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cristymg93's review against another edition
4.0
En esta distopía se queman libros, los bomberos ya no salvan vidas sino que las queman. Me ha costado un poco leerlo con su lenguaje metafórico, que aunque brillante se te hacía denso en algunas partes. Básicamente, la sociedad se rige por la cultura de la inmediatez. Los libros requieren reflexión por lo que son desechados, el gobierno los prohibe bajo la excusa de que a la gente ya no les gusta ( recuerda un poco a la quema de libros que hacían y hacen determinados regímenes). Los medios de comunicación son tu familia y es sospechoso que vayas a pasear solo o que te fijes en los detalles de la naturaleza. Existe una falsa felicidad en la ignorancia y en lo material. Es una pena que cada distopía que leo me recuerda a la sociedad actual. No existen muchos libros sobre utopías, da un poco de miedo que no seamos capaces de imaginar un mundo mejor y que cada predicción pesimista se haga realidad.
joshbriggs's review against another edition
5.0
eh, you probably don't need my review here, but you're getting it anyway. I should've finished reading this in the 7th grade when I started it. I would've been a monumentally improved person. But instead, I chose Star Wars and Aliens Vs. Predator novelizations. So, anyway, I'm going to sum up the importance of this brief, long-overdue experience in a long-form quote:
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies... A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul had 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... 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. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching... The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies... A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul had 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... 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. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching... The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime."
lisa_d9's review against another edition
4.0
Re-read, this was one of those that doesn’t hit as hard the second time.
match0stick's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
katie_is_dreaming's review against another edition
3.0
This book seems to have entered the social consciousness at this stage. Like Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, it warns us of a future that could come to be if we aren't careful to protect books and all the forms of culture that make us think and help us to talk to each other.
Bradbury was writing at a time when television was really beginning to take off. In this novel we read about television screens that take up all the walls in a living room, where you can be immersed in the visual spectacle. Characters here can live in the television world even as they sleep, through the constant feed of drama and commercials in their ears. TV characters are relatives, but becomes clear that no one in this world is really happy, despite believing they have everything that should make them happy.
Bradbury was very much ahead of his time. This book is almost 70 years old at this stage, but it still has resonance with that sense of fear that television and other technological advances in media might end up making us soulless and unhappy, and might make us think less critically. I don't know that Bradbury's fears were entirely right, but I'm not sure they were entirely wrong either. What is important is that there is a preservation of our intellectual history, that it doesn't get drowned out by flashier new technologies.
As important and forward thinking as this book is/was, though, it's also dated. All of the key characters are men (not very heartening for a reading and thinking woman to read!), and what's perhaps even more telling of its datedness to me is that all the literary references (or most of them) are to male writers. Couldn't he have slipped Austen in there, or Brontë, or Eliot? Yes, of course the book is almost 70, but surely he was aware of great female writers he could have referenced too!
I had a difficult time with the language too, particularly in the beginning. I got used to it later, or it became less bothersome. I certainly felt it was overwritten at the start. It was a style of language for science fiction that feels very dated now. A lot of repetition and staccato sort of writing. It felt pretty stylised, rather than flowing naturally to me. Of course, all of that is very subjective, and others will love this writing style.
I did think that I would like this more than I do. I'm a bit disappointed that I don't. I think I would have had to have read it when it was written, or much earlier in its long history, to have been really gripped by it. I suppose I've read other dystopian literature that dull the impact of this (and yet, reading Nineteen Eighty-Four was the most visceral, disturbing experience, so part of me thinks that Orwell just did it better. Though I read Orwell a number of years ago too, so was maybe more impressionable then).
Over all, while I didn't love this, it is a book that people should read. If you're interested in the importance of literature and ideas, and ensuring the continuance of a society that thinks for itself, this is definitely a worthwhile read.
Bradbury was writing at a time when television was really beginning to take off. In this novel we read about television screens that take up all the walls in a living room, where you can be immersed in the visual spectacle. Characters here can live in the television world even as they sleep, through the constant feed of drama and commercials in their ears. TV characters are relatives, but becomes clear that no one in this world is really happy, despite believing they have everything that should make them happy.
Bradbury was very much ahead of his time. This book is almost 70 years old at this stage, but it still has resonance with that sense of fear that television and other technological advances in media might end up making us soulless and unhappy, and might make us think less critically. I don't know that Bradbury's fears were entirely right, but I'm not sure they were entirely wrong either. What is important is that there is a preservation of our intellectual history, that it doesn't get drowned out by flashier new technologies.
As important and forward thinking as this book is/was, though, it's also dated. All of the key characters are men (not very heartening for a reading and thinking woman to read!), and what's perhaps even more telling of its datedness to me is that all the literary references (or most of them) are to male writers. Couldn't he have slipped Austen in there, or Brontë, or Eliot? Yes, of course the book is almost 70, but surely he was aware of great female writers he could have referenced too!
I had a difficult time with the language too, particularly in the beginning. I got used to it later, or it became less bothersome. I certainly felt it was overwritten at the start. It was a style of language for science fiction that feels very dated now. A lot of repetition and staccato sort of writing. It felt pretty stylised, rather than flowing naturally to me. Of course, all of that is very subjective, and others will love this writing style.
I did think that I would like this more than I do. I'm a bit disappointed that I don't. I think I would have had to have read it when it was written, or much earlier in its long history, to have been really gripped by it. I suppose I've read other dystopian literature that dull the impact of this (and yet, reading Nineteen Eighty-Four was the most visceral, disturbing experience, so part of me thinks that Orwell just did it better. Though I read Orwell a number of years ago too, so was maybe more impressionable then).
Over all, while I didn't love this, it is a book that people should read. If you're interested in the importance of literature and ideas, and ensuring the continuance of a society that thinks for itself, this is definitely a worthwhile read.
jeanvabu's review against another edition
5.0
Randomly picked it up as an audio book thinking that I had already read it in high school. I had not. Definitely read it at the right time.
billiebeepboop's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
batrock's review against another edition
Like 1984, assigning a rating to Fahrenheit 451 is meaningless. There’s a lot of stuff in here that is still relevant today, and one of its greatest strengths is that it’s overtly science fiction but no one seems to notice.
Some of it is fleshless by today’s standards, the female characters are either whisked away or are completely unhelpful, and at times Bradbury himself seems somewhat reactionary.
Still, there’s a reason that people come back to Fahrenheit 451, and it’s as simple as this: modern life is rubbish.
Some of it is fleshless by today’s standards, the female characters are either whisked away or are completely unhelpful, and at times Bradbury himself seems somewhat reactionary.
Still, there’s a reason that people come back to Fahrenheit 451, and it’s as simple as this: modern life is rubbish.