Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
I recall seeing the trailer of the movie on a national channel. Reading the small introduction i am informed that what i’ve missed was the film version of the book, directed by Francois Truffaut in 1966. Being an anniversary edition , the book has a new introduction by the author and an afterword. Born in 1920 , in Illinois, the author ownes his reputation as one of the greatest writers of science fiction and fantasy, to his determination and passion of reading. Being unable to afford college , Bradbury spent his youth selling newspapers on a corner street and reading books in different libraries that he inhabitated four days out of seven. He wrote about libraries, librarians and author, those being the subjects he mastered best . The firemen or Fahrenheit 451 was written in 9 days with only nine dollars and fifty cents. The story of Guy Montag was developed in the basement of a local library, where the author rented a typewriter for ten cents per half-hour. Before The firemen there was The Pedestrian but Clarisse McClellan knew them both. She makes an appearance for the sake of bringing remorse in Guy’s heart. For his job is burning books and killing readers in a world that doesn’t care any more. For books are the source of all discord and unhappiness.

Afterword...
About a book that combines ”Ray Bradbury’s poetic prose with an uncanny insight into the potential of technology creating a prophetic account of Western civilisation’s enslavement by the media , drugs and conformity that stands alongside Orwell’s 1984” is unadvisable to say much as it is hard to picture a world without the pleasure of reading, However, the tought that the young man who took the chance with the novel by publishing it in the first numbers of his new born magazine was none other than Hugh Hefner, came as a shock to me, For a book that explores the maximum ’ignorance is bliss’, surely a deep analisis wouldn’t do it good. Just show us the image of a world filled up with non-readers, non-learners and non-knowers where there would be no need of firemen to burn books with matches and fire, for ignorance would have done the job. Who, in such a world, would know or care.
”To everything there is a reason.Yes.A time to break down, and a time to build up.Yes.A time to keep silence and a time to speak.Yes, all that.But what else.What else. What else? Something something...”