The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde - UPDATED REVIEW

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde  Genre : Classics Blurb (on back of book) : Oscar Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind. UPDATED REVIEW MY OPINION : ****** I would like to start out this review by stating that this is undoubtedly m
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Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Genre: Classic/Sci-Fi/Dystopian
Image result for fahrenheit 451
Blurb (on back of book): Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.
Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television 'family'. But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people did not live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.
When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known.

 MY OPINION: ***

I read this book for school and I can't say it was the most enjoyable read I've read for school but it wasn't bad. The themes behind it are quite interesting and had a lot of potential to become something great. I don't think it was as amazing as the book is hyped up to be but there were many parts when I was pleasantly surprised.

The book itself was very short but I found it really hard to pay attention to. I would have to be doing something else between sections because I would forget I was reading and start staring off into space. There were passages that went on for pages at a time and I couldn't focus for all of it. I don't know if it's because I was tired or because I was bored by the book but something was up.

In the dystopian society (mind you, this was written in the fifties, quite a bit before technology was as prevalent as it is now), books and knowledge are outlawed. Basically, any intellectual stimulation is prohibited. The people in the society spend their days and nights watching television and listening to the radio 24/7. They never stop. The people have four screens in every house and their "families" are the ones that they see on TV. Nobody has any dreams or ambitions or futures.

There are firemen who instead of fighting fires, start them. Their only job in life is to burn any illegal books that people own and they aren't afraid of also burning the owners with them if they refuse to part with the books. Our protagonist, Guy Montag, is one of those firefighters and is quite sardonic in his pleasure when burning books. "It was a pleasure to burn" (1).

Then Montag meets a young teenage girl named Clarisse McClellan. She's beyond different from everybody in society. Rather than staring at the TV, she's outside, drinking the rain. In the small amount of time we meet her before she is so tragically run over by a car, she changes Montag's opinions on everything in his life, sending him down a spiral of depression and guilt and shame as he realizes the mistakes he's made.

Montag meets a professor who is one of the rare intellectuals left over from society. Together, they formulate a plan to try to take down the evil firemen, including Captain Beatty, a very complex character.

What struck me as most interesting about this book is how well Ray Bradbury predicted the future. He knew that one day technology was going to become essential to society and already, that's true. He knew that books would be censored and that's (sadly) starting to happen. There are those who are rallying for the censorship of certain books from libraries and bookstores because of what they contain. I loved how spot-on that all felt because it made a realistic resonation within me when reading.

I like how you can relate a large part of their society to our society, despite the negative parallels. We both have a large reliance on technology and the benefits that come with it, we all spend a lot less time reading (let's be real, how many average Americans really read?), or if we are reading, it's on a kindle or a phone a lot of the time. Reality TV is considered the most popular form of TV today (sports also count as reality TV). People spend less time outside and are mostly behind their phones scrolling through Twitter.

I loved the ending. The phoenix symbolism was really ingenious. Rising out of the ashes. Poor Mildred.

Let's be real, we're a lot smarter than we were fifty years ago but are we using those brains for any good or are we wasting them away?

If the pacing had been faster and characters had talked for less amounts of time, I would have loved it!

I would recommend this book to readers looking for a dystopian classic read.

Main Character: Montag
Sidekick(s): Mildred, Clarisse, Faber, etc
Villain(s): Beatty, Mechanical Hound, etc
Classic/SciFi/Dystopian Elements: This book was very seminal and futuristic.

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