High Hopes mediocre outcome

The commentary on anti-intellectualism? Phenomenal. The writing? I hated it. Section III was never-ending. It's a short book, but you could easily cut 20-40 pages.

Leider ein sehr Aktuelles Thema. Sollte jeder bei sich daheim haben!!

Ich brauch ne weile um das Bich zu verbeiten aber so viel sei gesagt: 5 Sterne sind eigentlich zu wenig für diese Buch. Ich weiß nicht warum ich das erst jetzt lese aber thank the godess I did. Wenn es ein Buch gibt das jeder gelesen haben sollte, dann das!

<b>"I don't talk <i>things</i>, sir," said Faber. "I talk the <i>meaning</i> of things. I sit here and <i>know</i> I'm alive.</b>" I was supposed to read this many years ago for an 11th grade class; I bought the physical copy and never actually read it. It was either this book or Misery (which I also bought and also didn't read). This story follows Guy Montag, a book-burning fireman in a dystopic future where everything that could disturb the masses was dealt with in brute force. <i>"You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred." "Funerals are unhappy and pagan? <u>Eliminate them, too.</u> [...] Let's not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. <b>Fire is bright and fire is clean.</b>"</i> Written in 1953, this book presents a hypothetical future from the 50's onwards, a different timeline of that in which we live today. Made during the Second Red Scare, inspired by the Nazi book-burning and Soviet repression, resulting in mass censorship and persecution. This created a void society, where intelligence and knowledge was useless, pretentious, and most importantly, a threat. <i>"The word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely, you remember the [exceptionally bright] boy in your own school class, [...] And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? <b>Of course it was.</b>" "Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."</i> Montag was like that. He lived a monotone life, carried a boring routine, and didn't question a single thing. Until he met his odd neighbor, Clarisse. Though short-lived, she left Montag with a huge burden, <b>curiosity</b>. <i>"We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?"</i> Throughout the story, Montag becomes more curious and more interested in the nature of his work, and the willingness of the people to resist it. One woman chose to burn with her books instead of living a life like the rest. Why? This haunted him. This <b>bothered</b> him. It's like he's been snapped back from a trance, one that kept him in auto-pilot while an alter ego did the unspeakable. We later learn that the book he stole from the burning woman wasn't the first one, and that he had been harboring these concerns for far longer that we'd thought. Once, he had stumbled upon a retired professor, Faber, who later showed to be a guide for his quest in the preservation of knowledge. <i>"Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the interaction of the first two."</i> Ultimately, this story shows the importance of being bothered. Questioning, searching, and learning. Philosophy, Literature, Sociology, History, and many more of these show us who we are, what we are, where we come from, and where we're headed. It is in our nature to create, from cave paintings to complex code. <i>"<b>Telling detail. Fresh detail.</b> The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones <s>rape</s> her and leave her for the flies."</i> By thinking, we're blessed with quotes such as: <i>"Why waste your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel." "Those who don't build must burn." "How many times can a man go down and still be alive?"</i> Knowledge is under constant threat, either by destruction or plain misinformation. It is vital that we as a society join efforts in preserving knowledge of all kinds; scientific, humanistic, silly, monotonous, whatever, because at the end of the day, everything is useful in preserving the nature of us humans. <i>"The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there <b>a lifetime.</b>"</i> Let's be here a lifetime.