Fahrenheit 451

Author: (American) Ray Bradbury
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Fahrenheit 451 is Ray Bradbury's masterpiece on control and resistance, with a print run of up to five million copies and widespread acclaim. Reading this classic today evokes the same resonance as the sensation it caused upon its initial publication fifty years ago. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a firefighter, but his job is to burn forbidden books. He has been a firefighter for ten years and has never found joy in his work: running at midnight, watching books burn page by page—it was all joyful, yet he had never doubted it until one day he met a 17-year-old girl. Through her, he met others who had extraordinary memories—they would burn the books after reading them and memorize the content. They were "no different from ordinary people, like runners who have completed a long journey, after a long search, have seen beautiful things destroyed, now aging, gathering together to wait for the end of the performance, the lamp oil running dry. They are not certain that what is stored in their minds will make every future day shine more purely, but they have no guarantee. However, they are certain that those books are stored behind their calm eyes, intact, waiting for some day in the future when readers with clean or dirty fingers will turn the pages again." Fahrenheit 451 is Ray Bradbury's masterpiece on control and resistance, with a print run of up to five million copies and widespread acclaim. Reading this classic today evokes the same resonance as the sensation it caused upon its initial publication fifty years ago. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a firefighter, but his job is to burn forbidden books. He has been a firefighter for ten years and has never doubted the joy of his work: running at midnight, watching books burn page by page—it was all joyful, yet he had never doubted it until one day he met a 17-year-old girl. Through her, he met others who had extraordinary memories—they would burn the books after reading them and memorize the content. They were "no different from ordinary people, like runners who have completed a long journey, after a long search, have seen beautiful things destroyed, now aging, gathering together to wait for the end of the performance, the lamp oil running dry. They are not certain that what is stored in their minds will make every future day shine more purely, but they have no guarantee. However, they are certain that those books are stored behind their calm eyes, intact, waiting for some day in the future when readers with clean or dirty fingers will turn the pages again."