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Friday, May 1, 2009

Review: Fahrenheit 451

by Ray Bradbury
(from bn.com) Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then he met a seventeen-year old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who told him of a future where people could think. And Guy Montag knew what he had to do....

The concept of this book seems like to would make a really great story. But like many books I have read that makes a political statement (1984 and The Fountainhead for example), I found that Fahrenheit 451 was lacking in several ways.

The characters in the book lacked specific character traits. I felt as the characters simply existed on the page. I can't describe the characters to you because there was nothing to describe.

Just like 1984 and The Fountainhead, the main character Guy, seemed to be highly exalted. Bradbury portrayed Guy as a man with faults, but the fact that he sacrificed his secure life for books made up for his faults several times over.

Fahrenheit 451 is a small book with little substance. We all know censorship is bad. Okay. I get it. Other than that, you can skip this one.

Grade: D

1 comments:

Literature Crazy said...

I agree with your assessment. My only comments would be that: 1)Most dystopic literature (aka, "political books") tend to be low-key on the descriptors because the characters are everybody in the world who's oppressed (i.e., everyone); and 2)This book was kind of a big deal when it came out because not a lot of people thought censorship was bad at that time.

I think this is one of those books that's kind of amazing if you're reading it as a historical narrative regarding the time when it was written (which might be a more interesting way to study history than to just read history textbooks, huh?).