Author: Ray Bradbury
Publication Date: 1953
Length: 184 pages
Guy Montag is a fireman, but in this dystopian future, that doesn't mean putting out fires. It means starting fires to burn illegal books. But this book is about more than just book-burning, because more than just books have been destroyed. Seemingly most intelligence and other interesting things have been eliminated. People entertain themselves with their TV walls all day. The idea is that people are "happier" because they only experience simple, happy media, rather than complicated things that make one think. This has made people horrifyingly mindless and complacent.
When Montag meets a girl who likes going for walks and chooses odd topics of conversation, his dissatisfaction with his life intensifies and he starts to question the way things are. Before you know it, he's defying the principles he has proudly helped enforce for his whole life, hiding books in his home and making contact with others who have kept intellectualism alive.
I feel like I had to read this book, as a fan of dystopians, but I don't really feel like I got anything out of it. It's an interesting premise, and the story was pretty good, but it didn't thrill me. And thinking back on it now, I find that it hasn't really stuck with me.
3 stars.
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