2020 EDIT:
Upon rereading:
The writing is as great as I remember. 'Fahrenheit 451' is a quick and hotly (pun unintended) passionate read. My original review still stands, though I will add that the mechanical Hound is a chilling and frightening adversary; silent and deadly. Also, the book isn't the friendliest towards women - yeah, big surprise coming from a book from the fifties - and there is not a single female poet and writer referenced or quoted, when there are loads of literary works by men throughout history mentioned. How hypocritical in a story all about condemning censorship and erasure; meaning, condemning prolonging ignorance.
However, the writing by Ray Bradbury is lovely, and the topics are further relevant than they ever were. As is the case with nearly all classic and current dystopian novels.
Final Score: 3.5/5
Original Review:
Another great classic by Ray Bradbury. Almost elegantly written, I was immersed in the prose, the flawed characters, and the dystopian society I could believe.
I don't own a Kindle, and I don't really want to own one. I love hardback and paperback books too much. They're always there on the shelves when I want them - at home and in gloriously dusty libraries and bookshops - to touch, to flick through pages, to hug. By burning them, literally and figuratively, something of importance to the human race is lost, as Mr Bradbury thought and feared. Now I'm not saying electronic books are bad and don't have their positive outcomes and advantages, and I'm not technophobic. So lest I sound like a grumpy old woman, I'll just say that they're not for me.
'Fahrenheit 451' is a cautionary tale about people's over-reliance on new age technology and substances that make life easier, with not much knowledge or real happiness gained. The 1954 novel takes this concept to a disturbing extreme: the extreme of censorship. People are unfulfilled, but are told that books bring depression and discord, and that ignorance equals world peace. Fire and the colour red are used as symbols.
Individualism is also an issue presented, as part of the message about over-consumption and flocking like sheep for the slaughter to whatever is popular at the moment. Plus the firemen, blackened in the face and hands from burning books, all may look and act the same...
The main negative I can really say about 'Fahrenheit 451' is that I am disappointed the character Clarisse disappears so early in the story, never to be seen again. She's great, and could have achieved more in her role as the fireman protag's opposite in life. Slight potential wasted there, but I liked the protagonist Guy Montag enough to spend all the book with. The ending could have had a bit more to it as well.
'Fahrenheit 451' is not as powerful as, say, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'. However with its beat-by-beat pacing and insights (and did I mention already the poetic writing flows with ease?), it is a passionate entry to the dystopia genre.
It teaches how and why books and old records are necessities to human society and memory. Similar to what is taught in 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' - censoring/altering history means altering the present, resulting in no one learning from past mistakes.
Final Score: 4/5
Other reviews:
'The most skillfully drawn of all science fiction's conformist hells' - Kingsley Amis
'A disturbing tale that explores the maxim "ignorance is bliss" to its fullest' - The Times
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