Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Intro

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is the story of a man named Guy Montag. Montag is a firemen in a world where his job is to ban all books, and no firemen is ever allowed to keep a book for themselves. He is used to this life, until one day he meets a girl named Clarisse who changes his perspective on literature forever. At the end of the book he is in a very different place and mindset than he started, and this book teaches why literature is so important and how we are perceived to society in a world with strict and unforgiving rules.

How I came across the book

This was a summer reading book I had to read for school, and I decided to review it since it is a banned book about banned books and I am passionate about spreading awareness about banned books.

Other books by the author/In the series

I do not know of any other books by the author.

The Good

• On the cover of the book there is a black book but then above the book there is a collection of matches that are sliding out of the book which is interesting because the book is about burning books

• It's called Fahrenheit 451 because 451 degrees fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns

• The woman whose books they burned burned her house just because she didn't wanna leave her books which shows how important books are to people

• The actions of one person can change another person entirely like how the woman refused to leave her books and now Montag is seeing the importance of books and how valuable they are

• After hearing the history of his job and what happens if firemen keep books Montag never wants to come to work again

• Montag is suggesting that they print a bunch of books and put them all in the firemen's houses and then burn all of the houses which connects to individuality vs conformity bc it is his individual plan and he plans to do it secretly without anyone at his job knowing

• Montag secretly took a book for himself which connects to individuality vs formality because everyone else is told to burn books but he actually cared about the books and doesn't want to be burning them

• Montag has been hiding books in his house to keep them from being burned

• Faber has a special device that he used to hear people and they can also hear him so Montag will go around forming the plan while Faber analyzes the firemen and both of them are now conforming to an isolated view of society

• It is interesting that he is drawn to the fire because he always was taught to hate fire and it was his work and now he discovers something good can come of it and one event can change the way you view things

• The group is confirming to their own individuality because they are all passionate about books and want to carry the legacy of reading on secretly even though it is forbidden

• I love how the story ends with Montag finding his people and going on a mission to spread the importance of literature while at the beginning he was taught to believe literature was bad even though he secretly liked it but wasn't allowed to and trapped under a leader that controlled him

The Bad

• The book is clearly set in the future because when Clarisse talks about how paintings are only abstract when a long time ago they used to show pictures with words and people and everyone kills each other at her school so the world in the future in this book must be a lot less developed than it is now

• Firemen used to put out fires but now they start fires and are the ones doing the burning and don't fix it

• When he is in the house and looking at the books and Beatty is forcing him along he is conforming to the expectations of his job even though he doesn't actually want to be burning the books

• Books were banned because once technology was discovered people didn't feel a need to expand their knowledge any more because they could just learn it all on tv

• Beatty says Clarisse wanted to know why a thing was done and not how and that can be embarrasing but that just means you are more intellectual and for some reason intellectual is like a swear word in this book and he says if you ask why to a lot of things you end up really unhappy which isn't actually true because you learn more things that way

• Beatty says the two of them stand against the people who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought but that actually makes people more interested

• If a fireman accidentally takes a book home with him and hasn't burned it after 24 hours the other firemen burn it for him and I thought this was really interestng because Montag has a book and now knows the consequences but he was the one that took interest in this job and became a firemen and he could have chosen a different job but now is it his fault that he's stuck with a secret in a conflicting situation

• Beatty takes Montag on a new mission to burn a house with a bunch if books in it and it turns out to be his own house

• The news let the hound kill a random man just bc they couldn't admit they had failed to find Montag and failed to complete something they had been assigned so they just lied which is confirming to expectations whereas individuality would be coming clean that they didn't find him

• I didn't like how Beatty is trying to convince Montag that technology is so much better than literature in many ways literature is better because it allows you to actually think while technology can mess up your brain and you wont learn how to analyze things

• I hate how Montag feels the need to go along with everything that Beatty says when he has his own thoughts and pursuits and he is just scared to anger other people but he shouldn't care about them he should be doing what he wants because if he just lives his life scared of what other people think he will never discover who he truly is and his life will just become wasted and useless and he will have a lot of regrets that he never actually did anything for himself

Who else would like this

Banned book fanatics and people who love reading books about books, as well as people who love analyzing society’s perception of us and what that means to an individual person.

Rating

9/10 It loses one point for being a school book because we dont choose to read them, but I’m glad this was a school book because if it wasnt I dont think I would have read it, and I was surprised to find that I really really enjoyed it. The story was incredible and full of complex events that made me better understand the things overlooked in our world, and I found very similar themes between the book and our current world today. School book or not, I would 100% recommend this to anyone, especially people who are interested in banned books.