FAHRENHEIT 451 (audiobook) by Ray Bradbury

 





Originally published in 1953.

I listened to the Tantor Media audio version published in 2010.

Read by Stephen Hoye

Duration: Approximately 5.5 hours

Unabridged

Synopsis: 

Guy Montag is a fireman in a future United States. Firemen in the future do not fight fires. Instead, they burn books, newspapers, magazines that people have hidden away. If you hide forbidden media in your home your home will be burned to make sure all of the books are gone and to serve as a warning to rest of the neighborhood. 

Montag is great at his job, but he has his doubts. Every once in a while he takes a book home. He hides them in the ventilation system of the house. No one knows, not even his wife. Those doubts are accelerated when his team witness a woman die in the fire with her books rather than live without them...

My review: 

This book has an interesting history. Bradbury started building the world that this book is set in with some short stories of a dystopian future where everyone is absorbed by personalized television screens. His publisher urged him to expand the ideas into a book. Bradbury knocked out Fahrenheit 451 in just 9 days on a rented typewriter that cost him 10 cents per half hour.

The book itself has action but it oftentimes felt like essays attached by plot points. It seems to me that the speed in which the book was written probably led to this sort of construction. The essays took the form of extended trains of thought by Montag or long speeches/rants from Montag's boss, Captain Beatty. These "essays" make all of the arguments of the story such as the justifications for mass censorship, the arguments against it, and the lack of human contact in a mass media world.

Bradbury accurately predicted a lot of the modern world in this book. When it comes to technology, he predicted the ATM, giant screen televisions, and earbuds. Culturally, he predicted the rise of sports TV, the inane reality TV shows like The Real Housewives, and the addiction to pop culture and electronic media that may be a factor in the high rates of depression among young people nowadays.

This has to be considered Bradbury's masterpiece. It is such a powerful manifesto against censorship. 

If you appreciate irony, please read this bit about how THE anti-censorship novel of the 20th century was edited to remove or change controversial and offensive words and scenes without the knowledge of the author - FOR TWELVE YEARS!

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

STAR WARS: DARTH VADER: DARK LORD of the SITH, VOLUME 2 -LEGACY'S END (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Image
Published in 2018 by Licensed Publishing. Written by Charles Soule. Art by Guiseppe Camuncoli, Daniele Orlandini, and David Curiel. Synopsis This series tells the story of how Anakin Skywalker completes his transformation to Darth Vader under the dangerous and abusive tutelage of Emperor Palpatine. Meanwhile, Vader and his team are searching for Jedi survivors of Order 66. The series starts with the end of Star Wars: Episode III. There are two main plotlines in Darth Vader: Legacy's End . Vader has a lead on the librarian of the Jedi Temple. She is rebuilding the library in a safe location from scattered sources and memory when she realizes that she has to return to the library to destroy a list of force-talented youngsters that the Jedi had compiled to recruit to join their academy before they were defeated. She is not nearly the warrior that Vader is, but she is very clever and knows the library like the back of her hand... The second story line is about an assassination squad th...
Read more

EXIT STAGE LEFT: THE SNAGGLEPUSS CHRONICLES (graphic novel) Written by Mark Russell. Illustrated by Mike Feehan

Image
Published by DC Comics in 2018. Part of the Hannah-Barbera Beyond series. 2019 GLAAD Media Award winner for Outstanding Comic Book Synopsis: DC Comics and Hanna-Barbera set out to reimagine some of their late 1950s to 1970s Saturday morning television cartoons, including The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races, and Space Ghost. Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles is the last installment of the series. The graphic novel is set in the Red Scare/McCarthyism era. Congressional subcommittees are looking for Communists in all fields, but they are particularly concerned about Communist entertainers who may be negatively influencing Americans. Snagglepuss is a very successful New York City playwright. He lives in a world where humans and anthropomorphic animals interact as equals. He moved to New York from Mississippi years ago, but he still speaks in a Southern accent and often uses pithy folksy aphorisms. He is married to an actress, but that is a sham marriage. In rea...
Read more

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: CATWOMAN (graphic novel) by G. Willow Wilson

Image
Written by G. Willow Wilson Art by Jamie McKelvie Synopsis The One Bad Day series is a look at some of the biggest Batman villains in a book just dedicated to that villain. A lot of them, but certainly not all of them, take a sympathetic look at that villain. Batman - One Bad Day: Catwoman is one of the more sympathetic takes.  Catwoman is looking through an auction catalog for high end jewelry when she finds an unusual listing for a piece of post-World War II French jewelry that commemorates the end of Nazi occupation. It is a rare piece with a message of a return to freedom for France's artists its reserve price is $30,000. It is also a piece her mother sold to a pawn shop for only $200 when Catwoman was a child in order to attempt to make her rent money that month. Catwoman decides to take back the jewelry and right a wrong... My Review This one was interesting because the stakes, in reality, are really pretty low - a piece of jewelry that is worth thousands instead of millions...
Read more

STAR WARS: LANDO (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Image
Published in 2016 by Marvel Enterprises. Written by Charles Soule. Art by Alex Maleev and Paul Mounts. Synopsis Lando Calrissian is in financial trouble - he has debts and he is working them off by pulling off "jobs" for the people he owes money to. He makes a deal to pull off one big heist for Papa Toren in exchange for all of his debt being cleared and the possibility of making of making a lot of profit for himself. Lando and his sidekick Lobot (see picture below) build a team and pull off the heist - stealing a space yacht from an imperial shipyard. Everything looks great until they find a Sith artifact onboard and realize that they've just stolen the Emperor's yacht! My review This is the fifth Star Wars graphic novel that I've read written by Charles Soule, and it was the weakest of the bunch. It wasn't bad, but it just wasn't great like the others. The plot had a lot of zip at first but moved from a heist story to a horror story and it slowed down so...
Read more

STAR WARS: DARTH VADER: DARK LORD of the SITH, VOLUME 3 - THE BURNING SEAS (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

Image
Published in 2018 by Licensed Publishing. Written by Charles Soule. Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, David Curiel, and Java Tartaglia with Guru-eFX Synopsis This series tells the story of how Anakin Skywalker completes his transformation to Darth Vader under the dangerous and abusive tutelage of Emperor Palpatine.  In the first story of  Darth Vader: The Burning Seas , Mon Cala has been reluctant to join Palpatine's empire. Governor Tarkin has been sent to Mon Cala to negotiate with their king. Mon Cala is the home world of fan favorite Admiral Ackbar. Ackbar is only Commander Ackbar in this story, but he plays a prominent role. Meanwhile, Vader and his team have been sent to Mon Cala to hunt down a Jedi that the Empire suspects is helping Mon Cala in their negotiations. When the shuttle carrying the Empire's negotiation team is destroyed by a bomb, all out war erupts... The second story ties in with the movie Rogue One. It is set on the planet Geonosis where the Empire is working o...
Read more

LULLABY TOWN (Elvis Cole #3) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

Image
Book originally published in 1992. Audiobook published by Brilliance Audio in 2008. Read by Mel Foster. Duration: 8 hours, 33 minutes. Unabridged. Anthony Award Nominee for Best Novel (1993) Shamus Award Nominee for Best PI Hardcover (1993) Synopsis Elvis Cole is hired by a very successful young Hollywood director in Lullaby Town to find his divorced wife and his son that he hasn't seen since he was an infant. It has been ten years since the divorce. His ex-wife hasn't been kidnapped or gone missing - she just moved away and the director has lost track of her. Now, he'd like to meet his son.  The director has to be the single most annoying client that Elvis Cole has ever had. He is pushy, obnoxious, and completely self-absorbed. Elvis notes early on that almost every sentence the man utters starts with "I" as in "I think this" and "I did that." It's pretty obvious why the ex-wife left him and just kept on going with no forwarding address...
Read more

UNCOMMON VALOR: A STORY of RACE, PATRIOTISM, and GLORY in the FINAL BATTLES of the CIVIL WAR by Melvin Claxton and Mark Puls

Image
Published in 2005 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc. The Emancipation Proclamation was effective on January 1, 1863 - it included a provision that former slaves were to "be received into the armed service of the United States". The Union Army was a little slow to enact this provision, but by 1864 there were plenty of African American Union soldiers ready to go into the field. Uncommon Valor follows one of those units during the Petersburg campaign of 1864-1865. This history primarily follows Christian Fleetwood , an African American Baltimore clerk. Fleetwood was born free, but living in a slave state was a constant reminder of his second class status. He had been considering joining the army for a long while, trying to determine if it would be a blow for freedom, or just choosing to support one oppressive regime in order to fight an even more oppressive regime. If that was the case, he might as well sit it out and let both sides clobber one another. Sgt. Major Christian Fleetwoo...
Read more

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: PENGUIN (One Bad Day series) (graphic novel) by John Ridley

Image
Published by DC Comics in 2023. Story by John Ridley. Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Cam Smith, and Arif Prianto. Synopsis Batman - One Bad Day: Penguin finds the hero (!) of the story, Batman's infamous foe Penguin, completely down and out. He has $20 and is sitting on a park bench in the rain. He is taped and bandaged up from a beating. He is unshaven and disheveled. He is waiting for a is waiting to meet a young person to sell him a gun. He has been pushed out of his role of crime boss of Gotham by a former subordinate. He plans to go into the city and take back his organization - but all he has is one little snub-nosed pistol, one bullet, and no friends. Turns out he didn't really need to pistol or the bullet - it's your friends that count. My Review I truly liked this comic. The way the story went surprised me and I really enjoyed it. Penguin can be a surprisingly sympathetic figure for a super-villain. His origin story isn't the roughest, but just about everyone has ...
Read more

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: BANE (graphic novel) by Joshua Williamson

Image
Published by D.C. Comics in 2023. Written by Joshua Williamson Art by Howard Porter and Tomeu Morey Synopsis The One Bad Day series looks at individual top level Batman villains (If you are a fan of Johnny Karaoke, sorry) and gives them a comic that focuses on just that villain.  In Batman - One Bad Day: Bane we find Bane working as a professional wrestler in Mexico where he reenacts the moment where be broke Batman's back in match after match to the cheers of adoring crowds. Bane has wealth and fame, but he is broken inside. This graphic novel is the story that explains that brokenness... My Review Up until the halfway point of this graphic novel, I was sure that this edition of the One Bad Day tales was a dud. It was initially very confusing and the drawings seemed to be all overdone muscles, veiny arms, and monstrous faces. The moment that changed the book was a moment of great sacrifice. It changes the arc of Bane's life and makes this a surprisingly hopeful (and grisly...
Read more

THE LONG CON by Dylan Meconis, Ben Coleman, E.A. Denich, M. Victoria Robado, Aditya Bidikar

Image
Published by Oni Press in February of 2019. The phrase The Long Con has a double meaning this story. Traditionally, a "long con" is a long-term swindle that is being pulled on someone, like a long-term investment fraud. Meaning #1: In this graphic novel, The Long Con is the biggest Pop Culture Convention in the world. It has been an annual event for 50 years and it lasts a long time. Five years ago, it was location of ground zero of a horrible (unspecified) "cataclysmic event" that destroyed everything in a 50 mile radius. Everyone assumed that the convention hall was destroyed. Meaning #2:  Reporter Victor Lai was sent to cover The Long Con before the disaster - a duty that he considered a punishment. Now, the outside world has noticed signs of life in the convention center and Victor Lai is sent back into the convention center to see what's going on.  Surprise! The convention hall survived! The people inside it survived! And...the attendees are still havi...
Read more