Fahrenheit+451


 * Fahrenheit 451** by Ray Bradbury

__Fahrenheit 451__ takes place in a futuristic American city. The people in this futuristic city do not think independently or read books; in fact, they burn books and other literature. It is hard to grasp at first because it seems so different, however it can be related to today. Firefighters start fires instead of putting them out and cars speed all the time. The main character is Guy Montag, a "firefighter" in the city. The novel tells of how Guy goes through this life and how he reaches an epiphany on life (Specifically literature). Guy meets a young teenage girl named Clarissa McClellan. She was different from others who lived in the city. She had a sense of innocence to her and in her questions she asked Guy. The next few days, a series of strange events occur to Guy. Some events include; his wife attempting to commit suicide, answering a call of woman who would rather be burned alive with her books, and Clarissa being hit and killed by a speeding car. These events had caused Guy to crash. His fire chief, Beatty, caught him with stolen books but let him go. Beatty explained that books were originally  burned because of authors having  conflicting  opinions and how they didn't want to offend anyone. Guy keeps the books and reads them. Guy meets a book lover named Faber. Later his wife betrays him and turns him into the fire department. Guy is forced to burn his own home and gets arrested. Beatty interrogated Guy. When things got tense, Guy kills Beatty with a flamethrower and escapes. Before he escaped, he helped Faber by giving him money to start a printing press for books. He escapes down a river and finds other book lovers ("The Book People"), led by a man named Granger. The opposing groups, the intellectuals  and the new generation, declare war against each other. The Book People get severely  bombed. After the bombing, Guy and other survivors  go on to reconstruct civilization.

My thoughts: I think this book is a huge eye opener. Although the book seems very unrealistic at first, later on you can really find similarities to today's society. If you really think about it, there are many cues that show similarities. Some include the speeding cars and the idea of not wanting to offend others. I picked up on how the author intended the book to show what today's society is ultimately leading to. I enjoyed the futuristic aspect of the novel. Just imagining what the world could someday look like was fascinating. However, I personally did not enjoy the tone of the novel. The whole time the voice of the book was very bland and foreboding. It strongly resembled a game I once played called "Max Payne." I don't know how else to further describe it if you haven’t played the game.

Summary by David Ahn