ideas and get them talking. The story goes that headlines became shorter, stories became less informative and eventually it was thought a better idea to simply rid the world of print media. Does that sound like a lot of clickbait and "fake news" you've read recently? Unfortauntely we can't burn the internet like books.

Sarah Sammis

Read it first in 8th grade and then again as an adult. It's interesting to read in the context of TV and social media.

maitha mana

"Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you'll drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, shake the tree and knock the great sloth on his ass."

Lindy

Prior to this week, I had never actually read Fahrenheit 451, I'd just managed to consume at least 70% of it by osmosis via quotations, articles, and online arguments. Surely, I thought going into this, there has to be more to the book.

Nope!

The ideology of Fahrenheit 451 promotes complex narratives over simple ones, specificity over mass appeal, and discomfort over safety. People describe this ideology as pro-free speech or pro-intellectualism, although I'd say within the text it'd be more accurate to say it's anti-censorship and anti-anti-intellectualism, in that it shows the deleterious effects of censorship and anti-intellectualism and not the benefits of the opposites and doesn't equip anyone to argue in favor of them, which is not a great place to stand on rhetorically. Less discussed is that the ideology is equally pro-individualism, and this is crucial, particularly in the Cold War context. Television serves as the main (although not the only; Beatty also specifically points to comic books and pulp novels) symbol of what the ideology stands against. 

The problem is that Fahrenheit 451 itself is narratively and rhetorically at about the same level as a mid-century Western film. There's very little humanity (by which I mean literally no one remembers this book for the strength of its characters), just good guys and bad guys and blowing sh*t up, and one barely has to think to realize which ideology is the "right" one. It's not like Montag actually becomes a more discerning or compassionate person or something over the course of the novel, he just changes ideologies. People who make the distinction of literature as a subset of fiction (like Bradbury does in the text) often place Fahrenheit 451 as literature, and I'm not usually one to participate in defining any distinction, but wow that assessment is wrong. And so Fahrenheit 451 renders its central ideology silly and the whole time I wished I was reading a better book.

In conclusion, I interpret Fahrenheit 451  as a novel with a very specific goal, and Bradbury failed to attain it because the text is too facile to stand on any other merits outside of ideology.

Isabella 

three stars because i'm not a fan of the writing. other than that, i really liked it! it definitely leaves you thinking.

sash.

Ammerins Moss-de Boer

Even better on the second read. Bradbury simply doesn’t miss 

Emily Lucie

I never read this in school, and reading it as an adult was such a treat. It was a quick page turner. Full of lush passages to chew, swallow, and digest. I’m looking forward to reading more from Bradbury.

Fahrenheit 451

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