451° по Фаренгейту

УДК 373
ББК 81.2 Англ-922
 
Б 89

ISBN 978-5-9925-1009-6
©  КАРО, 2015
Все права защищены

Брэдбери, Рэй.
Б 89  
451º по Фаренгейту : Книга для чтения на английском 
языке / Р. Брэдбери ; [адаптация, комментарии, задания и 
словарь Ж. Д. Кузнецовой]. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 
2015. — 144 с. — (Серия «Reading with exercises»).

 
 
ISBN 978-5-9925-1009-6.

В книге представлен роман-антиутопия Рэя Брэдбери «451º по Фаренгейту» — классика научной фантастики. Издание содержит сокращенный и 
адаптированный текст романа, снабжено словарем, постраничными комментариями, лексико-грамматическими упражнениями, творческими заданиями, 
заданиями на перевод, вопросами на восприятие и для обсуждения.
Пособие адресовано учащимся 9–11 классов школ с углубленным изучени ем английского языка, а также широкому кругу читателей, имеющих уровень языковой подготовки Intermediate.
УДК 373
ББК 81.2 Англ-922

В дополнение к книге можно приобрести
тематический аудиоматериал на диске в формате МР3,
подготовленный издательством

Предисловие

Вашему вниманию предлагается пособие по чтению на английском языке на основе одной из самых 
известных книг американского фантаста Рэя Брэд бери 
«451° по Фаренгейту». В романе описан мир будущего, в котором запрещенные в тоталитарном обществе 
книги безжалостно сжигаются отрядом пожарных. 
В центре романа — история пожарного Гая Монтага. 
Встреча с необычной девушкой, попытка его жены 
отравиться, надвигающаяся война – эти и другие события приводят его к пониманию того, что в жизни 
человека существуют истинные ценности, он обращается к запрещенным книгам и становится изгоем 
общества.
Издание содержит сокращенный и адаптиро ванный 
текст романа, снабжено постраничными комментариями, словарем и адресовано учащимся 9–11 классов 
школ с углубленным изучением английского языка, а 
также широкому кругу читателей, имеющих уровень 
языковой подготовки Intermediate и выше.
Автор-составитель предлагает читателю работать 
с книгой поэтапно. Для этого она разделила текст романа на 12 смысловых частей и составила предтекстовые и послетекстовые задания к каждой из них. 
Задания организованы следующим образом: каждая 
часть начинается с предтекстовых вопросов, призван

•   Fahrenheit 451

ных подготовить читателя к восприятию текста до знакомства с ним. Упражнение «Угадай значение слова» 
поможет читателю снять боязнь перед незнакомыми 
словами. Прежде чем обращаться к словарю, стоит 
присмотреться к слову, вполне возможно, что оно заимствовано (symphony — симфония) или читателю 
знаком его корень (thoughtfully — задумчиво). Далее 
предлагается задание на аудирование в той или иной 
форме.
Задания, данные после каждой части текста, включают в себя вопросы на понимание текста, лексикограмматические упражнения, задания на перевод и 
вопросы для обсуждения. Последнее задание к каждой части дает читателю возможность выйти за рамки 
текста, попробовать свои силы в творческом проекте.
Прослушивание компакт-диска, записанного носителем языка, позволит лучше освоить произношение и научиться воспринимать английскую речь на 
слух, а выполнение упражнений на аудирование поможет подготовиться к государственным экзаменам.

Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, American science fiction and horror 
author, was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from high school in 1938. Bradbury 
couldn’t go to the university because his family didn’t 
have money for that, but he became a “student of life”. 
He sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners from 
1938 to 1942 and spent his nights in the public library. 
“Libraries raised me,” he said later. “I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When 
I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression, and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so 
I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”
Bradbury published his first short story in a magazine 
in 1938, the same year he graduated from high school. 
In 1950 the book The Martian Chronicles was written. It 
describes the first attempts of Earth people to colonize 
Mars and the conflict between humans and the native 
Martians.
Next came the book of short stories The Illustrated 
Man and then, in 1953, Fahrenheit 451. The plot is set 
in a future world where books are forbidden. All in all, 
Bradbury published more than thirty books, close to 
600 short stories, a lot of poems, essays, and plays.
Married since 1947, Mr. Bradbury and his wife Maggie lived in L.A. with their numerous cats. They had 

•   Fahrenheit 451

four daughters and eight grandchildren. He died in Los 
Angeles on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91.
On his 80th birthday in August 2000, Bradbury said, 
“The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea 
has hit me. The feeling I have every day is very much 
the same as it was when I was twelve. In any event, here 
I am, eighty years old, feeling no different, full of a 
great sense of joy, and glad for the long life that has 
been allowed me. I have good plans for the next ten or 
twenty years, and I hope you’ll come along.”

Chapter I

Pre-reading tasks

1. Warm-up questions.

 • Have you ever read a science fiction book? What is its name? 
Did you like it?

 • What do firemen do? Would you like to be a fireman? Why 
or why not?

 • Can you remember the last time when you were looking at 
the moon or saw dew on the grass early in the morning?

 • What do you think, will the books disappear in the future? 
If you think they will, what can replace them?

2. Guess the meaning of these words.

Symphony, fireproof, hypnotize, kerosene, salamander, thoughtfully, crystal, slogan.

Listening task

Listen and fill in the words.

 1) The books died on the lawn of the house and a … turned dark 
with burning.

 2) It never went away, that … , it never ever went away.

 3) He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight … 
toward the subway.

 4) He turned the corner and saw a … .

 5) “And you must be” — she raised her eyes from his professio nal symbols —“the … .”

•   Fahrenheit 451

 6) “Well,” she said, “I’m … and I’m crazy.”

 7) “It’s fine work. Monday burn Millay1, Wednesday Whit man2, 
… Faulkner3, burn them to ashes, then burn the ashes. That’s 
our official slogan.”

 8) “If you show a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he’ll say, that’s 
grass! A … blur? That’s a rose-garden!”

 9) Then she seemed to remember something and came back to 
look at him with wonder and curiosity. “Are you … ?” she 
said.

* * *
It was a special pleasure to burn things, to see them 
blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his 
hands, with this great machine spitting its kerosene 
upon the world. His hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of burning. 
With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his head, 
and his eyes all orange flame, he flicked the igniter and 
the house jumped up in a fire that burned the evening 
sky red and yellow and black. He wanted above all, like 
the old joke, to cook a marshmallow on a stick in the 
furnace, while the books died on the lawn of the house 
and a wind turned dark with burning.
Montag grinned. He knew that when he returned to 
the firehouse, he might wink at himself, burnt-corked4, 

1 Millay — Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей (1892–1950), американская поэтесса.
2 Whitman — Уолт Уитмен (1819–1892), американский поэт.
3 Faulkner — Уильям Фолкнер (1897–1962), американский писатель.
4 burnt-corked — (зд.) с лицом, будто выкрашенным жженой 
пробкой.

Chapter I   •   9

in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the 
fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. 
It never went away, that smile, it never ever went away, 
as long as he remembered.
He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and 
shined it, he hung his flameproof jacket neatly; he showered, and then, whistling, hands in his pockets, walked 
across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down 
the hole. At the last moment, he pulled his hands from 
his pockets, grasped the golden pole and slid to a concrete floor downstairs.
He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent train 
slid soundlessly down into the hole in the earth and let 
him out on to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the 
suburb.
Whistling, he walked toward the corner, thinking 
little  at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached 
the corner, however, he slowed as if someone had called 
his name very quietly.
The last few nights he had had the most uncertain 
feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here, 
moving in the starlight toward his house. He had felt 
that a moment before he turned, someone had been there. 
The air seemed charged with a special calm as if someone 
had waited there, quietly, and only a moment before he 
came, simply turned to a shadow and let him through. 
There was no understanding it.1 Each time he made the 
turn, he saw only the white, unused sidewalk.

1 There was no understanding it. — (разг.) Это было непонятно 
(необъяснимо).

•   Fahrenheit 451

But now, tonight, he slowed almost to a stop. His 
mind had heard the faintest whisper. Breathing? Or 
was someone standing very quietly there, waiting?
He turned the corner and saw a girl.
She was watching her shoes stir the circling leaves. 
Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was 
a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything 
with tireless curiosity. It was a look almost of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that 
nothing escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered.
The girl stopped and looked as if she was surprised.
Montag greeted her, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenixdisc1 on his chest, he spoke again.
“Of course,” he said, “you’re a new neighbour, aren’t 
you?”
“And you must be” — she raised her eyes from his 
professional symbols —“the fireman.” Her voice trailed 
off.2

“How oddly you say that.”
“I can know it with my eyes shut,” she said, slowly.
“What — the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains,” he laughed. “I can’t wash it off completely.”
“No, you don’t,” she said.
He felt she was studying him.
“Kerosene,” he said,“ is a kind of perfume to me.”

1 the phoenix-disc — (зд.) эмблема пожарных с изображением птицы Феникс (в древнегреческой мифологии эта птица жила 
500 лет, затем сжигала себя и возрождалась заново из пепла)
2 Her voice trailed off. — (разг.) Звук ее голоса постепенно стих.