Fahrenheit 451

I count it a privilege to be able to revisit the canon as an “adult” instead of the forced march of high school reading. It's nice to savour the book and just be blown away at the sheer volume of ideas intimated at in every chapter. And dense too. I can't help but feel in today's indulgent age the book might have ended up being twice as long and half as good.

Ironic reading this on the LED screen of an iPad especially considering how Bradbury was a big fan of words on the printed page. When Faber caresses the Bible Montag gives up he reminisces aloud: “Do you know that books smell like nutmeg or some spice from a foreign land? I loved to smell them when I was boy. Lord, there were a lot of lovely books once, before we let them go.”

Glad I finally got around to reading this.