

Fahrenheit 451 is probably my most read book, but then again I grew up in a house where there was a Bradbury book laying around almost always within arms reach. I’ve always said when Bradbury writes, it’s almost poetry, and creates that pacing like where you say the internal audio speeds up and slows down. Of what I’ve called the “dystopian trilogy” of 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, it seems that one is the least read and I feel is definitely one more people should read because it really looks less on the government and more on the people themselves… and it’s frankly frightening.
But, I feel often Bradbury was an optimist. Unlike many, while Fahrenheit 451 is one of the dystopian novels, it does have hope written into it as well.
Complete aside, my dad was a firefighter, and as I said, I was raised on Bradbury due to him. There’s an artist who made clay dragons, many were incense burners. I saw one where it’s a dragon reading a book, and the incense would come out from its nostrils and pour over the book. I said I’d need to get one for my dad that had Fahrenheit 451 as the book, the artist hadn’t read it before. The next week she had read it, and made one of these dragons where it’s wearing a fire helmet with the 451 on the shield, and the book he’s reading is Dante’s Inferno, and instead of the smoke coming from the nostrils, the hole is hidden by the book so the pages would look like they’re smoking. She caught the feeling of the book with that one, so that’s one of those that has been most prominently on display at my dad’s house since I got it.
Oh thank you Ellen for telling us that it’s so much better for you when you took off and left. Those of us lessers who didn’t have the foresite to have enough money to pick up and flee the country now know so much better.
Get fucked.