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Fahrenheit 451 (平装)
by Ray Bradbury
| Category:
Fiction, Sci-Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 98.00
MSL price:
¥ 88.00
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A spooky and yet uplifting book that describes a future world dreadfully lacking emotion, human connection, and intellectual depth. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 11 items |
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The New York Times (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Frightening in its implications... Mr. Bradbury's account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating. |
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Amy (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
There are some books that no matter how long ago you've read them, details from the story stick in your mind. Farenheit 451 was like that for me. I was 15 when I first checked it out from the high school library. I hadn't really gotten very far into the book when a cute guy noticed I was carrying it around school. "Good book," he commented. "Yeah, I'm still reading it," I answered. Wow, I thought, approval from an older guy. That gave me the incentive to finish what turned out to be one of the most important sf novels ever written.
It's been more than 20 years since I've spoken to but I'll always feel
grateful to him whenever I hear about bookburnings. His tiny bit of
encouragement introduced me to one of the genre's finest writers. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
The reason that Fahrenheit 451 is such a great book can be a hard one to pin down, though the fact that it is goes without question.
It is the story of a fireman, Guy Montag, who faces a crisis when he begins to question his whole way of life after a chance encounter with a young woman on his street. After this first, casual meeting, he begins to re-examine his relationship with his wife in contrast to the familiar, warm relationship that the girl has with her family- instead of this loving type of exchange, Guy finds that his closest relation, his wife, spends all day with the three-walled 'family' that barks constantly at her from a script, but that never bothers to actually say anything. From these estranged roots, Guy turns to look at the thing that he is destroying and that he has been taught to hate- books. This curiosity gets him into trouble quickly, forcing him out of the life that he knows and into one of panic, flight, and eventual banishment... though even this is a blessing in disguise.
The novel works from the basis of a phenomenon that has occurred in literature in recent years - that of the utopia gone bad, something that Thomas Moore never could have imagined. In this growing canon of literature you will find such venerable titles as 1984, We, Anthem, and Brave New World... what separates 451 from these is its focus on the specific problem of entertainment as a venue to the masses. What happens when the government controls our books, our television, our inputs? What happens when we close our minds off to literature because it is going to offend someone, somewhere? What happens when we become so PC that we burn The Merchant of Venice because it might offend Jews, Roots because it might make whites look bad, and Huckleberry Finn because it might make blacks uncomfortable?
Bradbury attempts to answer this question, albeit indirectly- true, no one can be offended if these things are removed, but neither can anyone learn and grow. Life, civilization, everything- it all becomes stagnant, sliding slowly away to meaningless interactions that amount to nothing. Bradbury does not tell us that our point is to go around offending but rather that in order to function, we must push one another. Life, love, happiness... none of these happen without passion, fire, intensity... all of those emotions which flow might step on someone's toes, true, but they are necessary to be human.
The novel tackles this with an unforgiving brutal bent to those who would censor and suppress anything that might make a person think. Captain Beatty is the epitome of the problem, though even in his final thoughts he seems to be full of a sort of self-loathing. This character, along with several others, leads the reader to examine the different sides of the issue at hand, trying to discern which approach is most appropriate.
In doing this Bradbury achieves what the intent of the novel is- to make us think about and examine our own views on what art (specifically literature, but it can be generalized) is and what place it has in society. Should it be censored? Should it be controlled (as in Plato's Republic)?
The fact that the novel encourages these questions in such a short span (a little over 100 pages) is a testament to Ray Bradbury's brilliance as a novelist... it is also the reason that you, the potential reader, should make sure to pick up a copy and tear through it (it can be finished in a single day, easily). By doing so, you will be facing what are still very relevant problems in our modern day and time.
Bottom line: this book is considered a modern classic for good reason. It has all the elements - ideas, execution, style, substance - and should not be missed.
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James (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Ray Bradbury's 1953 phantasmagoric blockbuster Fahrenheit 451, written at the height of the fabulist's authorial powers, is a tale of a world gone mad, a topsy-turvy America in which black leather-clad firemen race laughing on their steely Salamanders on midnight alarms, not to quench fires but to start them.
The firemen of the nightmare world of Fahrenheit 451, of which the novel's hero Guy Montag is a dedicated one, comprise an army turned against an enemy far more insidious than Flame: they mobilize against ideas, and turn their napalm hoses on the feeble paper on which those subversive ideas are printed, and on the vulnerable binding in which the paper is housed.
When I first read Fahrenheit 451 nearly two decades ago, I felt beaten down, nauseated and fatigued. I believed then, and believe now, that it was the most scarily bleak and mercilessly depressing book I had ever read. Even then, I felt the cushion between Bradbury's 24th century nightmare and what we call modern reality was thin and worn.
Bradbury gave us until the 24th century to submerge ourselves in the dark, sedated, media-slaked night of Fahrenheit 451. Looking around me, I have come to the conclusion that Bradbury was a pretty optimstic guy.
Like Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian vision, a glimpse into a future America that is frighteningly familiar and yet horribly wrong. It is a technologically advanced, subtle, sophisticated world, full of high-definition television screens that take up an entire wall and beam 24 hour programming to a vacant and eager television audience, 24-hour Reality programming that serves up a TV "Family" more engaging, more lifelike, more agreeable, than their own.
This is a world where bored, vacuous housewives exchange barbs on the latest presidential contenders laced with observations on which candidate is the most handsome, and which has the most noticeable (to the Television Audience, naturally) facial bunion or boil. It is a world of 'seashells', tiny earphones designed to nest in the inner ear and breathe a sussurus of music into the mind of a medicated listener.
Like his English counterparts Huxley and Orwell, Bradbury has served up a soft tyrannical state manned, not by the zealous, but by zombies. It is a world ruled by the media-addicted, the apathetic, the listless, the medicated, the overdosed, the sleeping. Books have been banned, and consigned to the Flame, not because of a despotic regime, but by the common, courteous consensus of a modern democracy desperately eager not to give offense to anyone.
Sound familiar?
Much like 1984, Fahrenheit 451 works because it drills down on an unlikely protagonist. Guy Montag, at least when we meet him, sincerely loves his job. His fellow firemen are not zealots or fascists, but simply pragmatic working men who enjoy what they do. There are unpleasant aspects to the work, naturally - among them the incineration of an old eccentric woman who prefers to die with her beloved books - but like most of Fahrenheit 451's society, Montag prefers not to think about it. Take a pill, or better still take two - and don't call me in the morning. For Montag, truly, it is a 'pleasure to burn'.
Like most revolutionaries, though, Guy Montag is simmering from within; dissatisifed with his wife, whose stomach must be pumped on the very evening he returns from the euphoria of the Burn; dissatisifed with the apathetic society in which he lives; dissatisfied with a job which fails to give expression to the rebel soul that burns within, that impels him to challenge his wife's brazen, flippant friends.
There are three catalysts that propel Montag to rebellion: the girl Clarisse, whom he befriends; the immolation of the old woman at the Fire; and his own clandestine book collection.
Fahrenheit 451 succeeds as both jeremiad and prophecy, true, but it also engages because Bradbury is a literary master: his spare, mechanical narrative of Montag's wife having her stomach pumped by two callous, dirty, jocular technicians practically breathes pure horror, and is one of the most soul-deadening passages I have ever read.
But 451 also succeeds because it is a mirror of our own increasingly apathetic, violent, media-saturated world: is it so hard to see ourselves in Montag's trackless, cookie-cutter suburban landscape where bookish teenage girls are run down beneath the wheels of speeding pranksters, themselves bored and looking for the cheap thrill of ultra-violence? Is it so hard to see ourselves in the avidity of the Television Audience, watching the panicked, doomed, frantic rictus face of the condemned man stalked by the mechanical Hound, the images of his death broadcast back by the electronic antennaes on the monster's back? Isn't that merely COPS or "Survivor" with a bite?
I've seen the Future, and it works. Because it is our world I see, our world upon us - for that reason, Fahrenheit 451 is the most terrifying book I have ever read.
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Torin Rozzelle (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
It is an interesting thing to review an American classic, and furthermore to review a book by an literary legend. That being said, it is apparent to anyone who has read the novel of why exactly it is a classic. Bradbury is among those authors from the golden age of science fiction writing. The early to mid 20th century saw a surge of scifi writers, the most prominent standing out from among the crowd to bestow upon us today's required readings. No sarcasm there, infact moreso enthusiasm. Huxley, Orwell, and Bradbury (and the even earlier Wells) have all produced standing classics which are used by many facilities to teach. It is truly a wonderful thing.
Bradbury's book begins with a recount of the passion and the draw to burning. As a foreshadow, thiese paragraphs seek to write about a fireman in a futuristic dystopian society (dystopian in the quality of mental freedom). The society has, over time, allowed provisions to be made that completely cut out freedom of thought. However, the frightening thing deals with how they do this. Instead of just restricting books and other forms of published media, they have distracted the general public by means of electronic trickery. An advanced and much more frightening form of brainwash, the citizens are too caught up with "their family" (the referred is actually those on the television, whom they've become so ingrained with that they spend most of the day watching) to care about much else. This works for most, but not all, as humannature dictates. There are those behind the scenes, taking care of the dirty work.
Enter Guy Montag, a fireman with the local fire department. Unlike modern convention, firemen in this futuristic nightmare are set out to burn the aformentioned media. They carry bottle of kerosene, the adversary to their predecessors, and threaten to burn anyone who posesses printed literature. However, Montag dissents when he reads a book that he swiped and he begins to slowly support those who he has hunted for the past years. His captain, Beatty, is a fierce man with a sharp wit. He completely understands Montag's position, as he has lived it, however he sides strongly with the belief that books are the root of all evil and that by destroying them, the government is doing the people a favor. He twists the situation of brainwash into sounding almost appeasing.
Bradbury wrote the book in an amazing fashion. Taken from the life of "he who burns the books" (or the character who's job creates the actual problem), the story follows Montag into his general dissent and being hunted by those he previously worked for. Bradbury uses an amalgam of characters to shape our perception of this world, everything from the foundation upon his societal institution was based to the hidden war that is being waged. Without giving away too much information, it is sufficient to say that the conflict is resolves in a satisfying manner. One would suspect that such an occurence would happen during the upstart of such a ruled society, and I was pleased to see it concluded in that manner. |
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Tipps (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Many other people have already said that they liked the book, but I really have to say, this is one of the most brilliant stories of all time. From the first sentence “It was a pleasure to burn” to the end, I couldn't put this down. It's almost poetic, you don't get stuck in bogged down writing full of unimportant details. This book is an extremely easy read, yet it is a hundred times more impactful than a 500 page book that takes you weeks to finish. Sure, you'll think about that while you're reading it, but this book will come back to haunt you years down the line.
For a story written so long ago, it's frightening that society has done nothing to prove it wrong. This is a classic story about censorship that manages to enforce its point without sounding at all preachy. It encourages thought. I wish they had made me read this in school, surely this would strike a chord in many people bored by the onslought of bad shakespeare movies. Hopefully this story serves as a cautionary tale to the people of today. Our TV's keep getting bigger, our music more portable, our transportation faster, but it feels like, in our need for speed, we're leaving the important things behind.
To conclude, this is a brilliant story, even who people who read but once a year. While it's simple to understand, It's one of the most profound things that you'll ever read.
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Adam (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
I'll admit it, in the interest of full disclosure: I don't like Ray Bradbury. Not so much his work, but him. His quasi-luddite persona that distrusts ATMs but dreams of flying cars, his palpable (and occasionally justified) pretentiousness that allowed him to transcend pulp sci-fi in the 50s while still pandering to that crowd. That out of the way...
Fahrenheit 451 is an excellent book for a high school sophomore/junior about the dangers of anti-intellectualism and censorship. It is a bracing look at what such policy might lead to. It's fairly well-reasoned and it remains gripping throughout. On the other hand, however, it lacks the sort of over-arching philosophy that can be found in other dystopias. Although it's a great way to get into the subgenre, it's by no means the only or best word upon the subject. It happens to be oversimplified and narrow in focus.
It is also, though, excessively didactic. There's very little nuance here, and it's none too subtle about getting across its message. It doesn't quite match up to 1984 and Brave New World, both of which ponder higher philosophical questions and give us plausible scenarios in which the human spirit is broken. In fact, 1984 is now only really significant in its portrait of humanity, since the state it depicts is no longer achievable (I guess Orwell never thought that it would be companies and individuals and not the government who would develop computer technology). Brave New World is the most prophetic of all, largely because it depicts the final showdown of the human spirit and the wheels of society not as a bang, but a whimper, with people so preoccupied with sex and drugs that they just push out thoughts when they come.
In fact, Fahrenheit 451 is not all that prophetic. As a warning sign, sure, it retains currency, but it was written before the sexual revolution and the civil rights movement, in Eisenhower's America, where paranoia over Red invasion and Soviet spies like the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss made such private invasion seems inevitable in the name of preserving liberty. In fact, restrictions on expression have been almost infinitely eased since 1954. The Supreme Court under Earl Warren began to strike down state obscenity laws prohibiting mostly porn, but also avant-garde films, to the point now where they're all gone. I'm not about to argue that the arts now are more vital and important than they ever have been, but it helps when the most popular show on TV is The Sopranos when it used to be All in the Family. Now, much more than ever, we live in a society where the minority is free to say what they wish, thanks to the Internet, the great equalizer. That these voices don't all make it into the mainstream is the fault of the media corporations and the anti-intellectual public, not moral queasiness by the majority. In fact, looking at the 50's, with the Hollywood Ten who went to prison for refusing to answer questions about Communists, where being a Communist and speaking out against the government (in some circumstances) were crimes, and Joe McCarthy decrying such people as Arthur Miller and Defense Secretary George C. Marshall as Communists, it is difficult to argue that censorship has worsened. In every measureable respect, things have gotten much better. That's not to say that tomorrow it might go the other way, but it hasn't and it probably won't.
In spite of the recent Ray Bradbury renaissance, we need to put all of his work into context. The outwardly-happy-inwardly-freaked-out 1950s led to many great artistic works, like On the Waterfront and film Noir, as well as great popular works, like The Twilight Zone, all of which had underneath them the peculiar paranoia of the time. Fahrenheit 451 is no different, and I would implore you to read it and take this into account. It is highly readable, but let's be honest about its impact and accuracy as prediction. |
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John Morgan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
In this classic book, Ray Bradbury paints a picture of a future society where it is actually a crime to read. Before you laugh at the thought, seriously think of how, in many ways, reading is actually becoming more and more discouraged. Every day you read where in school libraries certain books are considered as being "unfit" reading material for young adults. Books are becoming more and more a thing of the past. Have you gone into a library lately? Just 20 years ago, when I was in my late teens, libraries used to be filled with people and now they look like ghost towns. A lot of libraries across the country have been closed down.
In the book the firemen do not put out fires, they start them. 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature that book paper burns. That is an actual fact. The protagonist of the story, is fireman Guy Montag who is at a point in his life where he is really beginning to question what he does for a living. He really doesn't know why books are being burned, he just does it. Sounds like a lot of us, doesn't it? Sometimes we find ourselves doing things or believing things not because we have personally investigated the matter, but we do it because everyone else is doing it, or because we don't feel that we have a choice in the matter. I tell you this, and this may be a little difficult for some of you people to hear, but in every situation we are in, we always have a choice.
What are we choosing to do when we hear that schools are banning certain books? What are we choosing to do when libraries are being shut down? What are we choosing to do when other forms of media are taking over reading? I have a couple of friends who are in their late 30s, early 40s, who actually admitted to me recently that they do not like to read. I found it completely appalling.
Without our knowing it, we are gradually making it easier and easier for the "authorities" to decide for us; this book isn't just a piece of fiction, it's a warning. A lot of things in this book have already come true. I'm not going to tell you what they are because I want you to read the book, but it's almost kind of frightening that we, as a supposedly "advanced" society have allowed these things to come to pass.
When we let others tell us what to believe, how to believe, what to read, how to think, we give away our original power. One must become a "soul-rebel". One must learn to protect those things that rightfully ours to express. We cannot let others do our thinking. We cannot let others tell us what to believe. We cannot let "authorities" decide what we are to read. Make no mistake about it; this is an extremely dangerous book. I suggest you read it before it, too, is gone from sight.
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A kid’s review (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Fahrenheit 451 is a book of adventure and finding the truth. Guy Montag was never happy. He was a fire fighter, a person who burns books and had everything he would ever need to be happy. But something is missing and all Montag wants to do is figure it out. Could the books he has been destroying all these years be what have been missing in his life? Is knowledge the power that Montag needs? Fahrenheit 451 is a book that will open your eyes and make you realize how much the little things you have in your life mean.
Guy Montag is a true hero who battles against himself and the way of the world to find the truth. Montag was a firefighter who started reading the books instead of burning them. His wife never loved him and Beatty is out to get him. But this doesn't stop Montag. He kills Beatty with a flame thrower and then proceeds to run from the law until they kill an innocent bystander to make a good television show. Now Montag is just one of the few that must rebuild the world.
This book shows just how much we should appreciate the things we have, like books. People committed suicide everyday because they could not take the pain. Something was missing from their lives, and Montag discovers that books are what his life is missing. His wife, Mildred tries to kill herself by overdosing because she can't take the hurt. The book teaches you to appreciate the things you have in your life and how much it hurts when they are gone.
Fahrenheit 451 is a book that makes you realize where our world may be going. Books and newspapers are being dumbed down so that nobody will be offended or discriminated against. Just like in the book, could the pain from the missing of good literature cause people to be unhappy and eventually commit suicide? Could we become like the people in the book?
Fahrenheit 451 is an eye opening book that makes you appreciate what you have. Montag had no idea what he was missing until he began reading books. This book opens your eyes to the dangers of not having good literature and how the little things in life are never fully appreciated until they are gone. Everyone should read this book at least once in their life.
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Jennifer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-05 00:00>
Ray Bradbury, one of the most celebrated authors of all time, paints a very frightening and vivid picture of what life would be like if we were not allowed to read books. In this futuristic society, firemen do not put out fires - they start them.
Fahrenheit 451 has survived the test of time. Although written in 1953 about an advanced society that is threatened by the imagination and the knowledge that can be gained from reading, decades later this book still parallels some of the struggles that we must face in society every day. Fahrenheit 451 is a classic tale of censorship and the harm that it can cause when man is forced to take on his own battle between knowledge and ignorance.
Guy Montag has been a fireman for 10 years and considers himself to be relatively happy with his career and the way he has chosen to live his life. He has never questioned the ritual burning of books, the constant television watching or the rules set by government and society.
This all changes when Montag meets Clarisse - a 17-year-old girl who is fascinated with books and the sacred art of reading. She tells Montag of a time when books were not burned, and firemen were hired to save homes and lives from fire - not to start the fire themselves. Even though Montag knows that reading is illegal, he cannot help but be drawn to the passion that books bring to the people that read them secretly.
After Clarisse mysteriously disappears, Montag takes a deep look at himself. He begins to question his actions, society and happiness. Struggling with following his own morals yet still obeying the laws, Montag finds himself caught in a web of confusion. His descent from society begins with hiding books in his home, but before long he is running away with a group of outlaws that have made it their mission to memorize books in order to prevent future generations from missing out on knowledge and the stories of mankind's journeys through time.
Fahrenheit 451 is a must-read book - definitely one of the best Bradbury books that you will ever get your hands on. This tale of irony, censorship and societal constraints will follow generations for years to come until one day they too are faced with challenges not much different than this one. |
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