OnlineBookClub.org

LivreAmour217 wrote:I really, really enjoyed this book. I personally believe that it's all about censorship run amok and the intellectual numbness of technology. Although books are not yet illegal, I see many parallels between modern American culture and Bradbury's futuristic dystopian one. We live in a time when access to books is easier than ever, but it seems that many Americans would rather watch television, play videogames, or have shallow conversations in social media than absorb the contents of a good book. But perhaps I am being too negative--the existence of this online community is proof that we may avoid such a bleak future. As long as there are enough people who value knowledge and creativity, books will always be around.

Fahrenheit 451 is the kind of work that happens once in a lifetime and it exists, to always remind us what really matters in our existence.

What would be of a world that was empty of books and culture for so long that people lived as hollow shells, living an empty life?
Ray Bradbury projected the idea for the book and rented a typewriter in the local public library, writing a plot so engaging and mentally stimulating that would become History.
Fahrenheit 451 deals with a world somewhere in the future (imagine the 50's projected in an analog television of 15 inches in the 80's) where some inventions that we have today were mere dreams at Bradbury's time. The headphones were called Seashells (and I like that name better) and remote controlled drones designed for criminal chases are called Hounds. Fortunately the destruction of culture did not come true, at least thus far.
Firefighters, to a certain extent known to fight fires at home and save people from burning alive, came only to have a single function: burning books. To not allow the proliferation of culture spread, prevent human beings make use of their brains for anything that was not socialize or superfluously absorb television programs as sponges. Bradbury was not mistaken in the latter: today we increasingly see the effects of inept and useless TV programs on the brain of the masses, leading fewer and fewer people to read books.
Guy Montag, the main character, is one of those firemen who later realizes that if someone is able to die in a room full of books, it must be because books certainly have a type of magic worth enjoying. Montag starts stealing books with the help of a friend and falls in love with them, and it is from this point on that he realizes that his life will never be the same again, as possessing books is a crime against society.

In a way, Bradbury already predicted something that has gradually been happening: while more and more people have access to information, this massive quantity of information loses its power. There are more books than ever before because more and more people have access to the media, but unfortunately, some of the most important and exclusive information is lost in the excess of inclusion attempts in a very small range that our attention is able to retain.
The book constantly bombards us with powerful sentences that stay in the mind and are impossible to forget. The narrative follows a straight, firm and determined step and each page is draws us in for what will happen next. The events follow one another in tandem and Bradbury does not keep us hanging in the mess or hassle for even a second: it is easy to read, interesting and intuitively very well written and structured. I do not have a single flaw to point out.