Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

So, here we are again with another cult classic, Fahrenheit 451. I feel like everyone has read this book and I think that a lot of people loved it. I didn't.

This is a dystopian novel which follows Guy Montag, who is a fireman. But in this post-literate future, firemen don't put out fires, they start them. More specifically, they burn books. Books are not allowed as they are thought to be the source of everything bad that has ever happened. But, Guy isn't happy. He finds himself questioning his life with his wife and the whole prospect of burning books. As always, there are people who defy the law, and they hide books and try to sustain the fashion of reading. Guy slowly becomes that guy (ha) and finds himself on the run from the fire departments Mechanical Hound which hunts those who try to preserve books.

There are several reasons why I didn't like this book. Firstly, I don't share Bradbury's concerns. In his futuristic society, people are engulfed in technology (Guy's wife is a huge fan of these soap-opera thingys which are broadcasted on huge screens in their house) and they don't really care about each other and generally have short attention spans. I just don't think that technology does that to people and that it will do that. When it comes to it, I am all for moving forward. I think that the Internet and computers have made possible to connect with people more. I find that a lot of people have made lasting friendships because of it. Also, it enabled to sustain friendships in spite of distance. (This is in my own experience, since my two best friends moved away and we keep in contact thanks to the Internet). Even writing this, and some people (very few, but still) being able to read it, it's because of the Internet and technology. I feel that the whole premise of people losing touch and becoming unsociable is misplaced.

So I think that the focal point here is that technology made people unsociable and led to their short attention spans which then led to them not being able to concentrate on books. But what I found is that people choose to view that burning books is about censorship. This makes it so much more relatable to today's reader. And in that view it is. So in terms of viewing this whole book in that way, I could've surpassed the main source (i.e. technology), and still liked the book.

But we come to the second problem which was the writing. I just didn't like it. I felt that it had so many unnecessary metaphors and I just think that it was sometimes going in to such detail which didn't bring anything to the plot. Furthermore, I feel like there really wasn't a plot there. I felt that the book wasn't going anywhere and wasn't explaining anything. I felt that it kinda went in circles.

I believe, that this book is overrated. And yes, I do believe that there isn't any real plot here, but maybe this is just about the message and not so much about the writing itself. Still, I can't say that I enjoyed it. I am glad that I read, since it's considered such a classic, but I just don't think that this book is good. I know that a lot of people will disagree but for me it was almost unreadable. Almost.