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A review by ratgrrrl
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
2.0
I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed...and kinda angry.
I really don't know what to say about this book beyond it being one of the greatest disappointments of things I've always wanted to read and heard nothing but great stuff about.
Maybe I'm missing something, and I appreciate it I'm in the minority on this, but it just felt vapid and pointless. Like, authoritarianism and book burning bad, absolutely agree, but what was the political force or ideology behind everything and what was the book actually trying to say? Everything's getting 'dumbed down' and 'pandering to not offend minorities' is what I got from it. I get that there's also the element of bombarded advertising and entertainment to leave no space for any kind of thought or metaphysical contemplation, but...to what ends?
The Great Man Theory of it all, every author before this book was set only being men, obviously, and every possible hero being a man, with the exception of the manic pixie dream girl that opens the book and sparks Montag's journey...who Bradbury goes out of his way to make the reader painfully aware that she is "Seventeen and crazy", very, very hot (and seventeen), and really, really, really, really, really white. All other women are awful, ignorant, and/ or shrews.
Also, the American 'Libertarianism' of it all. Individuality is good, but we need spanking, kids to have some manners beaten and scared into them, and the women better be nicer to all the Great Men. Fuck off!
Maybe this book was revolutionary in the 1950s, I'll give it that, but I just feel like it had so little to say of any meaning, and only a handful of those exquisite little Bradbury lines.
Finally, you know the books that always get burned first? The ones in the majority of the well-known Nazi book burnings? And depressingly in recent years around the world? Books about or by LGBTQIA+ folx. Kinda something that would be important in a book all about burning books you might think? But no, only cisnormative heterosexuality is the only thing that existed in the 1950s, right? Also, women and non-binary people have never written any books.
I can't believe how mad and disappointed I am. Boo!
I really don't know what to say about this book beyond it being one of the greatest disappointments of things I've always wanted to read and heard nothing but great stuff about.
Maybe I'm missing something, and I appreciate it I'm in the minority on this, but it just felt vapid and pointless. Like, authoritarianism and book burning bad, absolutely agree, but what was the political force or ideology behind everything and what was the book actually trying to say? Everything's getting 'dumbed down' and 'pandering to not offend minorities' is what I got from it. I get that there's also the element of bombarded advertising and entertainment to leave no space for any kind of thought or metaphysical contemplation, but...to what ends?
The Great Man Theory of it all, every author before this book was set only being men, obviously, and every possible hero being a man, with the exception of the manic pixie dream girl that opens the book and sparks Montag's journey...who Bradbury goes out of his way to make the reader painfully aware that she is "Seventeen and crazy", very, very hot (and seventeen), and really, really, really, really, really white. All other women are awful, ignorant, and/ or shrews.
Also, the American 'Libertarianism' of it all. Individuality is good, but we need spanking, kids to have some manners beaten and scared into them, and the women better be nicer to all the Great Men. Fuck off!
Maybe this book was revolutionary in the 1950s, I'll give it that, but I just feel like it had so little to say of any meaning, and only a handful of those exquisite little Bradbury lines.
Finally, you know the books that always get burned first? The ones in the majority of the well-known Nazi book burnings? And depressingly in recent years around the world? Books about or by LGBTQIA+ folx. Kinda something that would be important in a book all about burning books you might think? But no, only cisnormative heterosexuality is the only thing that existed in the 1950s, right? Also, women and non-binary people have never written any books.
I can't believe how mad and disappointed I am. Boo!