A few hours ago I finished reading Fahrenheit 451, it was hard for me because I rarely read books, but it was worth it, and oh, I felt like I read about our time, people in this novel are like people are now. People watch TV shows, movies, anime created by people and at least think a little, but it happens that people do not think at all and also watch only created by AI and their consumer soul is happy? or even better communicate with AI as a friend and not only, they are, in my opinion, similar to the wife of the main character of the novel; Maybe they will even face a similar fate?
I would say many more things, but I would be glad if you say.
I know it’s not a good idea to compare fiction with reality, but it’s hard not to compare this book with reality, don’t those who have read it agree?
Honestly, I didn’t expect this book to look like it was going to describe the future very accurately, I thought it was just about people refusing to think. I even recognized myself a little in this book.
Hot
I read it around 20 years ago or so, I found it very visionary and very much more akin to our reality than 1984. Scary.
Yeah it’s a great book, A brave new world is another good classic dystopian book you might like. Similarish to 1984 but maybe slightly less known
I didn’t expect this book to look like it was going to describe the future very accurately
Read more Bradbury short stories (try The Illustrated Man collection to start), and more sci-fi in general if you want to see reflections of humanity and (often disturbing) true things being predicted from well in the past.
I can’t recommend trying to read 1984 to you enough. It’s not always an easy read, but if you enjoyed 451 I think you’ll like 1984.
A brave new world and clockwork orange are in the same vein as well.
I very much enjoy F451. It’s ultimately a book of hope, about breaking free from the chains of societal/governmental control and seeking knowledge and truth in literature. The context in which it was written (the McCarthy Era) is paralleled by current events, and the book becomes ever more relevant. History doesn’t repeat, but it sure does rhyme.
Hope? >!A nuke drops at the end and everyone dies!<
I got futility from the last page.
It’s been well over a decade since my last read, so… shit haha
It repeats.
Yeah, history is really all cyclical rises and falls. We can make our present a little better but there is no stopping the cycle, no happily ever after for humanity.
Sorry, Gene.
I read it 25 years ago in high school. I remember being horrified by the author’s depiction of what is now modern-day streaming. It basically sucked the soul out of the protagonist’s wife. Seems that was a bit overblown, looking back
A lot of people focus on the censorship and you could definitely argue that being the central theme, but bradbury himself said he was trying to highlight the dangers of mass media.
Seems that was a bit overblown, looking back
I have witnessed it firsthand. I assure you, it was not.
I liked it, didn’t love it.
The whole central image of it, setting fire to books, and the way they go about it, just felt too direct to me. Still, it weaves a good story and the ideas resonate well enough.
AI companies are buying up rare and out of print books, scanning them to feed into the data centers, then literally shredding and burning the books, so those companies become the only source of the text of those books.
It’s not exactly the same thing but it is our reality’s parallel.
Valid, I was definitely thinking of that parallel when reading the recent AI headlines.
Destructive scanning is not altogether bad, but it’s a huge shame to see it happening from companies that give nothing worthwhile back to the public commons.
It does make me reconsider my ‘burning books is too clearly evil to suspend disbelief’ a little. Still, they’re somewhat different circumstances.
Your wording implies that they buy the last copies of books.
In many cases they are deliberately buying the only existing copies of rare books, yes.
Yeah you can think about AI and the current events and compare with F451. It’s been almost a decade since I read it but personally, I’d say Brave New World had me thinking more about the present and future than F451. Maybe we’re in the middle of the distopian trilogy - 1984/F451/BNW
Yeah totally agree. I really liked 451 and 1984 but I thought the most thought provoking of the 3 was brave new world
I’m a big sci-fi fan, but… Man, I know I am a minority in this, but to me F451 was pretty bad. I had to really force myself to finish it despite being such a thin book. Everywhere I look I see almost everyone praises it like it’s the best book ever written, deep, thoughtful, etc. And I’m sitting here thinking: Have I read the same book?
Edit: I wasn’t forced to read the book (like in school), I wanted to read it to see why the hype. And got disappointed. While there were books from similar era with similar reviews that I really enjoyed - like e. g. Clarke’s Rama or Pohl’s Gateway.
Yeah, I agree. It wasn’t exactly subtle in it’s messaging, and the story felt like just an excuse to display dystopian ideas
I’d compare it to 1984, which was similar in that the ideas communicated were the main point, but it also had a strong narrative that much better communicated the human experience of those ideas
I read Fahrenheit 451 quite a while ago but I found it pretty good. Though, I compared it to much to 1984 and found 1984 better.
Agreed though, it feels similarly to today’s age and the future. People nowadays rather be easily entertained (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok etc) than to make an effort and read for enjoyment and education. The government also seems to continuously try to make people avoid reading.
If I remember well there’s this quote in the book to F451:
We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking
Which is happening today.
We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking
Yes, but I liked the passage where the villain says something like: don’t give people time to think, fill their minds with all sorts of nonsense, so they don’t even have a free second to think.
Well, now it’s the reality: war, war, death, people died again, and here’s the perfect life on Reddit, see what a cute AI-generated cat, but it doesn’t matter to you, right? so consume and be happy.
And I also find that 1984 is better. The finale is especially realistic, where the main character, like an obedient kid, in a sense falls in love with the party.
Same here. 1984 was great! Then I read F451 and was good but not that great as Orwell’s book.
I know it’s not a good idea to compare fiction with reality, but it’s hard not to compare this book with reality, don’t those who have read it agree?
Some books are written with the intent of comparing them to reality, and the author hopes you will do so, and come to important conclusions.
I like the idea, and might get back into it (restarting), but previous time I started it I was thrown off by the overuse of metaphors. Maybe it’s just an introduction-thing, but I found it very cumbersome to always have to read “The thing was X, like and Y that had undergone Z” instead of just “the thing was worn and green”.
Yes, I know that writers should show rather than tell, but when the reader has to spend most of the reading time parsing metaphors that could’ve instead just been a factual statement, it becomes a very cumbersome read.
But I will give it another go. I like the sci-fi classics, and I suspect I’d like this one too
I haven’t read that book since high school (well over 20 years ago) but I just want to give you your props. You recognized a limitation in yourself and you addressed it. Great job!
From what I remember Fahrenheit 451 was a very important book about the dangers of blind obedience and not thinking for oneself. Great first choice.
I have been a huge Bradbury fan since childhood. I have read and watched everything he has touched. However now that I’m older I see elitism in Fahrenheit from Bradbury’s prejudice against all media except books.
People can dissociate from the world into books just like any other media.
