I know just writing a summary is boring but I'm going to write some of the events that happened that were significant so we can keep on track. First of all, Clarisse died. That was pretty terrible, for me, and especially for Guy, who considered her the first friendly person he had met in a long time, perhaps his whole life. Guy also had to burn an old woman's house down, but before he did he managed to swipe a book (scandalous!) Anyway, that the woman burned along with her house full of books really rattled Guy. So much so that he decided to take a day off, sick in bed. Still, his boss comes to his house to lecture about the important roles these fireman play in preserving the lifestyles people like to lead... he talks about how books only brought argument. However, all this was not enough for guy. He decides to meet with a retired english professor from the old days, before people stopped majoring in english and the colleges went out of buisness.
Whew, that was a block of text. Well, here's some quotes that I found interesting.
"After all, when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.' Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven't time, money or that many friends. The things you're looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see them is in a book. Don't ask for gaurantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore."This is part of Faber's response to Guy's crazy proposition to bring books back into the world. You see, in Guy's universe, all books are sought out and destroyed. They have started and won two nuclear wars, and the citizens are heavily sheltered from the rest of the world.
-Faber to Montag, pg. 86
"'The girl? She was a time bomb. The family had been feeding her subconscious, I'm sure, from what I saw of her school record. She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. That can be embarassing. You ask why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead... Luckily, queer ones like her don't happen often. We know how to nip most of them in the bud, early... If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides of a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.'"Some things don't need further explanation. I think this quote fairly outlines the attitude of the government in Guy's universe.
-Beatty to Mr. and Ms. Montag, pgs. 60-61
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