FAHRENHEIT 451.

FAHRENHEIT 451 by RAY BRADBURY.

BACK COVER BLURB: Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. 

Ray Bradbury's powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a prophetic account of Western civilization's enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity that stands alongside Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.

FIRST SENTENCE {Part One: The Hearth and the Salamander}: It was a pleasure to burn.

MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 58}: 'You weren't there, you didn't see,' he said. 'There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing.'

SOURCE:  A special edition that celebrates fifty years since its first publication, this is one of Mr T's books off our shelves.

MY THOUGHTS: A book perhaps made notorious (and arguably the reason for its huge popularity) by it being included on the list of books to have been banned at one point or another. 

A 'science fiction'/'dystopian' novel, all about censorship and what it is to control/be controlled and, if I'm not very much mistaken, the 'dumbing down of society'.

Not what I considered a particularly well penned read. Not wishing to insult any school boys, but alas I found the writing, well, school boyish in its execution. The Mechanical Hound from whose snout there projects a lethal syringe unimaginative and, quite frankly, I felt laughable.

With neither a plot nor characters (probably the most important aspect of a story as far as I'm concerned) that I could immerse myself in, let alone believe in, I'm afraid I struggled. 

Then there was the whole futuristic aspect. OK, so there are those that see the author as quite the visionary and, yes, it could be said that with the increase in 'reality tv' (the opium of the masses?) he was right and I suppose in this respect the book is marginally interesting but not nearly so interesting as to grip my interest let alone hold my attention.

Whilst I shouldn't really compare the two, give me George Orwell any time.

Fahrenheit 451 was read for the 2016 Reading Challenge: 'A book that was banned at some point' category.