"No hace falta quemar libros para que una cultura desaparezca. Mucho peor es no leerlos" - Ray Bradbury

Cuesta mucho encontrar en el vasto mundo de la literatura un libro que defienda precisamente al libro como patrimonio cultural de la Humanidad. Más allá de la distopía que encierra, la maestría de Bradbury nos posiciona ante los peligros que a veces significa para el poder el hecho de que la gente "piense" y quiera valerse por sí misma. Uno de mis libro preferidos de toda la vida...

Esta era mi pequeña reseña allá por el 2015, cuando este libro inolvidable de un también inolvidable Ray Bradbury dominaba mi sentidos y se transformaba en uno de mis preferidos de toda la vida. Y aún sigue siéndolo. Aún sigue teniendo esa misma vigencia inalterable en mí.
Es que mi grado de admiración hacia el viejo Ray sigue en ascenso y no se detendrá nunca. Es un escritor del que aprendo. Esa es la palabra. Es un maestro, un abuelo, un profesor y un profeta. Todo lo que irradió en su literatura fue sabiduría y genialidad. Sus novelas y cuentos están poblados de enseñanzas y advertencias. Mensajes y premoniciones. Fue un erudito, un escritor que supo ver mucho antes todas las calamidades que golpearon a la Humanidad sumiéndola en un sopor de las que muchas veces le costó salir.
Anticipó avances tecnológicos también. A partir de libros como "Crónicas marcianas", "El hombre ilustrado" o "Las doradas manzanas del sol" supo advertirnos que el futuro podía transformarse en algo peligroso e incómodo.
Al final de esta novela se percibe ese aire enrarecido de una latente catástrofe que hace eclosión arrasando una ciudad. ¿Acaso hoy no sentimos esa opresiva preocupación con las pruebas nucleares de un dictador desequilibrado en la supuestamente remota Corea del Norte?
Esto y lo sabía Ray Bradbury. Él nos dijo que cometimos el error luego de la segunda bomba mundial y que probablemente podamos volver a cometerlo. Porque somos humanos, falibles, inestables. Hemos atravesado épocas de paz y guerra, pero siempre se han vivido largos años de desigualdad. De poder desmedido sobre gente oprimida y esa disparidad puede terminar mal.
En "Fahrenheit 451" , se nos pinta una sociedad controlada y vigilada. El libro es una de las tres mejores distopías que puedan leerse junto con "1984" y "Un mundo feliz". En la contratapa de la novela Kingsley Amis dice que "De entre todos los infiernos del conformismo, Fahrenheit 451 ofrece el retrato más convincente." Disiento a medias con el señor Amis.
Creo que ese conformismo está más exacerbado en "Un mundo feliz", en donde la distópica Humanidad de la novela de Huxley está sedada por el soma y la gente no sufre preocupaciones. Es una sociedad controlada por fármacos, y se distancia mucho de la de Oceanía, de "1984", en donde vive Winston, allí las cosas son más difíciles e incluso mucho más peligrosas aún que las de "Fahrenheit 451".
En "Fahrenheit 451", su personaje principal, Guy Montag es parte de un cuerpo de bomberos que no apaga incendios sino se dedica a quemar libros de aquellos descarriados que el sistema no llega a controlar hasta que son denunciados, porque como digo al principio, el poder que controla todo es peligroso que el ser humano piense, se valga por sí mismo, se apoye en lo que escritores, filósofos y pensadores y queda evidenciado en el pensamiento del capitán Beatty, jefe de Montag y del cuartel de bomberos cuando insidiosamente sostiene: "Un libro es un arma cargada en la casa de al lado. Quémalo. Quita el proyectil del arma. Domina la mente del hombre. ¿Quién sabe cuál podría ser el objetivo del hombre que leyese mucho? Yo, no lo resistiría un minuto."
La frase de Beatty nos refiere hasta ese punto se ha llegado. Sin la violencia explicita ni el totalitarismo desmedido de "1984", la sociedad en esta novela es vigilada, controlada, perseguida y castigada, si es necesario.
Las tres distopías tienen algo bien claro en común y son los tres personajes principales de cada una de ellas: Guy Montag en este libro, Winston en "1984" y Bernard Marx en "Un mundo feliz".
¿Por qué? Bueno, precisamente por querer salirse del sistema, por rebelarse, por querer demostrar que su realidad es injusta y que no se puede vivir así. Se salen de su curso, comienzan a realizar pequeños actos subversivos, se suman a las minorías que resisten estos crueles totalitarismo y como es de prever, son descubiertos.
Montag, al igual que los héroes de los otros libros, descubre a la vez lo que debería estar bien pero sigue mal. Su vida está en suspenso. Cuando Clare McLellan, esa chica que conoce y que lo saca de su abotargamiento le hace la simple pregunta "¿Eres feliz?", simplemente no sabe qué responder.
Ha estado viviendo por años con una esposa que es en sí prácticamente una desconocida. Mildred es una mujer hueca, vacía, ausente, atontada por sus enormes pantallas. Su vida es anodina, supuestamente agradable pero fría, sintética. No tiene ningún tipo de acercamiento con Montag y las cosas siguen adelante por su propia inercia. Son dos desconocidos que alguna vez se casaron y viven juntos. Solamente eso.
Durante una de sus salidas con los bomberos, Montag tendrá una experiencia en extremo shockeante y a partir de ella no será el mismo. Prontamente "despertará" para acercarse a lo más peligroso e inconveniente que pueda cruzarse en su vida: los libros.
No seguiré adentrándome en la historia porque siempre hay lectores que no leyeron "Fahrenheit 451", pero sí sostendré lo expuesto al principio de esta reseña:
El libro, es uno de los mayores tesoros que la Humanidad ha tenido y tendrá por siempre. No importa que algún día sean devorado por las llamas, porque eso ya pasó muchas veces, la última vez a manos del nazismo.
El libro nunca morirá, porque es eterno. La defensa de Bradbury en "Fahrenheit 451" es inspiradora, sanadora y edificante. El libro es un objeto precioso, una gema, es ese amigo que nunca decepciona como decía Carlyle.
Un libro nos hace sentir orgullosos como personas lectoras, nos dignifica, nos enseña. Para un lector pasar cuidadosamente los dedos por sus páginas es una darle caricia, un mimo. "Los libros van siendo el único lugar de la casa donde aún se puede estar tranquilo", decía don Julio Cortázar y no se equivocaba. Aquel que no es lector tal vez no entienda el por qué de tanta pasión, tanto amor, tanta admiración que los lectores tenemos por los libros.
Bradbury nos dice que en el fondo no importa que desaparezcan mientras nosotros, los lectores los tengamos en la mente y en el corazón y creo que ese es el mensaje que quiere dejarnos al final de esta novela a partir de esos "hombres libros" con los que Montag se encuentra en el bosque luego de su persecución.
¿Pinta algo inverosímil Bradbury en este libro? No. ¿Acaso no han sido muchas personas perseguidas o asesinadas a partir de sus pensamientos, de lo que escribieron o de lo que intentaron cambiar a partir de las líneas de un libro? Claro que no.
Siempre, este libro será uno de mis preferidos porque casualmente es un libro cuyo tema principal trata acerca de la importancia que siempre ha tenido en nosotros.
Todos los días agradezco a Dios el haberme dado esta pasión por los libros y también le digo gracias a Ray Bradbury por haberme enseñado a ser un mejor lector.

Few appreciate irony as much as I do, so understand that I understand this review. The message of this book is decent: knowledge should not be censored. However, the rest of the book is utter shit. I found myself actually screaming at several points as Bradbury spent minutes and dozens of metaphors and allusions referring to one insignificant detail of the plot. It is too damn flowery to be understandable by anyone! In other words, an English teacher's dream. In addition, the story was about the message not the story in and of itself. Those of you who know me understand that this is that I detest most about classics, tied with how everyone reveres them without reading them.

The Coda and Afterword just add to the confuse making me confused on whether Bradbury is a very hateful man or just a hypocrite. The main plot of the novel itself is that the majority rule canceled out intellectualism while in the Coda (maybe Afterword, I don't remember which was which) Bradbury blasts minorities (all, including racial, religious, etc.) for creating an overly sensitive society. Oddly enough, his heroes are the minority. Ha. Furthermore, the Coda is a hefty "Fuck you" to anyone that wants to critique his work in any way not positive. Therefore, I feel obliged to respond in turn: "Fuck you, Ray Bradbury. Your writing style is shit and I won't force it on my worst enemy." Harsh, I know, but true. If you do need to read this book, I suggest a Cliff Notes version as long as you can appreciate that irony.

The Fahrenheit scale of temperature establishes 451 degrees as “the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns”, Ray Bradbury tells us – having consulted with a Southern California fire chief to get an exact figure. And that bit of thermometric trivia gives Fahrenheit 451 (1953), one of the greatest works of dystopian science fiction ever written, its title.

The Illinois-born Bradbury relocated to the Los Angeles area and built his literary career there – at first, churning out science-fiction stories written on a rented typewriter at UCLA’s Powell Library. He was known for imparting a sense of wonder regarding the ways in which science might change human life in the near future – with, always, a cautionary note to the effect that science would not by itself resolve the flaws of human beings, either individually or in the societies that they form.

Such cautions and warnings are very much in evidence in Fahrenheit 451. The book takes place in an American society that is materially prosperous and spiritually empty. People watch TV constantly, on wall-sized screens. All books are banned, on grounds that they make people discontent. Firehouses are staffed by firemen whose job is to burn books, wherever they are found – along with the homes in which the books are found.

The novel’s protagonist is a fireman named Guy Montag. Montag is German for “Monday.” The use of the German language would have reminded the book’s original readers not only of the recently-destroyed Nazi dictatorship, but also of the then-current East German authoritarian state. (The country that called itself the “German Democratic Republic” and claimed to be a “worker’s state” spent part of 1953, the year of this novel’s publication, quashing a workers’ uprising.) And Guy Montag’s name signals to the reader more generally that this man is a Monday-morning guy – not exceptional in any way, except in the decisions that he will eventually make.

At first, Montag asks no questions about the work he does, taking it for granted. But one of his neighbours, a teenaged girl named Clarisse (as in “clarity”), starts gently asking him about the work he does. The initial discontent that Montag starts to feel intensifies when he and his fellow firemen go to burn a house full of books; the woman at the house lights a match herself, driving the firemen out of the house that they have drenched in gasoline, and then she incinerates herself with her books.

A conversation with Montag’s emotionally detached wife Mildred captures the spiritual coldness and emptiness of the society generally. While Mildred watches her wall-screen and pretends to listen, Montag tries in vain to convey what he has been through:

“Aren’t you going to ask me about last night?” he said.

“What about it?”

“We burnt a thousand books. We burnt a woman.”

“Well?”

The parlor was exploding with sound.

“We burnt copies of Dante and Swift and Marcus Aurelius.”

“Wasn’t he a European?”

“Something like that.”

“Wasn’t he a radical?”

“I never read him.”

“He was a radical.” (p. 50)

Montag starts clandestinely reading books on his own, and eventually befriends a defrocked academic named Faber. A particularly suspenseful moment in the book occurs when Montag goes on an espionage mission into the fire station, wearing in his ear a tiny microphone given him by Faber.

Fire-Captain Beatty, who clearly knows that Montag has been reading, “put his hand to one side, palm up, for a gift. Montag put the book in it. Without even glancing at the title, Beatty tossed the book in the trash basket and lit a cigarette” (p. 105).

Beatty, seemingly in a humorous manner, starts baiting Montag, quoting many literary works in a manner that shows that Beatty, the fire-captain who oversees the book-burning firemen, is himself an exceptionally well-read individual. Beatty tells Montag, “What traitors books can be! You think they’re backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives” (p. 107).

Meanwhile Faber, speaking through the hidden microphone in Montag’s ear, warns Montag against Beatty’s totalitarian temptations, advising Montag to “remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy to truth and freedom – the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority” (p. 108).

Forced by a crisis moment to leave the city, Montag goes out into the country and makes some new friends – a group of disheveled-looking people who have their own plans for resisting the regime. I would imagine that most people reading this review already know exactly how this group of people, living out in the woods beyond the railroad tracks, is resisting. But I will forbear from going into specifics.

One of Montag’s new friends, a man named Granger, points out that “you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them. It can’t last” (p. 153). Granger’s statement about the world blowing up conveys the nuclear-war anxiety of the Cold War times in which Fahrenheit 451 was written – and, at the same time, offers a cautiously optimistic look ahead toward a better future where democratic values of freedom of thought might once again prevail.

When Bradbury was writing Fahrenheit 451, the main threats to freedom of thought in the United States centered around the nationwide anti-communist scare then being fomented by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his allies on the House Un-American Activities Committee. Forty years ago, some on the far left called for bans against novels like Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) on grounds that these books were supposedly “racist” (they’re not). Today, far-right-wing organizations like “Moms for Liberty” maintain an Internet database of books they want banned from schools, libraries, and sometimes even bookstores – and in the main, these are books that focus on racism in the United States or examine the LGBTQ+ experience.

The common denominator, across place and time, is always the censors’ belief that they know, better than you, what you should read and write – and, by implication, what you should think. Such people always, whether they know it or not, embody a sensibility similar to that of this novel’s Fire-Captain Beatty, who says to Montag at one point in Fahrenheit 451 that

We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man’s mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won’t stomach them for a minute. (p. 58)

Against Beatty’s bland advocacy of totalitarian conformity, we can set Montag’s declaration that “Behind each of these books there’s a man [or woman]”. In other words, a book expresses the ideas of another person. We consider those ideas while reading a book. We may agree or disagree with the ideas in a book; but either way, our own thinking is enriched by engaging with the thoughts of someone else. Through reading and writing, we learn more about what we think, and about how we think and why. Perhaps it is for that reason that independent reading, with independent writing and thinking, is among the things that autocrats everywhere absolutely dread.

If you agree with Montag rather than Beatty on this count– and I would venture a guess that most people here on Goodreads do – then Fahrenheit 451 should be on your own reading list, as a vindication of your right to read and think for yourself.

"So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless."

Who would’ve thought that the most unsettling, hopeless world devoid of meaning would become a love letter to literature? Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life said Oscar Wilde, and of course, he was right, we can only aspire to be slightly as conscious as the writers who shape our future. Bradbury excels at creating an almost premonitory tale, where firemen stoke fires instead of preventing them, acting at night, for the anonymity and the spectacle. The burning bright lights contrast the deep obscurity of the night, as much as the beautiful imagery used to describe the fire contrasts the horrific action taking place.

Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine
Forewarnings aside, each passing day we are sadly heading to the society described in this story, maybe is not presenting itself in the form of TV walls or book destructing firemen, but ever more present social media and book banning are our contemporary threats.

"Maybe the books can get us half out of the cave. They just might stop us from making the same damn insane mistakes!"

In the age of endless (miss)information, the veracity of claims or news is unimportant, what really matters is to be up to date with them, which allows people with power and resources to control the narratives creating sheep-like herd who recognizes as truth and repeats it without thinking. Curiosity, imagination and even knowledge become side-characters as people try to obtain instantaneous forms of gratifications that are growing more ephemeral by the minute.

"Then, in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests, Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending."

We must all be alike
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others said George Orwell in Animal Farm, which only demonstrates the hypocrisy of a government that declares that equality is important, but by equality they mean repression. In this sick society (whether the one on the book or the one on real life) a government that attempts to drain the individuality out of its people is extremely dangerous. Even more so, if it’s done with empty promises of happiness, because who doesn’t want to be happy? Who would want to feel inferior to anyone? Proclaiming that knowledge is elitist is an idle attempt to silence and control people. Thinking is dangerous, thoughts turn into actions into change into revolutions.

"If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn"

For a little while I’m not afraid
"Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."

There is a liberating feeling in breaking free of constrains, being disruptive with a cause, finally realizing that what you want and what is wanted out of you are two different things and you’re choosing you.

"Your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away."

If I could be remembered for something, I’d hope it is by bits and pieces of my favorite books.

كان الروائي الأمريكي راي برادبيري في آخر أيامه يقود حملاتٍ لإنقاذ بعض المكتبات العامة المهددة بالإغلاق نظرًا لعجز ميزانيتها. فيقوم بمساعدة هذه المكتبات عن طريق إلقاء محاضرات عن حياته وكتاباته على أن يذهب ريع تذاكر الدخول إلى خزنة المكتبات لدعمها!

يقول برادبيري في هذا الصدد "المكتبات ربتني. أنا لا أؤمن بالكليات والجامعات. أنا أؤمن بالمكتبات لأن أغلب الطلاب لا يملكون المال. عندما تخرجت من المدرسة، كانت تلك أيام الأزمة الاقتصادية ولم يكن لدينا مال، فلم أستطع الدراسة في كلية. لذا، كنت أذهب إلى المكتبة لثلاثة أيام في الأسبوع لمدة 10 سنوات. قرأت كل شيء في المكتبة. كل شيء. كنت أستعير 10 كتب في الأسبوع، فيكون لدي حوالي 200 كتاب في السنة في الأدب والشعر والمسرحيات، وقرأت جميع القصص القصيرة الشهيرة، مئات منها. تخرجت من المكتبة في الثامنة والعشرين من عمري. تلك المكتبة هي التي علمتني، لا الكلية"

هذا الهوس بالكتب ليس بمستغرب على هذا الكاتب الاستثنائي الذي بنى شهرته على رواية "فهرنهايت ٤٥١" التي بيع منها أكثر من ٥٠ مليون نسخة، حيث يخلق برادبيري في هذه الراوية عالمًا مجنونًا يعيش على إحراق الكتب وإعدام المكتبات!

(هل هناك غيري من ذكرته هذه الرواية الموجهة لليافعين بالتنين الصغير الذي كان يحلم بأن يصبح رجل إطفاء!)

يمكن القول إن "فهرنهايت ٤٥١" التي نشرت عام ١٩٥٣تقع ضمن "الروايات الاستشرافية"، فقد تتكهّنت بظهور العديد من الأشياء التي لم تكن موجودة آنذاك، كشاشات التلفاز المسطّحة، سماعات الأذن لأجهزة آيبود، وأجهزة الصراف الآلي!

غير أن أعظم تكهنات هذه الرواية في رأيي كانت محاربة الكتب، لا عن طريق إحراقها ومنعها، فهذه ممارسات قروسطية لا تليق بهذا الزمن الذي تشهد فيه حركة النشر والتأليف إزدهارًا لم تتمتع به أي حقبة من حقب التاريخ، ولكنه للأسف إزدهار سلبي يكرس التفاهة ويحارب الجدية والأصالة!

أذكر أننا عندما أعلنا عن إطلاق صالون الأدب الروسي قبل أشهر، واجهنا سيل من الانتقادات والتعليقات المحبطة من كثيرين (وبعضهم من زملائنا الكتاب للأسف) تسخر من محاولاتنا المتواضعة لإعادة ضبط بوصلة القراءة في الوسط الثقافي الذي ينوء بأثقال من التفاهة تعجز عن حملها أعتى مكتبات العالم!

إن هذا الترويج للتفاهة مع السخرية من أي جهود -مهما صغرت- لتصحيح الأوضاع القائمة جريمتان لا تقلان سوءا وبشاعة عن جريمة إحراق الكتب!

The control of information has always been a preoccupation of governments which are peopled by the power-hungry as all politicians are. Without paper books there will be no definitive version for anyone or everyone to consult and we will get the official line and that will be it. Until the government changes. Then there will be another official line. And if that government stays in power for say twenty or thirty years hardly anyone will remember the truth or even a different version to pass down. A world without unchangeable, written history is a world with only stories.

An earlier review I wrote of a different edition. that has been hidden in Community Reviews it seems because of what I wrote about Amazon and Goodreads. If the cap fits....

Can you imagine this terrifying future? We wouldn’t have goodreads! I’m crying just thinking about it. And the world is so desperate for anything to defeat the numb pointless existence that they partake in dangerous activities like driving at excessive speeds through crowded neighborhoods.

In a world without art and fiction the value of life is non-existent. This book explicitly demonstrates that art and creativity is what makes us human. Denying expression is denying humanity.

Reseña 20/03/18

Lee algunas líneas y te caes por el precipicio

Lo primero que sentí cuando leí Fahrenheit 451 fue dolor ¿Los libros pueden sentir dolor? Porque casi escuchaba gritos en las escenas donde los queman. Y ahí una no sabe si son los gritos propios o si de verdad los libros se quejan. Esta historia causa impresión por varias cuestiones, pero las principales se reducen a dos: la aniquilación del conocimiento y la estupidización de las masas. Suena curiosamente real, ¿no creen?

Estados Unidos, año incierto (el futuro, eso seguro). Los bomberos ya no apagan incendios, sino que los provocan cada vez que alguien da el alarma: cualquier libro que se encuentre debe reducirse a cenizas, junto con la casa. Montag es un bombero que viene sufriendo una crisis “profesional” que se profundiza cuando conoce a su vecina, Clarisse, que le genera dudas en las conversaciones.

Bradbury presenta las preocupaciones de la época, donde cada pequeño invento era un gran acontecimiento. Y de repente las personas se veían atraídas por una pantalla, por las emisiones de radio, las comunicaciones y por la inmediatez de las noticias. Ahora esto nos parece pan comido, pero en aquellos años debió haber sido tan asombroso como terrorífico. En la realidad de Montag, la familia aparece por televisión, hablando y chillando cosas sin sentido. No hay debates, los pocos libros que existen (o que se permiten) están ilustrados y cuentan historias vacías, las artes liberales están prohibidas. En cierto momento el vacío de los diálogos y la negligencia de las personas generan pánico intelectual. Y no sé hasta qué punto no se trata del eco de un pánico actual (lamento ser pesimista, pero lo soy).

Montag, casado con Mildred, no se cuestiona seriamente su labor como bombero hasta que conoce a Clarisse. Mildred y Clarisse forman un par que se pondrá en oposición todo el tiempo, mucho más en lo concerniente a la inteligencia, así que eso resulta interesante. Y hablando de mujeres, la falta de representación de las intelectuales femeninas levantó mis sospechas.  ¿No hay profesoras mujeres? ¿No hay viejas alumnas? ¿Las mujeres no leen, a excepción de la anciana? ¿Por qué son ellas (hablo de Mildred y de sus “amigas”) los ejemplos del consumismo y de la estupidez? Hay cosas que no deberían llamarme la atención sobre la ciencia ficción del siglo XX, pero nunca está de más plantearse la cuestión. Uno de los personajes más interesantes, además de las mujeres ya mencionadas, es Beatty, el capitán de los bomberos. Su perspectiva cínica (e, incluso, un tanto hipócrita) teje el mundo de Fahrenheit 451 con unos pocos diálogos. Redoblo la apuesta: las descripciones del narrador en tercera persona no me parecieron tan útiles para entender ese escenario como sí me pareció Beatty. De Montag no quiero hablar mucho: su personaje se comporta de manera irritante. Es un nervio expuesto (gracias por la idea, Bruce Banner), un inconformista que desea salir violentamente del molde.

El estilo de Bradbury me gusta porque, aunque utilice la tercera persona, se mete en la conciencia del personaje y extrae pensamientos (sí, aunque esté prohibido pensar). Eso acompaña a los momentos de crisis de Montag. Las frases cortas, paradójicamente, aceleran la lectura como si fuera alguno de los libros permitidos en la distopía. Sin embargo, eso no significa que carece de profundidad. Lo único que tengo para criticar con respecto a la escritura es el uso reiterado de algunas metáforas (no sé si es un error… yo lo tomaría como algo que no me gustó mucho y ya) y la vaguedad con la que se tratan ciertos temas políticos. El centro de la atención está en la opresión, por supuesto, pero me hubiera gustado saber más de ese mundo en guerra.

En definitiva, todo esto que leyeron (ojalá que se hayan concentrado) desemboca en un “lo recomiendo” rotundo. Si les gusta leer, si se ponen mal cuando ven un libro deshecho (en esta novela los queman, no hay nada para hacer…), si les asusta la calidad del entretenimiento y la educación y una infinidad de temas acordes al siglo XXI, esta es su distopía. No hay nada que pensar.

Reseña anterior

Excelente. Uno de los libros que voy a volver a leer muchas veces.

Reseña en Clásico desorden

so i have decided that this is the summer i read all the books i "should" have read by now—all the classics i have not gotten around to. this was, oddly, sparked by an asshole customer who said to alyssa "this is why small bookstores are better—no one in big bookstores knows anything about books." which is, of course, inaccurate and ridiculous—poor alyssa is a nineteen-year-old girl who has not read any philip roth, and wasn't able to recommend a title to the (fifty-year-old) man, but she's probably read more books than most people you will pass on the street today. (unless you live on bookland ave) and i, too, love small bookstores, but that is not the point. another thing that is not the point is that there are other people in the store besides the nineteen-year-old girl (who is really not the target audience for philip roth), and between tom and greg alone, every philip rothbook has been read by our staff. anyway, so i just started thinking about all the books i haven't read that are canonical (not philip roth—i've read four and that's plenty) but, say, fahrenheit 451. so—long review short, i read this yesterday. and it's pretty much what i expected. even if you haven't read it, you know what it is about. i think it makes some important points, but it won't be making my all-time-favorite list. still, i'm glad i read it. his afterword is very good—i think i may have liked it more than the novel itself. so.

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I heard that this was a great book, and I really wanted to like it. The title and the quips on the back cover caught my interest. Guy Montag is a fireman, but the job is flipped. Instead of putting out fires, he is creating them, and he likes it a lot. The first sentence, "It was a pleasure to burn", and the following description after, had me convinced that I would enjoy the book. Not only that, New York Times professes that the book is "frightening in its implications". With all that buildup and such a dramatic summary on the back, I was hoping that the book would make me think. Perhaps it would be a dark book, morbid, even offensive. It didn't deliver any of that, but that's not the problem; I don't judge a book based on whether or not it follows my preconceptions. It could have been a perfectly good book without any of that.

Maybe the writing style just didn't suit me. I was hoping that the book would be vivid, and one would expect that a book with so many descriptions and metaphors would be vivid. Nope, not for me. Everything is blurry. The people feel one dimensional, with the exception of Montag himself. The intended message feels flat. So, book censorship is bad, tv is bad. What am I supposed to think about it?

My real problem is that I don't feel anything when I was reading Fahrenheit 451, except maybe frustration. Things like a woman burning with her books should make me feel something like horror or sadness. The book doesn't have any effect on me because the metaphors and flowery descriptions are so distracting. Half the time I feel that they don't contribute anything, and my mind automatically skips over them along with some potentially important material. Then I'll try to read it again, but nothing is retained except for bits of flowery fluff. The writing in the entire book is disjointed and strange, and that should have been fine, because such a style has potential for creating a disturbing, off feeling; that would fit a dystopian book. Instead, I feel uncomfortably distanced.

This is one of those books that I love the idea of it a lot more than the read itself.

I "read" this in high school and understood nothing (I barely knew a few words in English!) and honestly would not recommend it if you're just starting out since even now it's not an easy read!

The dystopian world depicted is frighteningly too close to where we're going...

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is an American-Literature Classic!

n  451 degrees is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns!n

In a dystopian future, a rigidly structured society has banished everything that causes confusion, contradiction, or complication to a culture focused on the happiness of all citizens.

Citizens aren't permitted to read books, think independently, or have meaningful conversations.

Books are illegal, thoughts are dangerous, and conversations about books could be deadly.

When printed books are discovered in someone's home, the entire house is set ablaze and burned to the ground. In this society, firemen create fires rather than extinguish them.

Guy Montag loves his job as a fireman. It invigorates him and he knows what he does is important. He feels this way until the day he meets a teenage girl named Clarisse who asks him if he's happy...

I love ending my reading year with a classic and Dystopian-Fiction is one of my favorite genres. So what could be more perfect than ending 2022 with Fahrenheit 451: a book about books?

This story is about the struggle for knowledge and individuality in a society that expects ignorance and conformity. "Compliance without question" is the law of the land.

Can you imagine living in a world without books? This story holds more thought-provoking parallels to our current techno world and comparisons that could be made to the levels of mindlessness in our current social media world. Kinda scary, right?

The audiobook is narrated by actor, Tim Robbins who uses his award-winning talent in a variety of voicings for the characters. His 5 hour narration made my revisit of this novel, after so many years, a memorable and emotional experience.

A frightening dystopian future feels believable through this author's creative writing and vivid imagination. This book is original, different, and just as fresh today as it was when first published on October 19, 1953, almost 70 years ago. Fahrenheit 451 is regarded as Ray Bradbury's greatest work.

As a reader, reviewer, and lover of books, I highly recommend this classic to everyone! 5 stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐