Xinyuan was telling me excitedly yesterday that she'd just read Fahrenheit 451 and it was "awesome". I read the book in P4/5, but could not comprehend why they were burning books - I knew they hated them, but couldn't peel away the multiple layers of meaning to understand.

So I borrowed and read it again today, and I kind of get it now. Captain Beatty and the firemen shrink away from the old woman who is willing to die for books because she knows something they don't. The public dislikes knowledge because it distracts them from their happy lives, and they fear and despise books because they contain that which will make them think, and make them unhappy. Vapid happiness is preferable to self-induced depression.

One of Mildred's friends cries when Montag reads her poetry. Unable to cope with their feelings, the women choose to denounce books. Television (or in this case, parlor walls) makes them happy. Thinking doesn't. Is unthought a blissful slumber from which we shouldn't wake?

Is Montag foolish for seeking knowledge, which opens his eyes to the miserable state of affairs around him, or is everyone else cowardly for hiding?

It's scary how his prophecies are coming true, anyway. Like Xinyuan said, the Seashells resemble the ubiquitous iPod of today. Listening only to the little pieces in our ears feeding us entertainment, deaf to everything else...