trade paperback, 159 pages
English language
Published June 18, 2013 by Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevent than ever before.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodoties, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with …
Sixty years after its original publication, Ray Bradbury's internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 stands as a classic of world literature set in a bleak, dystopian future. Today its message has grown more relevent than ever before.
Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodoties, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.
This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with a new introduction by Neil Baiman; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Nelson Algren. Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others: rare manuscript pages and sketches from "Ray Bradbury's personal archive and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature. (back cover)
as distopias costumam ser associadas com um governo totalitário controlando uma massa de pessoas.
o que me interessa mais nesse livro é a construção de uma opressão por parte do próprio povo: o desinteresse por buscar conhecimento, que surge das mídias de massa, torna-os ignorantes.
o final da história é particularmente emocionante.
I had read this book a long time ago and remembered it as a difficult read - my english was not quite on the same level as it is today. When re-reading it now i was blown away. An amazing story paired with wonderful storytelling. After reading "boring" contemporary novels this was delightfully refreshing
É uma distopia clássica, li há muito tempo mas lembro de não ter achado tão envolvente quanto as primas mais famosas (1984 e Admirável Mundo Novo). Recomendo o conto "Bright Phoenix" que inspirou o livro (é curtinho e achei melhor que o livro).
Una novela infantiloide. Y no me refiero a los personajes, que viven en un sistema que los quiere idiotizados, me refiero a la forma en la que está escrita, parece un libro dirigido a niños o a gente de derecha (que ya sabemos que no le da la cabeza para mucho). Si quieres una buena distopía: 1984.
Lika bra som alltid
This book was on my list of 'important books I somehow did not read before now'. It is such a cultural reference point that one assumes everyone has read it, but I suspect that although most people understand the title (the point at which books burn), they may be like me and have not bothered to actually pick it up.
It is reminiscent of Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale', and falls into that category of 'futurology' that edges on Sci-Fi because by necessity it must speculate about how the future will work, but is really a different genre. Like Atwood's work, It is more concerned with how society may work in future, rather than how machines will work. That said, it is astonishingly prescient when the book does speculate, for instance the mechanical hound and the interactive entertainment screens.
As it is a novel depicting dystopia, one naturally wishes to locate it …
This book was on my list of 'important books I somehow did not read before now'. It is such a cultural reference point that one assumes everyone has read it, but I suspect that although most people understand the title (the point at which books burn), they may be like me and have not bothered to actually pick it up.
It is reminiscent of Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale', and falls into that category of 'futurology' that edges on Sci-Fi because by necessity it must speculate about how the future will work, but is really a different genre. Like Atwood's work, It is more concerned with how society may work in future, rather than how machines will work. That said, it is astonishingly prescient when the book does speculate, for instance the mechanical hound and the interactive entertainment screens.
As it is a novel depicting dystopia, one naturally wishes to locate it in the 1984-BNW continuum. Orwell’s 1984 suggests we will be destroyed by what we fear, whereas Huxley’s Brave New World proposes that we will be imprisoned by what we love. Bradbury’s book veers towards Huxley, in so far as society is kept quiescent by consumerism and entertainment, whilst it is also kept in a cage of enforced (and heavily policed) ignorance.
It is a short book, a gripping read, and well worth making the effort. As a warning about the dangers to society of indulging ignorance and celebrating bland superficiality, It is still fresh and relevant.
