Farenheit 451 - possible spoilers

i read this twice while i was away;

i spent the flight home thinking about it and what questions i wanted to ask the Book Club in regards to the book. I am struggling to narrow it down to just a few questions though here are a few but i am hoping that the discussion will open up a lot more

a) how close do you think todays society is to the books fictional society
b) what were your thoughts on the characters, were they well formed?

c) what is your interpretation of the book

the reason i am struggling with the questions for this book are
this book was unlike any other book i have ever read, it made me look at my life very closely and i do not like what i see. I loved this book, and i will probabley read i again and again and find something new each time i read it. this book made me cry with how much we as a society seem to have lost but also to see how close it mirrored my own life. And i do not apologise for the drama of any statement i make in this review, as i feel very strongly about this book


a)i believe with great sadness that we are more at less coming to or have arrived at the point where the book takes place. I walk to work and i see people with the ipods in, each in their own world, walking past people as if they dont exist. I see people watching their TV and taking it for fact what they are told, i see these same people get so angry and sad at fictional lives yet ignore their neighbours who are in need.

i see people ridiculed for their knowledge, for reading books, for not fitting the normal. I see stupidity rewarded and honoured.

b) i loved the characters in this book, i see people i know in every character in the book. and i weep because of it

c) the book is not about censorship in my eyes, the book is a warning to us about how we can ignore the people we love the most in favour of strangers. How intelligence is muted by todays 'entertainment'

i am really looking forward to reading other peoples views on this book and to see if anyone else was touched as i was by it?

does nobody want to discuss this book?:cry:

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Originally Posted by candy

does nobody want to discuss this book?:cry:

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It is a great book, but i read it to many years ago to give an objective opinion...
I remember that i felt sad for the similitudes between our world and this "fictional" world about what the society refers...
Sorry i could not been more expresive

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Originally Posted by candy

does nobody want to discuss this book?:cry:

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Never fear. :) Sure do! Just give me a little more time, okay? (& I don't doubt that some others will jump in any minute, now. :D ) Thanks for contributing, candy.

**ETA** --

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Originally Posted by Dagavidiab

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Originally Posted by candy

does nobody want to discuss this book?:cry:

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It is a great book, but i read it to many years ago to give an objective opinion...
I remember that i felt sad for the similitudes between our world and this "fictional" world about what the society refers...
Sorry i could not been more expresive

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See what'd I tell ya? :D

I loved this book, but like others, i haven't read it in years. It also reminded me of A Brave New World, insomuch as it told a cautionary tale of what might be with where our civilization is heading.

you posting this has made me want to bring it back out and give it a reread. :)

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Originally Posted by candy

does nobody want to discuss this book?:cry:

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what path said

bears are going away now for another week, will post when they're back!

::huggling bear::

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thank you all for coming back to me:rose:

i shall wait with anticipation for you to finish reading:grouphug:

I love this book, but I'm not ever really good at book discussion. It's hard for me to find something about it that hasn't been said before.

:couple:thats ok brice, i was just getting a little panicky that no one liked this book

I love it. I love everything Mr. Bradbury writes.

As I said I'm not good at discussion of books (I know, strange since this is essentially a site devoted to books :lol:), but I'll try to answer the questions soon.

I watched a film few years ago, and this thread reminded me on how good it was. so,right now im reading a book for a first time, and its really good. :)

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Originally Posted by klio

I watched a film few years ago, and this thread reminded me on how good it was. so,right now im reading a book for a first time, and its really good. :)

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YEAH!:clap: come back and let me know you thoughts when you have read it. I love this book, as you may be able to tell from my post above and i am going to re read it as soon as i get through my re read of the dark tower:cowboy:

You might think that since this Book Club has already discussed 1984 and Catch-22, (and did you ever wonder why these great distopian novels all have numbers in their titles? :lol: ) as well as Something Wicked This Way Comes, that it might make this easier. Ironically, tho, it seems to make it that much harder to say just what it is that make F451 special. :orely:

I grew up on Bradbury, Heinlein, Silverberg, Jules Verne and others.

My mother was a librarian and I spent many hours in there reading (no money for baby sitters back then) Sci-fi.

Many of those authors had a remarkable insight as to what our world would be like today.

Hard to imagine a world without books.:cry:

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Originally Posted by Quicksilver

Hard to imagine a world without books.:cry:

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and yet to some people this is already a fact. I know a lot of people who seem strangely proud of the fact they have not read a book since school. I think its really sad.

for example how can someone really get into the head of a character, lets say...harry potter, a newish character. The books are really long but the films skip a lot of what happens, people are not using their brains to imagine things anymore, what someone looks like, what a setting look like etc. And thats just the fiction side of the argument

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Originally Posted by Quicksilver

My mother was a librarian and I spent many hours in there reading (no money for baby sitters back then) Sci-fi.

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I'm hating my mom!!! Why couldn't she be a librarian too????

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Originally Posted by candy

a) how close do you think todays society is to the books fictional society
i believe with great sadness that we are more at less coming to or have arrived at the point where the book takes place. I walk to work and i see people with the ipods in, each in their own world, walking past people as if they dont exist. I see people watching their TV and taking it for fact what they are told, i see these same people get so angry and sad at fictional lives yet ignore their neighbours who are in need.

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Yes, I do, too. I think that we are in trouble. It’s very true-to-life. Another point which I find moving: Montag’s early ignorance. That really is how people work. He burned books for a living, without the least consideration… but how many of us ever consider things like children making the shoes that we sell, for example? :(

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Originally Posted by candy

c) the book is not about censorship in my eyes, the book is a warning to us about how we can ignore the people we love the most in favour of strangers. How intelligence is muted by todays 'entertainment'

i am really looking forward to reading other peoples views on this book and to see if anyone else was touched as i was by it?

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Cause and effect. I think that it is not just speculating about what kind of society would have to arise for the classics to be censored -- it is a case of speculating about what kind of society would be left without them.

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"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who can’t."

~ Mark Twain

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Many despots destroyed books and archives after coming to power.....an old adage states that "history is written by the victors".

One of the most famous (or infamous if you prefer) destruction of books was carried out after Hitler came to power in Germany......many images of books being burned in public by his storm troopers are archived. Maybe they will serve as a warning.

While modern methods of preserving data is awesome I recently read an article that stated that huge amounts of information has been lost because the means to retrieve it has become obsolete. I have an archive of material and photos on discs that I can no longer view because none of my new puters have disc drives.

I actually have stuff on the old big floppy discs.

Maybe I should invest in a disc drive before they quit making them.

When I was on active duty (Army) my office lost a huge amount of our archives when a server crashed and they had not backed the info up. Many of my personal pics that were stored on the hard drive of my puter dissappeared into cyber space.

Ref the main character in "451" he is/was a classic example of a public servant who was "just following orders". He had never know any difference and that is what is scary about mindless obedience to authority.

Lots of Nazis had their necks stretched because they were "just following orders".

"Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."

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Originally Posted by candy

a) how close do you think todays society is to the books fictional society
b) what were your thoughts on the characters, were they well formed?
c) what is your interpretation of the book

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A) I believe that today's society is extremely close to the one portrayed in the book. The "cousins" mimic the online personalities we all have, while our societies' dependence on television and visual mediums increases. Being just out of high school (one year out), I can tell you that students and teachers are relying less on books and moreso on videos to help learn. Unfortunately, I was one of four people I knew who legitimately read novels (and I'm counting dozens of people in that).

B) I absolutely loved the characters. My favorite being Clarisse McClellan. Obviously, I loved Montag, as well, but Clarisse was so unique in a world of clones. I think I could connect with her the most out of all the characters, but I think Bradbury intended it to be that way for most of us.

C) I believe that the book is about censorship (obviously) as well as a need for social reform. Unless we can somehow make thinking into a necessity of life for my generation, then we will end up exactly like the society in the book. It is my firm belief that my generation will be the deciding factor in whether or not this horrid vision of the future plays out, and I would be ashamed to say that I sat back and didn't have my say about it.

SS that really saddens me about the schooling, i just shake my head. where is society heading if we can not even use the book as a learning tool within schools!!! how many school leavers in coming years will have lost the ability or the inclination to read:scared:

Dunno what else to say. Still looking forward to hearing promised criticisms from Jean. Maybe we can greatly extend this thread if we can get some real contentious debate going. :lol:
One point which I'd have to grant is that this novel is perhaps a little padded. As great as the conception is, it might have sufficed as no more than a short story. The latter half of F451 has a great deal of florid prose with little purpose.

Ok, I will try to address each of the questions posted.

a) how close do you think todays society is to the books fictional society. This is hard to answer. In some ways, I think our society has progressed much further than Bradbury ever conceived. Technologically that is. In other ways, we've not yet realized Bradbury's vision, and hopefully never will (The spider-hound things come to mind) However, with respect to what I perceive as the question's intent, a comparison of our social structure and associated mores and taboos, I think that our society is very much what Bradbury envisioned, and feared. The world has gone and gotten itself in a big damn hurry. There is time made only for things which would stimulate financial progress. The arts in general, and books specifically have given way to self-help, work-at-home, save-on-your-taxes infommercials, and the like. I think that leaps in technology has made us lazy, not only in the physical sense, but in the mental sense as well. There is no imagination anymore. We do not need to be imaginative, we need only to turn on the TV and allow someone else's thoughts and imagination entertain our idle brains. I think that this was the fear that drove Mr. Bradbury to write this story.

b) what were your thoughts on the characters, were they well formed? I thought that the character development as a whole was lacking. But, I'm not sure that that is a complete negative, as this is not a character driven story. This is more about collective society, that any one character, and to that end, I think that the book is still a success. That said, I would have liked to have a little more insight into Montag's head. His transition from it being "a pleasure to burn" to his risking his life to save a book was muddy at best. I wanted to learn more about what changed his mind, as it is these thoughts that might save us from our progressive decline.

c) what is your interpretation of the book - I really enjoyed the book, although not nearly as much as other Bradbury that I have read. I was intrigued by the Montag, but did not really understand his motives, either as a firefighter or as a reformist. I did not feel empathetic to any of the characters at all, as they were all pretty poorly defined, but I did identify with society as a whole and was saddened by how this fictional society mirrors our own. I thought that many of Bradbury's attempts at describing a technologically advanced society were rather silly and out of place, but his description of the human condition was spot on.

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Originally Posted by pathoftheturtle

this novel is perhaps a little padded. As great as the conception is, it might have sufficed as no more than a short story

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It was a short story in the first draft. Bradbury tried to sell it, and the only way to get it seriously published was to extend it by about double it's length; changing it from a short story to a novel (or, more aptly, a novella).

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Originally Posted by BROWNINGS CHILDE

That said, I would have liked to have a little more insight into Montag's head. His transition from it being "a pleasure to burn" to his risking his life to save a book was muddy at best. I wanted to learn more about what changed his mind, as it is these thoughts that might save us from our progressive decline.

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I think I've read 1984 and Little Brother enough times, and bear so much love for them, that it was easy to connect Montag to Winston and Marcus (a.k.a. w1n5t0n, a.k.a. M1k3y). In that respect, I didn't need much more background or insight into his head; I had all the background I needed! To me, the characters were as fleshed-out as they needed to be.

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Originally Posted by SynysterSaint

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Originally Posted by BROWNINGS CHILDE

That said, I would have liked to have a little more insight into Montag's head. His transition from it being "a pleasure to burn" to his risking his life to save a book was muddy at best. I wanted to learn more about what changed his mind, as it is these thoughts that might save us from our progressive decline.

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I think I've read 1984 and Little Brother enough times, and bear so much love for them, that it was easy to connect Montag to Winston and Marcus (a.k.a. w1n5t0n, a.k.a. M1k3y). In that respect, I didn't need much more background or insight into his head; I had all the background I needed! To me, the characters were as fleshed-out as they needed to be.

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Interesting concept, using character development from different novels, written by different authors, to "flesh out" other characters.

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Originally Posted by BROWNINGS CHILDE

Interesting concept, using character development from different novels, written by different authors, to "flesh out" other characters.

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I know it sounds a bit off, but if you look at the characters themselves, then you'll see that there are some important similarities. Some of the plot elements that change Winston and Marcus into their subversive characters happen on a similar level to Montag. The three of them go through a similar level of growth (the same type of growth, for the most part), and two of them even go through it with literature (Winston has The Book, Montag has the Bible, if I remember right)! Marcus, on the other hand, uses the internet since it's set in modern time. I think the references to other subversive novels is fairly obvious, the heaviest of which being 1984, and, like all good authors, I believe Bradbury used Winston as a character model for Montag. And I know for a fact that Doctorow got the idea for Marcus from Winston, so therefore Montag can be seen as a variation of Marcus.

Sorry if that was a bit confusing ><

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Originally Posted by SynysterSaint

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Originally Posted by pathoftheturtle

this novel is perhaps a little padded. As great as the conception is, it might have sufficed as no more than a short story

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It was a short story in the first draft. Bradbury tried to sell it, and the only way to get it seriously published was to extend it by about double it's length; changing it from a short story to a novel (or, more aptly, a novella).

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It shows. Still, I think it's better for society than never publishing it in any form at all would have been.

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Originally Posted by BROWNINGS CHILDE

...what were your thoughts on the characters, were they well formed? I thought that the character development as a whole was lacking. But, I'm not sure that that is a complete negative, as this is not a character driven story. ...

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Perhaps, but I think that candy asked because she was impressed with Mildred. She didn't show much signs in the book of any kind of personal evolution, but I do think that she was a well-formed character, and the human drama between she and Guy really is one of the most interesting facets of this novel.

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Originally Posted by Mike Beck

I loved this book, but like others, i haven't read it in years. It also reminded me of A Brave New World...

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You know, on second thought, that comparison just might be more apt than 1984, really. Since we do seem to have a trend here, maybe BNW should be our next book. :)

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Originally Posted by pathoftheturtle

It shows. Still, I think it's better for society than never publishing it in any form at all would have been.

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I couldn't agree more!

Posting this five years after the last post but, whatever.

I am always told that Fahrenheit is about suppressing information, which the book did not seem to be about to me. I think the idea of 'burning books' in a historical sense is all about ridding the world of information and ideas that a society or government felt to be harmful. I interpreted Fahrenheit 451 not to be about suppression of anything, but of a society which simply moved on from art. When you look at today's society where plenty of people don't read books, are proud not to read books, about the plethora of vapid, mindless entertainments that exist and how meaningful art has been almost pushed to the boundaries of society, this novel is more timely to me than 1984 (we are our own big brother now lol HELLO SOCIAL MEDIA, how you doin?)

Guy Montag's wife loves her parlor, with the wall-sized television screens, and her complete absorption in them, as she watches 'the family', was like Bradbury saw reality TV coming. Instead of spending her time watching film, she is watching life instead of living it, and get involved with the lives of those she watches. Was the advent of television, or in my interpretation reality television, a huge factor in art going by the wayside? Bradbury wrote his novel before the explosion of 'pop fiction' when novels were still primarily about art and ideas than simply about telling a story.

The way I see the novel, society got so wrapped up reality TV and vapid entertainment that they eventually became afraid of art and the ideas behind them thus they decided to start burning books because they were daunted by books and by words and having to think. Society became radical about books as they can become radical about anything when they are so afraid of the power of something they don't understand, or that is different. The portrayal of the 'bums' (for lack of a better word) that Montag runs into outside of the city are the remaining few who still believe in art to the point they would rather be vagrants and live without the amenities of society, of home, and choose what is then considered to be a criminal life because they place that much importance in art. In many ways, they are martyrs for art. Montag is a character who, despite his job as a fireman, becomes enchanted by art and realises it is worth sacrificing everything for, because (in my words) art is the one thing that separates man from the rest of the world, and without art, we are simply animals with air-conditioning.