Firemen. How would you consider them? Heroes, life-savers? They come to us when we are in need of extinguishing a fire, that is their job. What would a fireman not do? Start fires in people's homes endangering the people who live there? I guess that would be a good answer since that is the opposite of their job. Well think again. In the second book I read, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the firemen there are supposed to start the fire, not put it out. What kind of world is that where firemen turn from saving houses from fires, to starting them.
I have to say when I read this quote on Location 544 (read on a kindle) I was extremely confused.
"RULE 1. Answer the alarm quickly.
2. Start the fire swiftly.
3. Burn everything.
4. Report back to firehouse immediately.
5. Stand alert for other Alarms." When I read this that was when I realized the job of a fireman is pretty different in this book. I know for a fact that you are wondering why firemen start fires in this book. In this particular setting it is somewhere in the future like a lot of Ray Bradbury's other pieces (which we actually read in 7th grade). At this time books are forbidden, they can't be kept or read. So if the firemen figure out that someone owns books they burn down the house so the books will be completely gone. Most of the time the person whose house is being burned usually dies from the fire as well. Throughout this book I was just thinking about if this could really happen in the future. A lot of things have changed over the course of just 20 years, like technology and culture. Why couldn't it change over the span of 40 years? I don't think that the significant change in time was the fact that the job of a fireman had changed, I think it's mainly that books would be considered bad or forbidden. Our world has been using books for centuries! I don't understand why that would just suddenly stop and would completely turn around. It is like being on both ends of a spectrum; one end which is where books are used every single day, to the other end where books are considered to be so bad that they have to be burned off the face of earth. This is where I thought to myself, Ok, maybe this couldn't really happen in the future. But what do I know, maybe it could happen some day.
Do you know the saying, "Curiosity killed the cat"? Well this basically means that the more you ponder about things and the more curious you become you try things just because you want to know what it is or what it's like. And what's more curious than a cat? This saying is literally meant for this book, no joke. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman, but a curious one. He wonders what books are like, it's not like he knows about them because he burns them as his job. It's pretty ironic that he wants to read a book but has to burn them almost every day. Montag's curiosity gets the better of him so of course he goes on a mission to satisfy his curious brain. Sure Montag is curious like a cat so where does the "killed the cat" part come in? Along his mission of course he gets caught but I'm not going to tell what happens when he gets caught. Read it for yourself! I know the curiosity is killing you now.
Overall I rate this book 2 1/2 to 3 stars. I don't think I would recommend to everyone, only if you enjoy a good sci-fi read.
- Minha
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