Fahrenheit 451

Rating:
Summary: Fahrenheit 451
Review: The book Fahrenheit 451 was a great book that I really enjoyed. This book takes place sometime in the future. It is a story is about a fireman, he is not a fireman that you and I think about; instead of putting fires out he starts them. He is a book burner. Because in the society that he lives in books are outlawed and are to be burnt. There were four main characters in this story. The most important was Guy Montag. He was a tall black haired man that questions society and himself. He is a fireman that burns books for a living. He makes a lot of changes throughout the book. By the end of the book he is a wanted man. The next character was Clarisse McClellan she is a young girl that is not like everyone else. She is a free thinker. She helped Montag get started on his journey. Montag's boss is very important in the book. His name is Captain Beatty. He seems grumpy and he enjoys burning books. Towards the end of the book he is murdered. Professor Faber is an old professor that helps Motag learn about society and how it used to be. He is weak and cannot act out what he wants to , so he and Montag act as a team. Mildred Montag is Montag's wife. She is the perfect example of the rest of society. She believes that books are horrible and have nothing to offer. All she cares about is her family that was on T.V. and not much of anything else, just like the society she lived in.
Guy Montag questions his job and what he wants to do with his life.
One of the best parts of the book is the cat and mouse game that Fire Captain Beatty plays with Montag. Beatty is seen as a man who once had been infected with the bug of individualism, but had since 'cured' himself and now is determined to cure Montag. Beatty explains how his society came to be and Montag learns that somewhere along the line, the process went horribly wrong.
I think that this book is a very good book, it kept me interested the whole time that I read it.It only took me about 3 days to read it and that was between work and school. For those of you kids that have to read a book for a book report this would be my choice.

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Summary: Firemen Start Fires
Review: Fahrenheit 451 was a quality book. At the beginning of the book it was kind of boring but when it got close to the climax I couldn't put it down. It kept me on the edge of my seat. The story goes something like this. Guy Montage was a fireman and so was his dad, and his dad and so on. One day he met a 17 year old girl and talked to her about everything and that is when he started questioning himself and what he did. He burnt books for a living. Books that told our past and what we have learned. If we burn our past we will kept making the same mistakes we've already made. One day he took a book from the house they were burning down. Once he read it he felt that all the books should be saved and he revealed that he had about 20 books hide in the cieling. The government made it illegal to read and own books. Montage wanted to let the world know what was in the books and share the knowlege they possesed. He was going to get help from an old man who's books they have already burnt. His name was Faber. One day at the fire house they got a call in that a house had books in it. When they got there it was Montag's house and his wife was leaving him. They made him burn all his own books and possesions. When he was done he went and burned his boss and other work members with the fire torch. The fire department had a machanical dog that chased him. The dog had a neddle in its mouth and bit him in the leg but not enough that he couldn't get away and burn the dog as well. He ran around back and got his books that he had hide in the garden and ran to Fabers house. There he got some clothes and watched the pursuit on tv. They got a new dog and started tracking him down. He told Faber to burn everything he touched and spray down the side walk to get rid of his sent. He headed for the river and then jumped in and threw off the tracking team and the dog. They ended up putting the crime on some innocent guy that was just walking down the street. Montage got onto the bank and walked into the woods where he met some other outlaws like him- self. I realy liked the book toward the end and I thought that it was probably one of the best books I've ever read. The tension is unbearable and the catch phrases are great. If any body likes a good book that won't bore you this is the book for you.

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Summary: Far-Fetched Fahrenheit
Review: The book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury delivered an interesting concept. This science fiction was about how books are evil and should be burned. Mr. Bradbury gave us a concept that has never been thought about before. Although this idea is completely original, in this case, the amount of originality put into this book is not directly proportional to how much I enjoyed the book.
Fahrenheit 451 is about a man named Guy Montag who is a futuristic fireman. Guy is basically paid to burn books rather than let people read them. To me, this whole concept seems too far fetched. Not only is reading or possessing books illegal but it can be punished severely. Everyone in this book is just too afraid to read books. I did not like this concept because that would never happen, and is never possible. People would always be interested even if, and sometimes especially if, it is illegal. Despite the laws Montag starts reading books illegally when he becomes completely dissatisfied with life. He begins to enjoy reading and tries to show some others about reading but instead they do not understand his super intellect.
This book makes the reader think about the plot too much. The author should say what is going on rather than make the reader think too much because the reading might read too far into things and not completely understand. Books became illegal to read when minorities got overly upset about books that offended them. Eventually the minorities came got enough people to agree with them that all books were banished. Books have so much to offer that this idea seems completely unreasonable and stupid to me.
Eventually Guy learns to like books. He even derives a plan to turn the world against illiteracy. Guys wife leaves him when he is not around and reports that he has been reading books. The fire department comes to burn his house down with all of the books in it. The force Montag to do it instead. Many of the concepts like this one seem like nothing of that manner would ever occur in reality. Did he not pay for that house. Why would someone burn another's house down for such a meaningless crime as reading books.
This book delivers an interesting concept which may be too far fetched for myself. If you are a book and science fiction lover, this may not be the case for yourself.

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Summary: Fahrenheit 451 Review
Review: Since I don't want to give away all the details of the book I will try to be as descriptive as possible. The book open with humans, as a whole, not remembering the way life used to be. In a time when there were books, schools, and maybe most important of all, the freedom of speech. You first meet the main character Guy Montag after one of his work shifts. He is a fireman, but not the type of fireman that we would think of today. In this case, he is a fireman who starts fires. In the world in which he lives, owning books is a highly punishable offense. In this case, firemen arrive at reported libraries with tankers full of kerosene and light the books and the homes of the book owners on fire. This usually takes place at night to make a good show for those who enjoy to watch. The same people who owned the books will also be arrested. However, most of these so called "radicals" who own the books decide to be burned along with them. In any case, Guy enjoys his work and never seems to give the mass destruction too much thought. That all changes, however, when he meets a girl named Clarisse. She talks with him about the way the world used to be and it starts making him wonder about things. Eventually he begins sneaking books out of the fires. Of course this type of behavior is going to get noticed and he has to go on the run and ends up turning on his society and his role in it. He later finds a home in a wasteland outside of the city with other educated people who take him in and watch as the city is blown to bits in a techno-war that lasts only three minutes. In my view this was a pretty good book. It was entertaining and a short read. Some of the themes like drive by terrorism, the large amount of entertainment, and the fast vehicles make a point that not all technological progress is useful. On top of it all the story basically ends on a good note because all of the controlling ways of life are destroyed and the educated can now build a free world that once existed.

Rating:
Summary: Good Read for the Unpatient Reader
Review: If you like books that you don't need a dictionary by your side, or it doesn't take three months to read then, fahrenheit 451 is a book for you.

Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In this society fireman start fires instead of putting them out. The people in this society don't even read books they are consumed by tv and radio. There's one problem though Guy likes books.

Throughout the story Guy's life is a plagued by disturbing events like his wife's attempted suicide, a crazy lady that would rather be burned alive than have her books burned, and to top it all off his friend Clarisse is hit by a speeding car and killed. This was devastating to Guy because she opened his eyes to the emptiness of his life. This is when Guy questioned the duties of his job.

Other exciting events in the story are when Guy doesn't show up for work one day and his boss Beatty pays him a visit. Upon his arrival Beatty discovers that Guy has been hoarding books from the fires to read. Beatty tells him that he can keep the books for one night and after that he has to turn them in for burning. Guy begins one long night of reading. Overwhelmed by this task he turns to his wife for help, but she's more interested in tv. He pays a man Dr.Faber a visit, Faber agrees to help him.

The next day Montag goes to the fire station and hands over one of his books to Beatty for incineration. Then the alarm sounds and they rush off for another book burning. When Montag gets there he realizes it's his own house. His wife betrayed him. Beatty forces him to burn down the house himself.

Once he is done he turns the flamethrower on Beatty and kills him, then he manages to escape the other firemen and the big mechanical dogs.

If you want to know what happens next you'll just have to read the book because a review shouldn't give away the ending. So if any of this sounded interesting I suggest you pick up a copy of fahrenheit 451 and read it, you won't be dissapointed.

After reading this brief introduction to this book you would understand why I gave it a near perfect score, it's action packed with adventure, and it's easy to understand. What more could you ask for?

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Summary: Conformity is the vilest of sins
Review: In an age of pervasive conformity and the overwhelming prevalence of worthless television such as American Idol, I find it refreshing and inspiring to read such a profoundly original work like Fahrenheit 451. If we allow our brains to wither away by watching wasteful drivel like Guy Montag's wife, Mildred, we surrender to the system, and hence, become nothing but another brick in the wall. Ray Bradbury writes as lucidly and fluently with as vital a message as any of the other infamous dystopian novels such as 1984 and Brave New World. Just as Orwell and Huxley champion the cogence of individuality over mere conformity, so too, does Bradbury.

Although Guy Montag is the endearing protagonist and his Captain Beatty the intrepid, yet enigmatic antagonist, it is none other than the characters of Clarisse and Mildred that most intigue me. They emanate resoundly as complete foils for each other. Whereas Mildred woefully lacks even any remote semblance of vision, love, passion, or originality, Clarisse conversely possesses an abundant amount of vigor, vibrancy, ingenuity, and genuine zest for life. Guy undergoes an epiphany upon the inscrutable disappearance of Clarisse that, in turn, galvanizes from within his desire to live again. Not only does he begin to read books again, albeit surreptitiously, moreover he also embarks upon a journey to think for himself again, as it were. No longer allowing Captain Beatty or the Mechanical Hound to motivate his conformity through fear tactics, Guy Montag begins upon a new and unchartered path - one that will undoubtedly lead to happiness in the absence of conformity. Fahrenheit 451 is undeniably a timeless classic and should thus be treated as such. 5 HUGE STARS.

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Summary: Analyzing Farenheit 451
Review: The book is, from an analytical standpoint, about the meaning of life, values and the reactions of people. The book begins with the main character, Montag, as you will realize he lives the life of the classical fireman. He burns books because it is what he is paid to do, he goes home to his wife that, since they have no children, sits around and watches T.V. all day, and is completely brainwashed by the society. Montag then encounters a girl, named Clarise, who thinks about the world and he wonders. Not too much later he goes to see a professor who helps him to think, himself, and in so doing puts Montag against the society that he was the idealist for not so long ago.

This book can be analyzed as an insight to the meaning of life for the different characters have such contrasted views as to what the true meaning of life is. First of all there is Montag the protagonist of the story, he changes his meaning of life from, work at my job, that isn't too bad, so I can support my wife and she can be happy. Then contrastingly to what I considered as my view on life before is flawed, because my wife isn't really happy; for two reasons, first she almost kills herself, without thinking much of it, and, second she doesn't understand how to think so she really can't be that happy anyway. This leads him to think that his purpose in life is to try and enlighten some part of the society to induce thought and maybe make people really happy instead of the temporary solutions they use all day long. The second character that is the general view you get on the people in society is Mildred, who is basically every average housewife. Mildred is a living zombie of absolute brainwashed stupidity, she really isn't capable of her own thought and she thinks she is happy, since she can't really think for herself and their isn't much material around about the meaning of life, she really doesn't have a view, but her character, or moreover what she represents matters to the story and how life is viewed by general people. The third person that shows the meaning of life that is generally accepted is that if you please your superiors you have done your job in life, this character is captain Beatty. Beatty is an interesting character he knows what Montag knows that books let people think, he has also read many but he utterly supports the government without objection or dispute. He knows what the government wants; yet he agrees and he tries to convince Montag that he is right and the government is right and he is doing what must be done. These three characters show contrasted views of three beliefs on the meaning of life, or what is good.

Values are shown vividly in the book, there are different values shown, such as knowledge, material, and thought. The first example is the night call to the house where the woman burns with her books; this exemplifies value in knowledge. This is shown in what the books represent to her, she has such value in the knowledge, which the books contain, and value in the importance of this she doesn't feel she can live after they have been burned. The second instance where value is shown is in Mildred, and her value of material, in this case her parlor. The scene where this is most relevant is when Montag comes to burn the house, she complains more about her parlor as she goes away than she does about her husband who will be sent to jail. The third time value is shown though this is in no order is in Clarise. The value she represents is thought, she values thought without even having to try, she values it because her family values thought and she is fed on thought and conversation; throughout her life by her uncle and parents she is thought the value and meaning of thought, and so she expresses this value.
The reactions of people are also in the theme of this book, for many times this is shown. The different reactions I will discuss are: first, the society's reaction to banning books, second the reaction Captain Beatty has to books, and third Montag's reaction to Clarise. First, I will discuss society's reaction to the banning of books. Society in this world is not so much different from ours, yet a ban against books wouldn't make sense to people, but it seems logical to people in this world. I am for the opinion that this is because the government structures the world around fast pleasure instead of the pleasure of knowledge, so it can be easy to ban books and make people into what Mildred and her friends represent. I believe given time this would easily follow through in our fast paced world, not because people wouldn't fight but because of people that wouldn't really care. The second reaction I would like to discuss is the reaction of Captain Beatty to his reading of books. This is intriguing, because even after reading many books Beatty still hates them, this is odd since the general reaction to something you hate is not to do it, yet Beatty knows his enemy like a friend an intelligent, hateful method of enforcing your opinion. The third, is Montag's reaction to Clarise, she doesn't have to do much to catalyze his thought, this is most likely due to the fact that he thinks a lot but not about the right things.

To conclude this book has many an Interesting aspect to it, and is worth a good read, make sure to remember not to be a person that doesn't care.

Rating:
Summary: The Temperature At Which Books Burn
Review: I give Fahrenheit 451 five stars because it is very interesting and pulls the reader into the life of Guy Montag, the main character and narrator. Ray Bradbury uses great imagery in this book so that the reader can picture exactly what Montag sees. Another thing that makes this book so great are the ideas that we take for granted such as thinking. In this book there are very few people who can think for themselves. It also makes you question things like, if there were no book would people still be able to think for on there own? This is a really great book.
In this book you will read about a society that is very different from our own. This society takes place in the future. All the houses there are fire proof making firemen obsolete for their old job. There the firemen start fires instead of putting them out. Instead of using water they now use kerosene. Their job is to burn books and the houses they are in as soon as they are found. They follow strict rules which are1. Answer the alarm swiftly, 2. Start the fire swiftly, 3. Burn everything, 4. Report back to firehouse immediately, and 5. Stand alert for other alarms. According to them the first firehouse was built in 1790 to burn books. The first fireman was Benjamin Franklin. All books are banned from everyone. Being caught with a book is a punishable offense.
This was Montag's job. He never questioned why he burned them or anything else in his life. Until he meet a girl named Clarisse McClellan who helped him start to think for himself. She asked him questions he never thought of before such as if he was happy and she pointed things out that he never noticed like how the billboards got longer because the cars got faster. All these new realizations helped Montag open his mind to start thinking and opened his eyes to what the government was doing.
Clarisse spends her days outside exploring her environment and thinking about how strange the world is. She does not go to school because people think of her as anti-social when she just has a different idea of what being social is. Montag sees her doing some of the most peculiar things such as shaking a walnut tree or knitting a blue sweater. He saw her outside one day in the rain and she explained that she loved the way the rain tasted. Montag had never thought about how rain tasted and that day on the way to work he tilted his head back and opened his mouth to taste the rain. This was not the only time she told Montag something that got him thinking. One morning when they were talking and she told him she thinks dry leaves smell like cinnamon. Her odd revelations to him helped him think more and more.
Montag starts to question all the people around him but mostly his wife, Mildred. She does nothing all day except watch her three-wall TV. He realizes he does not truly love her because he does not really know her at all. One night Mildred has two friends over to watch the three-wall TV. Montag listens to there conversation. They were talking about the up coming war and one woman said that her husband is in the army. She talked about how her husband might die but its okay because it's the third marriage for both of them and she won't have ant trouble getting over it. This shows Montag that people are incapable of feeling also. They can't think or feel they just live life and care only of themselves.
Another person that helps Montag to start to think and question authority was an old professor called Faber. Montag had met Faber in a park a long time ago and Montag decides to call and then visit him. Faber tells him of a time when people read books and were not afraid of being caught with them. Faber lost his job as a professor when one year he came back to teach and only one student had signed up for the coarse. Faber thinks of himself as a coward because he loves book and believes that they should not be banned but he does not do anything to stop it. He was there when books were being banned and he said nothing because he was afraid. But Faber's compassion and wisdom give Montag courage. Faber stays in his house all the time and creates new inventions. One invention is a little speaker you put in your ear so you can talk to someone. Montag and Faber use this to there advantage.
These characters help Montag a lot through out the book. If it were not for them Montag would have never started to realize what he has to do. He must change the society in some way but how? He is only one man. It all starts when he confronts his fire chief, Beatty. But to find out what happens read Fahrenheit 451. This book is a page-turner and you won't want to put it down.

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Summary: Censorship in an alternate society
Review: The story, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is about an alternate society set in the future where cars travel 100 miles per hour, TV walls interact with people and books are banned. Guy Montag is an enthusiastic fireman, who enjoys pouring kerosene over books and burning them and the entire house. In this society, firemen do not put out fires. They start them.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. This book was action-packed and involved a lot of good writing. For example there were many metaphors in this book. They helped to connect Montag's society to ours, and show the frightening similarities between the two.

Mildred Montag is Guy Montag's wife. She is an example of the people the government wants to create. Mildred is shallow and cares more about her possessions than about herself or her husband. Also, Mildred never shows interest in what Montag has to say. She regards him as an annoying younger brother rather than her husband. Mildred is the stereotypical housewife of this time period. She values all the things her society does. She seems to not think for herself, and only knows what the society wants her to know.

In the beginning of this book, Montag seems perfectly content with his life and his job. He says it is a pleasure when he burns people's houses. He loves the smell of kerosene that comes from his job, and 'wears it like a perfume'. Then one day Montag meets a girl named Clarrise McClean, and his life changes forever.

Clarrise is a peculiar girl for the time period. She thinks. She enjoys smelling the leaves in fall, staying up late at night talking and watching the stars. Clarrise seems like a girl that came from our time period and was placed in Montag's. The norm for teenagers in this book is to play video games, play sports, and kill each other. There are many gangs in this society and often innocent teenagers are shot. Also, teenagers like to drive their cars hundreds of miles per hour to see how many people they can run off the road. If a pedestrian were to be crossing the street in this society, they would most definitely be killed. However, no one walks anywhere. Rather, they take the subway or they drive to wherever they need to go. Pedestrians are seen as weird and are often watched by the police to make sure they don't do anything illegal.

When Montag meets Clarrise and talks to her, he immediately wants to know more about her. She is unusual to him, and he likes that. Montag loves the way Clarrise doesn't care about what anyone else thinks of her. Clarrise teaches Montag to question society when the society seems wrong.
The day after Montag met Clarrise, the firemen were called to a site where there were books in need of burning. Montag seemed detached from the routine that usually captured his every waking hour. The firemen were at the house of a woman who had hidden books in her attic. When the other firemen were pouring kerosene over the books, getting ready to burn them Montag stole one. He put the offensive book under his jacket and in doing so saved it from being burnt.

When Montag got home he revealed to Mildred the stolen book. He opened up the air vent in his room and exposed 20 more books! Mildred was horrified, and gathered the books so she could burn them in her incinerator. Montag ordered Mildred to stop and said he wanted to read the books. He reasoned the authors must have spent their whole lives writing a book and therefore the books must be worth reading. Some people were willing to die for the ideas and opinions in these books, and Montag wanted to figure out why.

Mildred, like most of the society, took no interest in Montag's books. She knew that if she did, she could be sent to jail. Mildred did not want to risk ruining her reputation, or loosing her house and TV walls. After Montag realized that Mildred would be of no help to him, he decided to talk to someone. Montag needed someone who would be aware of what he was going through, and could help him understand the books. Montag recalled an elderly man, by the name of Faber, he met in the park years ago. Faber told Montag that he was once a literary professor and he loved books. Montag went to Faber's house to visit him there. He brought with him one of his stolen books; the Bible.

Faber eventually helped Montag in his quest to change the society. He told him that this couldn't be done quickly, but rather after a long period of time. Montag and Faber then began to discuss a plan to change society's views. They decided to place copies of books in firemen's homes. Then they would have the homes burnt. This would cause unease within the system and hopefully cause its demise.

This book is about a society similar to ours. They have censored everything possibly offesive, thus only keeping the facts. The society is terrified of stepping on the toes of minorities for fear that they will rebel. They believe the bigger your market, the less you have to handle controversy. The public doesn't want to read anything that might offend someone. This aspect of Montag's society sounds frighteningly like ours. People watch what they say in public so as not to offend anyone. Montag's society grew to hate books because they might cause an uprising. What their society wanted above all, was for everyone to be happy. The story of Fahrenheit 451 is of the coming of age of Guy Montag. It is about his heroic efforts to restore civilization to it's thinking. This was an astounding book, and it is great for people who like action, controversy, and to think about life.

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Summary: As topical now as ever
Review: Reading this book for the first time at the beginning of 2003, I found it remarkable that a novel about the suppression of information in an oppressive police state stands as a powerful critique of the assaults on freedom and personal liberty that the U.S. Government is now engaged in in the name of protecting its citizenry from terrorists.

Who exactly are the terrorists? In the view of the shadowy government represented in the novel, they are those who hoard and protect forbidden printed works, and they are those members of an underground information subculture that commits works of literature to memory in the hope that one day, the printed page will be welcome again.

In the post-9/11 America of George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, the terrorists can be anyone with a foreign-sounding last name. Even blameless American citizens are suspect. Under a provision of the USA Patriot Act, the government can force public libraries to hand over records about what books anyone has checked out, and they've furthermore made it a crime for the libraries to inform those whose library records have been invoked.

Bradbury depicts a nation in which individuality is frowned upon, in which the government is deeply suspicious of its own citizenry, in which suspected "criminals" can be hunted and murdered by the state without a trial, in which content is spoon-fed to the public. In light of news stories reporting on the Total Information Awareness project in development by the NSA, how much of this can be taken as fiction? How long will it be before the cautionary tales of Bradbury and Orwell and Huxley become a nightmare reality?