Another Great Bradbury Story

I am personally a big fan of all of Ray Bradbury's stories. All of his stories find some ways to ridicule our society or to show his opinion on how technology has or will ruin us. This book in certain ridicules how bad censorship will be in the future. It is about the government burning of books because they feel that books can make minorities mad or can make someone feel any kind of emotion.

This book is set sometime in the future, the place is an urban city in a country which is on the brink of nuclear war with another country. In this time, the TVs are walls, the TV screen is an entire wall, books are not allowed unless they were government issued, firemen don't put out fires anymore because every house and building is fireproofed, instead, the firemen's new job is to burn books in which people have been hiding for a long time. The government made up a story for everyone to believe that the firemen's job has always been to burn books. Instead of having a real fire dog, they have this Mechanical Hound which can distinguish any smell and can catch or find anything.

Montag is the main character, he is about 30 years old. He has a wife named Mildred. He is a firemen. He gets interested in books and starts reading them which is against the law which causes him to hide from the firemen. Clarisse is a teenager who can't go to school because the other kids are afraid of her because she is very weird. She takes quotes from her uncle a lot, he uncle is a man who knows how things were before the government has censored everything from the public, everyone thinks he uncle is a mental case. Mildred is his wife, she is not a very loving wife, they rarely talk, at the end she turns in Montag for having books and then she left him. Faber is a man who is also very interested in books, he meets up with Montag when Montag is interested in books and they read together, Faber is a retired English teacher and wants books to be read by everyone. He invented a little radio which is placed in the ear to a point where he can talk to someone from far away. He uses this invention so he can communicate with Montag throughout the whole city. Captain Beatty is the fire chief, he is a very wise man, he knows about everything that is going on with Montag and the books but lets him go for awhile but then makes him give up the books. Beatty knows the real job of the fireman which was to put out fires and he knows about the government trying to keep people from knowing things like this.

Montag is a fireman who is a normal person in the beginning. He meets this girl named Clarisse who tells quotes from her uncle that get Montag thinking, he wonders if some of these things are true. One day, he was called to burn some books that an old lady had been hiding. At first this was just an everyday job for Montag, but one thing was different than usual, the old woman refused to leave her books because she loved them so much. They were forced by the government to burn the books and if the lady refused to leave her books, then she was to burn with them. The firemen set the books on fire and the woman went with the books. This really hurt Montag, he hated doing this. It made him think about why would she love the books that much, there must be something inside of them that is really good. This is the turning point of the story. Montag gets together with Faber and Faber explains the books to Montag. Montag finds the books to be very interesting helps Faber try to save books. Montag saves some books instead of burning them and reads them. But Mildred doesn't like the fact that Montag is reading and turns him in to the fire department for having books. Captain Beatty forces Montag to set fire to his own house with a flame thrower with the books inside. Montag watches his house go down in flames and then kills all the firemen and makes a run for it to get away. They send the mechanical hound to get him but he is too quick because he changes clothes to send the hound off track. He gets out of the city and meets up with a group of people sitting around a handheld TV. I won't go any farther than this because I don't want to reveal the ending.

This is a real good book, it really showed me how bad censorship can be and how it might be in the future. It is very interesting and suspenseful. It isn't too long of a book and is good for anyone of any age.