Farenheit 451

Farenheit 451 to my mind is up there with Orwell's 1984,and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It's a book that makes you question ''what if'' and to some extent ask is this what we are already becoming?.
The Synopsis is:Books are banned, and dangerous. They have to be burned by ''Firemen'',and anybody caught with books will be severely punished.
Guy Montag is the hero of the novel, a fireman he begins to question what it's all about when he meets a beautiful young girl called Clarise. The girl shows him what it's like to open your mind, and want to learn.
Montag's wife on the other hand represents a society hooked on sleeping tablets, and mind numbing entertainment, her one ambition is to own a fouth screen , the screens take up whole walls, so implying that they rule the home.
The book pulls no punches, even at it's ending you are left with a feeling of hopelessness[ at least I was] Montag is to some extent victorious, but at a terrible price to himself. He[ to my mind] is made aware that it wasn't about the books themselves, but more about what happens when people become apathetic,and allow themselves to be controlled.
Although this book is over fifty years old it still has a message for us all. Question , Question, Question! never take at face value what you are told, never lose the quest for knowledge...for in knowledge lies freedom.

Yes, I've seen the film a number of times.
Actually went to Germany and rode on that over-head train about four years after the film was made.

When I read the book I thought of Pol Pot, 1984 book, McCarthyism etc. The plebs against the intellectual classes. No matter how much you try to corner the intellect classes they will always try to push through. This was a book that made you think of other possibilities.

I agree with you Pat, we should always question, question and question, otherwise the flat tops will take over and we’d have a moronic society. You can look at the books as a warning of such possibilities if society isn’t vigilant.

The Nazis -plebs?
but I get your point.
Actually it is often the ''intellectuals'' who do it to themselves, most revolutions are started by ''intellectuals'' who then turn on each other. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, both of which ended when a 'dictator' took control of the situation, (namely Napolean and Stalin.)

I agree. The intellectuals use the plebs to do their bidding. The trouble is no pleb can do/ or start the revolution unless they are intellectuals. I bet behind 1984 and Fahrenheit there were plebs mastering it (i.e. in the fictional world). And of course those books were written by the intelligentsia/ intellect classes as well.