Fahrenheit 451

I read The Martian Chronicles years ago and wasn't particularly impressed by it. I avoided reading Fahrenheit 451 because I feared it would disappoint, tarnishing its own mystique. I reread The Martian Chronicles recently, thinking perhaps I just hadn't been ready for it before. And then I read Fahrenheit 451.

I feel generous in giving Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 a rating of four stars. It is better than The Martian Chronicles, which I rated three stars. In the audio version I heard, there is an afterword in which -32 years after the Publication of Fahrenheit 451- Bradbury recounts segments from a play adaptation he had written. I wish that scene, of Captain Beatty showing Montag his personal library and baring his motivations, had been in the novel for it was an enhancement. Now I'd like to see the movie again. My vague memory of it tells me it was quite a departure from the novel.