classic, fantasy
Only book club tends to make me attempt classics anymore. And this is a good thing. Thus, I read Fahrenheit 451 (or, rather, listened to the audio book) by Ray Bradbury. Of course, I couldn't help but draw parallels between this novel and 1984 by George Orwell. Both warn of a future government structure where education is devalued and individual thought is punished. In these worlds, the government dictates what people think and how they live their lives. They attempt to strike down aggressors that threaten their status quo. Both future worlds have also seen the invention of remarkably forward-thinking (at the time these novels were written) devices which have come to exist or which could now exist. Before this year, I would have had a harder time accepting these future worlds as remotely possible. These books illustrate the dangers of leaders who lie and create alternate realities/histories for public consumption. Therefore, these are classic novels which are still relevant.
The main character in Fahrenheit 451 (I researched that this is the temperature at which paper burns), Guy Montag, cannot even remember how he met his wife. His life is fairly meaningless to him as an individual. His job involves the destruction of books and the people who dare to keep them. Yet, he begins to wonder why things are the way they are. And he searches for knowledge. I enjoyed the characters in this novel very much. And Montag was a terrific protagonist who became able to articulate his growing discomfort as the book went on. While the novel did sometimes seem to indulge the author in artistic prose that did not move the storyline forward, it was mostly engaging and made me want to keep reading. This is more than I can say for most classics that I've read. There were some great sections I would have quoted here if I had a physical edition of the book.
The audio book was read by Christopher Hurt (who sounds very similar to Dick Cavett). He did pretty well except for making the main character sound robotic at times. The female characters were all light and airy as if they were in a '50s TV sitcom without a care in the world. I figured that was alright, given the material. Perhaps his voicing choices were based on the mood of the novel which is, obviously, not very optimistic. But, I found him to be distracting from the story at times in those choices. So, I will give him a B+.
The main character in Fahrenheit 451 (I researched that this is the temperature at which paper burns), Guy Montag, cannot even remember how he met his wife. His life is fairly meaningless to him as an individual. His job involves the destruction of books and the people who dare to keep them. Yet, he begins to wonder why things are the way they are. And he searches for knowledge. I enjoyed the characters in this novel very much. And Montag was a terrific protagonist who became able to articulate his growing discomfort as the book went on. While the novel did sometimes seem to indulge the author in artistic prose that did not move the storyline forward, it was mostly engaging and made me want to keep reading. This is more than I can say for most classics that I've read. There were some great sections I would have quoted here if I had a physical edition of the book.
The audio book was read by Christopher Hurt (who sounds very similar to Dick Cavett). He did pretty well except for making the main character sound robotic at times. The female characters were all light and airy as if they were in a '50s TV sitcom without a care in the world. I figured that was alright, given the material. Perhaps his voicing choices were based on the mood of the novel which is, obviously, not very optimistic. But, I found him to be distracting from the story at times in those choices. So, I will give him a B+.
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