"There is more than one way to burn a book."

I was actually really surprised how much I liked Fahrenheit 451. I came into the book, not expecting a whole bunch. It was just a book about burning books, right? Not even. I really enjoyed Bradbury’s writing style, and his book set me thinking about it. I keep on referring back to it in my thoughts and make brief comments about it in conversations. It shocked me in his afterword, that slowly throughout the years, his book about censorship has been censored, cut down, minimalized. All the swear words were taken out of the novel, it was condensed for school versions, and it shocked me because I realized that we do that already. We shorten books; take out things that offend us, really, what else are abridged novels for.

I actually realized that I am against the censorship of books already, I hate reading the abridged books because I feel like I don’t get the whole scope of the novel. That is why I read the unabridged Les Miserables by Victor Hugo and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, just to name a few. I don’t mind at all that they are over one thousand pages in length.

I loved the themes represented in the book. The reality vs the technology represented in the parlor room, life, death, casual war. For some reason it really hit home especially looking at all the changes that are happening in the world right now. I don’t think that that type of censorship will ever happen, but I see a world where change is happening, other countries look at us with disgust, intelligence becoming less and less important, our students not wanting to learn. I felt myself being shocked by this book, but loving it at the same time, and I’m glad to say that if this really would happen I think I would find myself with the book-keepers or be in the same company with the lady who burnt herself with her books.

Because a life without books is really no life at all.