Fahrenheit 451

So, I just finished reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for the first time. And I have to say that I swallowed this book whole. I don't know if I have read a book so devotedly in a while. Usually I pick up a book and get part of the way through it, and then realize that I don't really like it, or the read is slow.


However, this story, which is completely about books I must add, I loved. And perhaps it would have been different if I had had to read it for school. But this 1984-esque short novel was the perfect short read.

I'm not going to tell you the plot, in case you haven't read it, or have and don't need to be told twice. But it was an testament to the human disconnect from all that is natural. With citizens so cued into their "parlors", or tv screens, there was no need for thought, or for real human connection, or the out of doors.


And this is something that we still talk about today. And if it was a concern in the 1950s, think about how much worse it has gotten. The fear that all things theological and worth living for will be lost among the Jersey Shores and the Gossip Girls of the world is a direct parallel with this book.


And sometimes I catch myself doing it. Losing touch with my own reality and living through my computer or t.v. screen. And although Bradbury's book emphasized the importance of knowledge contained in books, I believe it was more so about the fear of a future with-out emotional or intellectual depth.

"Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us."

What do you think books are for?