Fahrenheit 451

  • Author: Ray Bradbury
  • Page count: 194
  • Started on: 2025/01/10
  • Finished on: 2025/01/14
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    • ★★★★☆

Cover of the 60th Anniversary Edition of "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. The design features a black book with pages resembling a matchbook, with one match lit. The background is red with bold white and black text. The title "Fahrenheit 451" is prominently displayed in the center, with the author's name, Ray Bradbury, at the bottom.

I recall having this book on my potential reading list for English class (I was born and raised in the Netherlands), but only got to reading it now - decades later (triggered by a friend shelving it on GoodReads).

First published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 describes an alternate, dystopian world where mass consumerism has exploded and mass media consumption has driven out free thinking. Protagonist Guy Montag is a fireman, which means that he burns (illegal) books and the houses that hide them, but triggered by a chance encounter he has a change of heart.

I found it an interesting read for it’s 70+ year old view on mass market consumption, extrapolating from TVs (new at the time) into a setup that seems a bit like cyberspace/metaverse.

The book is a bit overly pedantic at times and goes off in some pseudo-psychedelic word soups (which made me consider giving it 3 stars), but I found the ending, with a group of men (because: 1953) who “save” books by remembering them, interesting enough to round up to 4 stars.

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