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People who
agree:
“Brilliant… Startling and
ingenious… Mr. Bradbury’s
account of this insane world,
which bears many alarming
resemblances to our own, is
fascinating.”
-The New York Times
“A masterpiece... A glorious
American classic everyone
should read: It’s lifechanging if you read it as a
teen, and is still stunning
when you read it as an
adult.”
-The Boston Globe
“A prescient, lyrical writer
with an abiding hatred for
intolerance, Bradbury
influenced generations of
readers and many of our most
famous dreamers, from
Stephen King to Steven Spielberg.”
-Junot Diaz
Krista’s rating:
November 2015
Review
A Timely Classic
That no one has heard of
By Krista Riley
The storyline has been told before: A dystopian
future with a corrupt government and a main character
who wishes to put an end to it. A hero who fights the
system and is seen as crazy by most of the other characters. It all seems to be a recent topic of interest. But,
no Hunger Games or Divergent book can compare to
that of Fahrenheit 451.
Now I know what you’re thinking: what even is
Fahrenheit 451? At one point, I had no idea either.
Since our assigned quarter book was for literary classics, the name sounded familiar so I chose this book. It
may seem unappealing that it’s over 60 years old, but
this book drew me in from the beginning. “It was a
pleasure to burn” is quite the opening sentence. And
from then on, I never once felt bored. A beautiful combination of action, word choice, and philosophical
questions lead this book from start to finish.
Fahrenheit 451 was given its name because it was the
temperature at which books burn.
The main character, Guy Montag, lives in the distant future where books are outlawed. His work as a
fireman is not about protecting citizens from fires, but
actually starting them. At this point, houses are fire
proof, so their worries are not in a house burning down
but in people reading books. Guy’s job is to burn
books, and after doing this for 10 years, he has been
starting to question the reason behind all of this.
After an encounter with a women who ends up
burning with her books, his curiosity only grows. What
could be so important in these books that someone
would rather die than give them up? How was it his
right to erase the countless years spent writing these
books by destroying them in seconds?
Still, his wife doesn’t see eye to eye with him about
his new ideas. She is more concerned about her interactive TV than any of Guy’s moral dilemmas. His
countless attempts to beg for her aid fall on deaf ears,
almost literally, as she spends all her time with two
tiny futuristic radios in her ears.
As for the ending, I don’t give out spoilers, so you
have to read it for yourself. All I can say is that it was
realistic and there is nothing more I would ask from it.
Although this book was published in 1953, it still
holds concepts that pertain to current times.