Fahrenheit 451

"The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. but the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals." .... "We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it." -Beatty.

I...LOVED this book. But in contrary to popular belief, it's not really about government censorship. As Beatty himself said, it didn't start with the government. It started with people losing an interest in books as a result of A) technology exploited and B) political correctness in regards to minorities.
A basic synopsis of the book would be that Guy Montag is an average fireman. Average for the time that is. In the future, homes have been fireproofed, so a fireman no longer puts out fires, but starts them. All books and the homes in which they are found are burned. But in a world where pleasure and 'happiness' are king, there are still people who challenge the norm. Clarisse McClellan is one of those, and she challenges Montag's motivation for burning books. This challenge makes Montag start to question the reason of burning books, and the story goes on.

When I read this book, I was amazed because Ray Bradbury wrote many things that seem to already have started becoming true.

1. "School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored."
That's already coming true. I hardly know anyone my age who knows the difference between the usage of who and whom, that snuck is not actually a word, and that being nauseous and nauseated are NOT the same thing.

2. "Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports."
Can anyone else notice the obsession with football in America?? As I've probaby ranted before, I don't see the point of football except this: "All right, we're gonna take the ball, and score a touchdown! Break!!"

There are others I could go into, but I realize this post is getting just a tad long.
To close: Unless people start reading and absorbing intelligent books again, I do believe our society will head in this direction.
Lord have mercy.

PS Random fact I found: according to wikipedia, I have read four of the books that are commenly challenged in the US. And there are more on there I'm planning to read, such as 1984. Extra points to anyone who can guess the books I've read on the list.