Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Prediction That Is Coming True?, 4 Dec 2002
Scary, thought-provoking, relevant and coming true! A society where individuals are repressed and exterminated, original thought is discouraged and the mainstream are mindless sheep who get their news, beliefs and opinions from huge television walls.Books are illegal. Anyone believed to be in possession of a book is reported, ina very similar way to Nazi Germany. The firemen call, burning the books, the building and maybe even the person. The notion that firemen used to put fires out is laughed at by Montag, the main character in the story. Starting with a brief encounter with an unusual (for that society) girl, Montag is slowly drawn towards the realisation that society is controlled and individual thought is essential to man's emotional survival and development. If you buy one book, buy this one. It will chill you, scare you and make you think just how near we are to the hell Bradbury describes. Read it, remember it and then let it influence your life. The warning sings are there.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Burn books, eventually burn people too ..., 31 Jul 2004
Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper catches fire, and starts to burn... Why on earth would you want to know that? . Because that is extremely important in this book, due to the fact that its main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. However, he is not a fireman in the way we now understand that word: a man that tries to stop fires. Here, firemen burn books.Bradbury tells us about a place where books are forbidden: nobody can read them, or have them, without committing a crime. The authorities consider that they are dangerous, and because of that they make firemen burn them, and the houses where they were. Everything changes for Montag due to two things. To begin with, he gets to know Clarisse, a young girl that makes him see life from another perspective. Secondly, one day the unexpected happens: he cannot help but read a line of a book he was burning. Of course, Montag gets curious, and as a result, he steals some books, and decides to read them. That causes him many problems, as he begins to put into question things he took for guaranteed before. With the help of Faber, and old former professor who still remembers how things were before books were forbidden, Montag starts to think about a way to change things... Will he be able to do that?. I don't want to give away more about the book, so read it and you will know :) It is worthwhile to point out that "Fahrenheit 451" is a beautiful story, so wonderfully written that it is very easy to read. Notwithstanding that, I believe that the more important aspect of this book is that it is a good way to remember why we like books so much, and what a privilege it is to be able to have them. Thanks to Bradbury's imaginary dystopia we realize once again that something that Heinrich Heine said is true: "It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people too" ("Dort, wo man Bucher Verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am, Ende Menschen"). I think that the book's message regarding the dangers of censorship and the importance of reading should remain with us... On the whole, I highly recommend "Fahrenheit 451" to you. Enjoy it :) Belen Alcat
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fuel the flames of your imagination...., 28 Jan 2002
A fabulously easy to read book, I was engrossed in it for the whole day it took me to get through it! But I don't think I'd be unusual, pick it up and find out. Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 takes place in a nightmare near-future where snappy entertainment and speedy pleasures rule, and books are burned purposely by the Firemen to prevent free thought and dissent. The main character, Guy Montag, is a Fireman who wakes up one day to the realisation that he no longer wishes to destroy, but to preserve, and decides to do something about it.The thing which grabbed my attention so completely is that this nightmare world, composed by Bradbury in 1954, is beginning to materialise... we live in an age where people would rather be entertained constantly than think or converse, where we listen to loud music on the way to and from work in our fast cars, and will return home to the TV, computer games and the Internet. Realise when you read it that Bradbury's seashell earpieces, which distract the user with constantly piped music and banal conversation, are predicted here a full 30 years before Sony introduced their landmark Walkman; could he be right about the rest? This is a book which will make you consider the future.... But perhaps the most compelling reason to buy this book, even if it doesn't sound like your kind of thing, is because by choosing NOT to buy it you are contributing to the nightmare, bookless society which Bradbury predicts!
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