I first read Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 little over a year ago. I remember it with brilliant clarity. Bradbury’s prose is vivid as it is lithe; weaving between the glaring harshness of his dystopian future, and the delicate beauty that persists in spite of it. His diction is unremarkable; he employs everyday English; layman’s language, yet he does so with a brutal grace that assaults the mind as well as the senses.

It would seem that Bradbury, in addition to being a masterful writer, is also something of a prophet. The world of Fahrenheit is our world; the future Bradbury wrote of is our present. We live in voluntary, perhaps even compulsive, seclusion; private bubbles of reality, insulated by our shiny gadgets and our knick-knacks and our entertainment -- the seductive offerings of Technology. His characters have their Seashell Radios, their Televisors -- we, our iPods, our flatscreens. The reconstructed reality that Bradbury presents is disturbing. It is alien, and yet frighteningly familiar: masses of people swaddled in happy ignorance, their governments mired in senseless warfare.

Reading Fahrenheit, Bradbury’s narrative begins to melt into reality, and eventually, ceases to be fiction at all. A single premise permeates the novel: the slow death of literature, and the subsequent dearth of independent thought. The public is fed with empty, fatuous trifles, and is satisfied. They burn books; “burn ‘em to ashes, then burn the ashes.” Seashell Radios, flatscreen TVs -- we look, we listen, we laugh -- and we are satisfied.

Mr. Bradbury’s book inspires me because of what it is -- a work of masterpiece. Its underpinning message is, essentially, “turn off the television; take a walk, read a book.” It should be a didactic drag to read -- but it isn’t. It thrilled me, saddened me, and taught me; it certainly didn’t bore me. Like all great fiction, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit is a carnival mirror: it shows a shifting reflection, gnarled, strange and fantastic, but if you look closely, you may see yourself.