It's time once again for Inner Beauty Friday Bookclub! As always I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde
This week I read Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury-
Here's the synopsis from Goodreads.com "Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires ...
The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning ... along with the houses in which they were hidden.
Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames ... never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.
Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think ... and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do!
My thoughts: I try to like "Sic Fi", and I try to read some of the classics every now and then to feed my brain. But I just don't like this kind of literature. I can see how it's thought provoking and probably was really "cool" at the time but... blah. I feel like it's so full of metaphors and symbolism and it just feels overworked to me so that I can't even get an enjoyable read out of it.
Am I the only one?
Jasmine
I haven't managed to pick this one up yet, but I do know what you mean-- a lot of the classic sci-fi is so heavy with "meaning", it's hard to enjoy the story. :/
ReplyDeleteI think I might be the only person in the world that doesn't LOVE this book, you may love it too...but I am glad you understand the over writing I am talking about!
DeleteI read this at summer camp in high school. One of my roommates was supposed to read it for school, and since I read all the books I had brought I wound up reading it. I don't remember a lot about it, but do remember enjoying it. I do think it'd be fun to go back and reread it now though.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me there are few I need to reread some day, thanks for stopping by!
DeleteIt's one of my top 5 favorite books ever. The first time I read it was middle school, but I pick it up again and reread it every few years. It says a lot about the importance of literature and how technology becomes a distraction from interacting with other people and can keep us from remembering what's really important. Those seashell radios that everyone has blaring in their ears all the time? Bradbury was basically describing iPods before Apple ever thought of them. I think this book was visionary and remains deeply true. It doesn't really have a lot of "sci-fi" elements, just technology a little more advanced than ours.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, if I were to ever become a living, walking book, I would be the complete poems of Emily Dickinson.
ReplyDeleteI totally get that people love this book for it's commentary on society...and I get the seashell reference...maybe it's because I don't use IPod type devices and I don't watch a lot of tv or even use my cell phone regularly, that I just don't identify with the characters and this book doesn't resonate with ME personally. I love the Grapes of Wrath and The Good Earth I find the human struggle more interesting from that point of view
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