Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451

[venusunfolding]

I actually felt the same way about this book - I gave up on it halfway through. The story didn't really captivate me at the start, and it only got worse as I read on.

I had to struggle to finish it. I wanted to finish it because I was curious about the book and the story. A coworker told me that I was like the hobos at the end because I read a lot of not widely known out of print stuff.

I have to say that while I liked the premise I didn't like the execution at all. I felt like Bradbury just through things at you but really didn't explain anything.

So yeah it was a big disappointment, but at least I can scratch it off the TBR list.

 

[veggiedog]

I really loved this book. The only thing I was disappointed in was the length. It was too short for the huge story it contained, and the plot details seemed a little rushed, especially towards the end. But I loved all of the beautiful description Bradbury provided, and all of the analogies, motifs, and metaphors laced into his work. I can only imagine all the betrayal and heartbreak Montag suffered...I was very happy with it on the whole, at least for a required reading book.

 

[h_carnahan]

I didn't really like this book until I had read all the literary criticism that was written on it. (Maybe I just needed to be lead in the right direction) I found that this book was very complex and contained so much more that the surface. After rereading it I got so much more out of Bradbury's words. I think this book was written brilliantly and it is almost uncanny how much of Bradbury's imaginary futuristic world is similar to the world we live in now.

 

[Fantasy Moon]

I'm halfway through reading this novel at present. It is scary to read and realize how right on the mark Bradbury is about the future. This is my first time reading the novel, but it feels like a chord is being struck.

I have a 50th anniversary edition in my possession for this task. The way it is bound makes it difficult to read some of the words near the spine, but I will not let this minor annoyance stop me!

The story is at the point where Montag has contacted that old retired English professor, asking him questions about books still in existance in that part of the country.

 

[ValkyrieRaven88]

This was my favorite book ever. It really made me appreciate how precious literature was to me. And I realized how easily literature could be taken away from us, and how it could completely stop us from having ideas, or being different, rob us completely of all intelligence and lead to corruption. It really shocked me, opened my eyes wide. Now...I read banned books.

"Keep the books--burn the censors." (One of my bumper stickers.)

 

[Fantasy Moon]

I've started reading more banned books too. I have a copy of Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings sitting on my shelf. It was supposedly banned because of a rape description, but in truth I didn't find the description of that horrible incident to be that bad to the point of banning it. Why not ban all books for having one incidence of violence occur if you're going to do it to this book?

Just finished Fahrenheit 451 about an hour ago. Wonderful read, that it was! It makes me wonder what book I would choose to keep in my head if I was in that situation. It would be hard to decide.

 

[ValkyrieRaven88]

If I were in the situation, I would keep Fahrenheit 451 in my head. It was very important to me. Important enough that I got myself an expensive hardback version when I could actually get a cheap $5 paperback. For someone who is saving every penny they have, that's saying quite a bit.

 

[Inkheart]

Finished the book at the weekend. Felt that it had been hyped up and it wasn't good as good as I had expected. I want to watch the film version of it now though.

 

[ValkyrieRaven88]

Don't watch the film. The film was bad. I'd like to see the movie done again with new special effects, but Hollywood tends to screw up any plot it comes across...

Sorry to hear you didn't like it as much as you thought you would. As for me, it remains my favorite.

 

[VTChEwbecca]

Read this in high school...goodness, about 14 years ago (my freshman year). I really enjoyed the book and also realized how important books are. It's been a good long time since I read it, I think I will have to reread it soon, as I no longer remember all the finer details.

 

[RedGlazzies]

i just finished reading this book and though i enjoyed it...i dont think it lived up to my expectations. its a classic for a reason, but it was lacking. i soared through the first two sections with ease, but the third part became a bit of a bore at parts. i hate it when the author uses a character in a book to do his preaching (bradbury wasn't showing what he wanted to present, he was almost flat out saying it through Faber and Granger). But overall, the message, the remarkable foreshadowing of our present, and the suspense built up at the end of part 2, made this novel a pleasure to have read.

 

[Robert]

I was just the opposite. I didn't want to read it because I thought it was suppose to be Bradbury warning about the evils of censorship. As it turned out, I really loved it and I now laugh at people that think it's about censorship.

 

[beer good]

I was just the opposite. I didn't want to read it because I thought it was suppose to be Bradbury warning about the evils of censorship. As it turned out, I really loved it and I now laugh at people that think it's about censorship.

Ray Bradbury seems to disagree with you - at least to a certain extent.

Among the themes attributed to the novel were what Bradbury has called "the thought-destroying force" of censorship, the book-burnings in Nazi Germany in 1933 and the horrible consequences of the explosion of a nuclear weapon. "I meant all kinds of tyrannies anywhere in the world at any time, right, left, or middle", Bradbury has said.

"There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feel it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse….Fire-Captain Beatty, in my novel Fahrenheit 451, described how the books were burned first by the minorities, each ripping a page or a paragraph from this book, then that, until the day came when the books were empty and the minds shut and the library closed forever."

That's not all it's about, certainly, but... then again, being against censorship is pretty much a given, isn't it?

 

[Robert]

Ray Bradbury seems to disagree with you - at least to a certain extent.

That's not all it's about, certainly, but... then again, being against censorship is pretty much a given, isn't it?

No he doesn't. In fact, Ray Bradbury walked out on a class at UCLA because the students argued (to him!) that the book was about government censorship.

LA Weekly - News - Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted - Amy E. Boyle Johnston - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

 

[pontalba]

No he doesn't. In fact, Ray Bradbury walked out on a class at UCLA because the students argued (to him!) that the book was about government censorship.

LA Weekly - News - Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted - Amy E. Boyle Johnston - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

From the article you link Robert,

He says the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate

I was so young when I read it I hardly remember, but going by this article it certainly is about a form of censorship, just not by the government [originally].

 

[Robert]

Read the article again.

Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

 

[pontalba]

Of course I read that.
your quote...

Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

my quote..

He says the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate

State, government, same difference.

 

[Peder]

I remember two high points from the book. The one is the government Fire Department destroying a personal library and having a fire. The second was the existence of the Book People, to use my own words, who were dedicated to keeping literature alive.
If Bradbury later says I got it all wrong and there were other themes in the book more important than these, I missed them completely. Maybe there are, or maybe his selective hindsight is 20-20 for whatever he later wishes one to see.
For myself I discount the genre: It Can't Happen Here, Plot Against America, 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451. Some people see these as accurate predictions or satires of the future; I don't. I have heard the claims all my life from friends and colleagues as well as from books, that we in the US are going down the tubes, and I have always regarded the rhetoric as overheated. I count such claims simply as political argumentation, which incidentally I do not hold in high esteem either for getting at any truth.
So call me dumb and throw your rocks.

 

[Sybarite]

Members might enjoy this.

 

[Robert]

I remember two high points from the book. The one is the government Fire Department destroying a personal library and having a fire. The second was the existence of the Book People, to use my own words, who were dedicated to keeping literature alive.
If Bradbury later says I got it all wrong and there were other themes in the book more important than these, I missed them completely. Maybe there are, or maybe his selective hindsight is 20-20 for whatever he later wishes one to see.
For myself I discount the genre: It Can't Happen Here, Plot Against America, 1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451. Some people see these as accurate predictions or satires of the future; I don't. I have heard the claims all my life from friends and colleagues as well as from books, that we in the US are going down the tubes, and I have always regarded the rhetoric as overheated. I count such claims simply as political argumentation, which incidentally I do not hold in high esteem either for getting at any truth.
So call me dumb and throw your rocks.

No name calling or rock throwing, Peder. Perhaps one question then: Don't you think that his vision of the evolution of tv was pretty close to what we're seeing.