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"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

book review by Riley Burnham 10/26/2022

whoa(!!)

it's been a few years/decades since i read this [in high school], & after a few start/stops, i was ready & found an excellent narration

​​​​​​​the firemen burn books -- reading them is of course illegal

​​​​​​​the houses are futuristic, w/ talking & interactive walls [like a game show], & there are gadgets that have actually come to fruition in the ~80 or so years since publication [bluetooth earbuds]

the story is good(!); the characters are excellent; the language is precise & fitting

the mechanical hounds are a terrific menace, & the inside-view of the fire chief is grrrreat(!)

​​​​​​​additionally, i liked the afterword/coda on this, as Bradbury talks about his views on rewriting [he's against it], & explains how this came to be [typed at a dime-for-minutes typewriter in the basement of a university]

a few excellent scenes stuck in my mind for years & years: the car speeding down the road trying to hit him; the fleeing & ending up near the river; the fight w/ the hound

i'd forgotten the war element: that a bomb is dropped on their city & they live to describe its effects [beautiful language], & that books are retained mentally, as those retainers become the living "authors" of the work, as all other copies have or would soon disappear

brilliant stuff