I can't believe that I have never read this book, especially considering I was an English major in college and I was in a Classics book club after college. This book was written in 1953. It's set in a time where "joy" and "fun" and "happiness" is the focus of life. A very interesting concept. Of course if it seems too good to be true, then you can bet it is!
Guy Montag is a fireman. He is a fireman who starts fires, not puts them out. His job is to burn books - and to burn homes of people who have books. It's illegal to own a book or read a book. Books contain knowledge. Books contain history. Books contain unhappy events. If the idea is for the entire population to only feel happiness, then books must be destroyed. It took awhile for me to understand Guy's living environment. He is married to Mildred, but he certainly doesn't seem to love her. He doesn't even remember when and how they met, which is odd. Mildred spends her time with her "family" in the walls of their home. Eventually I figured out that the walls of their homes were like huge TV screens which were on all the time and filled with happy "entertainment" - I guess to bring only joy to people.
The problem is, Guy isn't happy. He meets a young girl (17 years old) named Clarisse who "thinks differently". She seems happy and carefree and is a free-thinker. She is bold enough to ask Guy if he is happy. But, she "disappears" and her family moves away suddenly. Guy believes that she was killed for her thoughts - and unwillingness to conform to the narrow vision of an "entertainment only" life. He goes home from work one night (his work was only done in the middle of the night) and kicks an empty pill bottle in the dark. Mildred has taken the whole bottle of 30 pills. He calls for emergency help and they pump her stomach. Mildred doesn't remember taking the pills or anything that happened as a result of it. The final straw is that one night the firemen go to a house full of books and the woman who owns them chooses to burn with her books and her house.
Guy has been stealing books and hiding them in his home. When Mildred finds out, she reports him. She leaves him as the firemen come to burn their house down. Guy manages to escape his doomed future by running away (with the help of a former professor). I wouldn't say there is a "happy ending" or anything, but it's a more positive ending than Nineteen Eighty-Four! I think I need to take a break from these classic stories of dystopian futures.
Wendy's Rating: ****
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