Ferenheit 451

This book was one of the books under dystopian future list. Together with 1984, Animal Farms and Brave New World.

Its about a fireman named Montag who burns book for a living. Houses are now fireproof making the original purpose of a fireman to put out fire forgotten. Instead, they put on fire now. On Books.

In the novel, it argued that books are what caused conflict. One book appeal to one group but hurt the other. So why not just burn all of the books?

The novel predicted fast paced and shallow entertainment that makes people dumber. Things become faster, shorter that appeal to the population’s short attention span.

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

Throughout the book, we will follow Montag as he questions things more and more about the nature of his reality. Questioning the act of burning books, realising that how those “entertainments” at home made him forgot about the other side of the world which is filled with suffering and pain

One of the highlight in the novel said why some books are important and have quality. They have quality because it shows the face of life. It shows the pores in the faces. While poor quality books skip over details and the raw-ness of life.

The novel also highlights a counter argument on why we don’t need books in life. Beatty who’s Montag bos, played this role. He argued that books are bad and caused humanity a lot of problems and conflict.

Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he’s the Lord of all Creation.

This novel has opened my mind even more on the importance of literature. Reading books shows autonomy of the self. Not letting the government or corporate showing and telling you what to watch and do. It creates original thoughts and not all books are made equal. We need to find quality ones. The ones that shows truthfully recorded details of life per square inch.