Fahrenheit 451

[cyanea]

It's been a while since I read a book that I finished so absolutely torn about.

Part of me agrees with his prediction of the future he writes about, but at the same time, part of me acknowledges that literature has ALWAYS been something that the minority has read. The majority has always been absorbed in whatever form of mass entertainment has existed. So the other part of me is left feeling that he's doing nothing but a form of elitist doomsaying wankery for the sake of it. Not to mention the fact that he later hosted his own television show, the book's preaching left a rather bad taste in my mouth.

[invision]

(Warning: I spoil the ending of the book in this post. ... Although if you haven't read it, what are you doing in this thread? ._.)

I loved Fahrenheit 451 for the (probably unintentional) theme of the corruption of the story, and the corruption of truth. The silencing of self-expression ultimately bringing a dystopiac city-state towards humanity - and what happens when a man tries to escape that.

Also, the poetic-ish imagery used in the book was pretty awesome, in my opinion. I can definitely see the appeal to it.

However, I thought that it had a really awful ending. It felt like a cheap cop-out to me. "YEAH, GUYS, WE'RE A BUNCH OF IVY LEAGUE PROFESSORS LIVING LIKE HOBOS ON THE CITY BORDERS, WHO HAPPENED TO BE ABLE TO MEMORIZE ENTIRE BOOKS FOR WHEN THE GOVERNMENT BECOMES LESS OPPRESSIVE."

It seemed to defeat the point of the story; it became less about corruption, and more about book-worshiping. Book-burning is not, in itself, bad - it's what it symbolizes that is negative. I can see trying to preserve a holy text, like the bible, but Catcher in the Rye? Come on.

I really, really dislike what the author meant to be preaching in the story, though. I love it for my own interpretation, but despise his. The whole "TECHNOLOGY IS GOING TO MAKE THE WORLD INTO A DYSTOPIA" thing is ridiculous. Sure, it has its drawbacks, but it's certainly not civilization-ruining. We're nowhere near dystopia-level, here.

If there's any problems with technology it's the people's fault for abusing the shit out of it - and it's not like everyone does that, regardless.

James

[leonwingstein]

Personally, I quite enjoyed this book (but I did not enjoy the essay I had to write about its themes for school), and was quite engrossed by its characters and the society in which it takes place.

That said, I did not particularly care for Montag as a person (as a character, I thought he was dynamic enough), because he did not seem to use his brain when making decisions. He really messed up a lot, to put it plainly.

The ending, I think, may have inspired the movie, "The Book of Eli", which features (spoiler alert) a blind man who reads the bible so many times that he is able to recite it so that the people who want to rebuild civilization are able to write it down from his dictation. I made that connection, and just overall enjoyed the book.

[Vergissmeinnicht]

I love Fahrenheit 451. I also despise Bradbury's luddite-ness and complete condemnation of information technology. But despite that, I love the theme of just...not forgetting what it means to be human. I think that is the important thing that books convey, the thing Faber talked about as the thing found in books but that can be found other places too.

[Dobby]

I read this book in eighth grade. I've been meaning to reread it though, since I didn't really take much in reading it when I was 14.