Why ‘Fahrenheit 451’ does not age well at all

Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451 opens with one of the most iconic opening lines to grace modern literature: “It was a pleasure to burn.”

The novel, fiery from the start, explores a dystopian society where books are illegal. When a book is discovered, it’s burned, its owner is arrested, and the house the shelters both book and owner is burned down. The people responsible for policing those books are called “firemen,” who are responsible for starting fires rather than putting them out.

Fahrenheit 451 follows Guy Montag, a fireman who finds himself more and more curious about the literature he is destroying and the system that demands books be burned. Read more…

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