Book Review: From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury

From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury

The Elliott family lives in a northern Illinois town in a creaky old house. A foundling is left on their doorstep, Timothy. He is unique to them because he sleeps at night, can't fly or turn invisible, and hasn't lived for hundreds of years. Timothy is a normal human child adopted by supernatural parents with an eclectic extended family who come for a visit when Timothy is ten years old. Uncle Einar has wings, Cecy sleeps all the time but travels into others' consciousnesses, and A Thousand Times Great Grandmere is literally older than Methuselah. All sorts of odd adventures follow.

Like many other Bradbury novels, this is a compilation or fusion of many short stories that came before this book was publish in 2001. In the afterword, Bradbury tells that the first story was written in 1945 and published in Mademoiselle magazine, which got Charles Addams (the cartoonist creator of the Addams Family) to make illustrations. Bradbury and Addams had planned to do a series of illustrated stories that would turn into a book but their careers went off in different directions. This novel embodies the charm of Bradbury's fanciful prose and elaborate imagination. After the first half, a more novel-like single narrative starts as the family deals with the rest of the world no longer believing in haunts and spooks and the like. It wraps up with the typical Bradbury winsomeness.

The novel is a delight to read and goes by too quickly.

Recommended, highly for Bradbury fans.

Movie Review: It Came From Outer Space (1953)

It Came From Outer Space (1953) directed by Jack Arnold from a story by Ray Bradbury

Astronomer John Putnam (Richard Carlson) is having a night of dinner and star gazing with his girlfriend Ellen Fields (Barbara Rush) when a fiery object streaks through the sky and crashes not too far away. They go to investigate. He climbs down into the crater and discovers a space ship. The crater collapses on the ship as he scrambles away. The sheriff shows up along with other townsfolk from their small Arizona town. Putnam can't convince them of what he saw. The next day, there's a mocking article in the newspaper about Martians. If that wasn't bad enough, some people start acting weird, like they were robots or possessed...something is definitely off and needs investigating.

The movie is an early "invasion from space" thriller that was shown in 3D. While there are a couple of creative visuals and special effects (including a "monster's eye view"), the overall film has nothing particularly outstanding. The actors are just okay. The alien plans, once discovered, are a bit underwhelming. The big speeches about dealing with people from another world and what the future holds for humanity are perfunctory. A lot of other films cover this ground in much more interesting and striking ways. I can see why this movie has faded into obscurity.

Not recommended, unless you are a die-hard sci-fi fan.

TV Review: The Ray Bradbury Theater Season Two (1988)

The Ray Bradbury Theater Season Two (1988) developed by Mark Massari based on the short fiction of Ray Bradbury

See my review of Season One!

Another anthology of Bradbury stories brought to the small screen (at least, the screens were smaller back in the 1980s)! Here's an episode-by-episode breakdown...

The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl--A hack writer visits an editor's posh home and, in a moment of passion, kills the editor. Then the writer obsessively tries to remove all the fingerprints from everything he touched in the house. As he wanders around, he gets more paranoid and there's more flashbacks to what happened. The ending has a nice little twist.

Skeleton--A hypochondriac (Eugene Levy) has his latest set of supposed ailments--problems with his bones. His regular doctor writes him off as imagining things. The guy finds an osteopath who is more sympathetic...and a lot more creepy. The osteopath eggs on the hypochondriac's worries about his skeleton, causing the hypochondriac to lose both his weight and his sanity. Levy's performance is a bit too comical at moments and the osteopath would have been twirling his mustache if he had one. With its emphasis on the psychology of the situation, this story works better as prose.

The Emissary--A bed-ridden boy has the perfect dog. The dog fetches whatever he needs or wants, which is mostly stuff from the outside world. He also brings a companion, the schoolteacher whose class he should be in. The sweetness of the tale has a nice, sinister twist at the end.

Gotcha!--Two strangers meet at a costume part. He's dressed as Oliver Hardy and she as Stan Laurel. The party is boring but they hit it off, having the traditional romantic arc/montage for TV and movie couples. Until she wants to play a game called "Gotcha" which does not work out well for him. The shift doesn't work and made for an unsatisfying ending.

The Man Upstairs--A young boy visiting his grandmother in Paris helps out at her bed and breakfast. A new customer shows up. He is very odd, keeping strange hours, using wooden utensils, and appearing with some extra organs when the boy uses his special binoculars. The boy suspects something foul and winds up doing something foul by the end of the show. This episode reminded me of Tales from the Darkside--it has the look and sound of 1980s TV horror. I liked it but the effects are definitely dated by today's standards and it's really hard to suspend disbelief about the binoculars.

The Small Assassin--A mother believes her new-born baby is trying to kill her. Her husband and her doctor are sympathetic but skeptical. Since it's a Bradbury story, it turns out she is right. The show relies on a lot of baby POV shots and close-ups of the baby's mouth or eye to make the infant look sinister. The original short story is a little too implausible; the episode does not solve that problem but makes the best of it.

Punishment without Crime--A rich man (Donald Pleasance) goes to a company so it will create an android copy of his wife. The man wants to kill it. His much younger wife has had an affair and he's angry with her and wants some sort of satisfaction. Unfortunately, the law steps in and says he is a murderer. He's forced through a trial where the defense claims the victim is not human and the prosecution claims that the androids are so realistic they should have rights. The man winds up on death row still pleading his innocence. The concept is very interesting given extra circumstances the viewers see. When the man sees the fake wife, he wants to leave the company with a "perfect" version of the woman he married. The robot explains that he's only paid for a rental; they never allow purchases. The only way out is death. This episode has a lot going for it--the intriguing premise, a very capable actor in the main role, the dystopian flavor. Maybe the best of the season.

On the Orient, North--A French nurse on the Orient Express decides to help out another traveler, a man who is clearly about to die. He does, in fact, die though his ghost lives on. She helps the ghost to continue his journey. The story was a little slow and the performances did not grab me.

The Coffin--Two bickering brothers meet one last time. The older brother is an inventor and is working on his last project: a coffin. The younger brother has been living off his older brother and is looking forward to his death. That death doesn't end their conflict, leading to an ending that's more poetic justice than tragedy.

Tyrannosaurus Rex--A stop-motion animator is hired by an overbearing producer to make scary dinosaurs for his movie. The animator's work is never satisfying until the frustrated artist creates a very familiar T-rex. The story seemed a little obvious and the 1980s cable tv production values definitely hurt the believability and enjoyment of the episode.

There Was an Old Woman--A little old lady lives in her mansion with her clocks and other curios. She's visited by a smiling man who comes with four stout lads carrying a five and a half-foot wicker basket. She susses out that they want her as a corpse but she does not want to go. They cart her body out while she naps. But she isn't gone and has to raise a ruckus to get back what's rightfully hers. The story has its charms and its bleakness, characteristic of a Ray Bradbury story.

And So Died Riabouchinska--In Paris, a ventriloquist is involved in a murder at the theater. Naturally the dummy's identity is key to the mystery though the detective is annoyed by the dummy constantly talking about and contradicting the ventriloquist. The story arc is surprisingly standard and a bit unsatisfyingly filmed.

Overall, I was less impressed with this season. The production values have dropped a little and the 1980s synthesizer score (which isn't in all episodes) wore thin for me very quickly. Some of the stories seemed like they'd be better as text. I may not watch Season Three.

Slightly recommended.

TV Review: The Ray Bradbury Theater Season One (1985)

The Ray Bradbury Theater Season One (1985) developed for television by Mark Massari based on the short fiction of Ray Bradbury

This series follows the fomula of The Twilight Zone, i.e. anthology stories with a fantastic bent. Ray Bradbury writes the teleplays, most based on previous short stories. The show attracted many famous actors and has the advantage of Bradbury's creative genius. Here's an episode-by-episode rundown:

Marionettes Inc.--A henpecked husband (James Coco) finds business cards and messages from Marionettes Inc. He's initially uninterested but to stop the pestering he goes to their headquarters. He searches the empty, dark halls, eventually finding Fantocinni (Leslie Nielsen). Fantocinni offers the husband an exact duplicate. The duplicate can deal with the overbearing wife and the boring job while the real husband gets to go out and enjoy himself. But the robot turns out to be a better person, and it knows it is better. Even though the plot is predictable it's still enjoyable.

The Playground--William Shatner is a single father who needs to face up against his childhood fear of a local playground where he was bullied as a child. His own son is almost ready to start school but has been sheltered by dad. The son wants to play with others his own age. Shatner gives a good performance as the overprotective dad though he suffers from more than just bad memories.

The Crowd--A man has a late-night car accident and onlookers show up almost immediately. If that wasn't odd enough, they crowd around him, trying to move him. An ambulance shows up in time to whisk him away to safety at a hospital. He's released after a few days. By chance, a car accident happens outside his apartment and he recognizes some of the crowd that gathers. He consults a TV news friend, getting some video footage from previous accidents. Sure enough, members of the crowd have been showing up at other accidents. The man becomes obsessed with finding out what's going on without considering the possible dangers. The premise is fairly disturbing and the low-key buildup is effective.

The Town Where No One Got Off--An idealist tired of city life (Jeff Goldblum) is on a train ride through the countryside. He is goaded into getting off in a small town to see if life there really is better. Everybody must know each other and the laid-back lifestyle must be friendly and welcoming. He discovers things aren't like he imagines. Goldblum is a good choice for this story, he has the bit of awkwardness that makes the viewer wonder if it's the town or the idealist who is not quite right. 

The Screaming Woman--Drew Barrymore plays an imaginative ten-year old who reads Tales from the Crypt and, when she goes out into the woods, hears a woman screaming. She can't convince her parents that there is a problem. She gets some shovels and goes with another ten-year old but the property owner tells them to fill back in the hole. Can she save the Screaming Woman? Even though it was written for the screen, the story has a typical Bradbury feel to it. 

Banshee--A poetic writer (Charles Martin Smith) goes to visit a director friend (Peter O'Toole) in an isolated Irish cottage. The director claims the Banshee is out tonight, a female spirit moaning in the wind and foretelling a death. The director then goads his friend into going outside to confront the spirit. The friend thinks it's a practical joke...or is it? This episode definitely delivers on the creepy premise and Peter O'Toole is his usual excellent self.

Overall I enjoyed the show. It looks a little low-budget by today's standards. Even though it was produced by HBO in the 1980s, there's no skin and swearing. The show is very PG-rated. I watched the episodes on Hoopla and a few of the episodes had little individual introductions featuring Ray Bradbury. Checking the IMDB page, he did that for every episode, so there's some suspicious editing. The stories do have the Ray Bradbury feel--part nostalgic, part terrified, part whimsical. Even with the flaws, I found the episodes enjoyable.

Recommended.

Book Review: The Bradbury Chronicles ed. by W. F. Nolan

The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury edited by William F. Nolan and Martin H. Greenberg

Twenty-two authors paid tribute to Ray Bradbury in 1991 by contributing stories to this collection. Most are inspired by or extensions of other Bradbury stories, like The Martian Chronicles or Fahrenheit 451. Some even try to ape his style, with mixed results. I enjoyed the volume, though there are only a few standouts: Bradbury's own contribution "The Troll," about a bridge warden who meets up with a skeptic; Gregory Benford's "Centigrade 233," about another dystopian reason to burn books; and Orson Scott Card's "Feed the Baby of Love," about someone coming to a little Illinois town for winsome self-discovery. One or two stories were too dark for my taste (and one had a surprising amount of R-rated language), but the good definitely outweighs the bad here.

Recommended for Bradbury fans.

Book Review: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

It's 1999 and the people of Earth send rockets to Mars. These trips aren't just scientific exploration, they are colonization. The first few expeditions run into trouble with the locals. Martians are telepathic (so no need for translators) and, in a classic Bradbury twist, benignly skeptical about their visitors. A mission finally succeeds when the Martians have disappeared. People flood away from Earth. They hope for new opportunities and escape from old oppressions.

After the first expeditions, the book focuses on the odd and interesting individuals who come to Mars. The political and technical situation is entirely secondary to the stories. The threat of a global atomic war on Earth looms in the background, but there's hardly any mention of government on Mars, other than a story where a man recreates Edgar Allan Poe's House of Usher. The construction is deemed forbidden and offensive by the Moral Climates Department (an unfortunate import from Earth) and the eccentric homemaker gets his night of glory before the house is destroyed. The Earth war eventually breaks out, the main effect on the story being a rush on the luggage store (whose owner was ready) and the collapse of a hot dog stand (whose owner was not ready for the weird feedback he gets). And the depopulation of Mars.

The book is anachronistic, with actual Martians who have built cities on Mars and boats for the water-filled canals. Some readers will be put off by that, which is tragic since the stories are so full of imagination and wonder. Bradbury's style is very poetic and draws vivid pictures of people and places. The writing is fun, thoughtful, and generally optimistic.

Highly recommended for those who can stand a bit of fiction in their fiction.

Also, the book is discussed on A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast, which inspired my re-reading of this classic.

Book Review: The October Country by Ray Bradbury

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

An anthology of early short stories by Ray Bradbury is bound to be a delight, right? Here's my thoughts, story by story....

1. The Dwarf--A dwarf visits the hall of mirrors every night, lingering in the same room. Ralph runs the attraction and has figured out that the dwarf loves to look in the one mirror that makes him look regular size. Aimee is a bit smitten with the dwarf and wants to protect him from Ralph's jeering. Things don't go well. An interesting though very brief story that grasps the sadness and loneliness of being different and wanting to fit in.

2. The Next in Line--A couple is vacationing in Mexico. He is interested in the local mummies, people who were buried but the families couldn't afford to pay the rent on the grave, so the graveyard workers dig them up and line them up in a catacomb deep beneath the graveyard. The wife is a bit horrified at this, even more so when she works the nerve up to go with her husband into the catacomb. After that she wants to leave but their car breaks down. She starts to have her own breakdown as her husband's nonchalance becomes more apparent. This slow descent into madness is interesting but predictable.

3. The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse--Boring old George Garvey is the idol of the avant-garde Cellar Septet who are amused by his completely bourgeois lifestyle. George secretly admires their admiration and struggles to retain their attention. The story is a fun mockery of both the fey fakeness of the self-consciously artistic and the shallow desire to meet the expectations of the self-consciously artistic.

4. Skeleton--A man suddenly takes an aversion to his own skeleton, as if it were another entity within him that wants to take over. His regular doctor and his wife call him a hypochondriac. The strange bone specialist M. Munigant is willing to help once the man is ready. It's an odd conflict with an odder resolution.

5. The Jar--Local hick Charlie buys a jar full of formaldehyde and a strange floating thing from an unscrupulous carney. He brings it home so he can be the star in town. Everyone who barely paid attention to him are flocking to his house to try and figure out what it is. His wife is unimpressed and the whole situation turns sour for them. Can Charlie keep his only happiness?

6. The Lake--A twelve-year old boy is moving to the west coast of America and visits his favorite beach one last time before his mom takes him away. He takes a moment to connect again to the love of his life, a girl from school who used to hang out with him on the beach. The story is a melancholic look at childhood and first love. Bradbury's poetic style makes the situation more personal and more emotional.

7. The Emissary--Bed-ridden Martin sends his dog out into the world to invite other people to come visit him. When his teacher (who visits him often) dies and his dog disappears, what will become of Martin? The chilling, slightly ambiguous ending makes for a nice bit of horror.

8. Touched with Fire--Two elderly gentlemen have a scheme to keep their retirement from becoming boring. They are convinced that they can spot the cantankerous people who are one meeting away from getting murdered. One person they target is a woman constantly yelling at shop clerks and slamming doors. Can they make an intervention in time or is their scheme only a pipe-dream? Bradbury grapples with an interesting concept in his usual style.

9. A Small Assassin--Alice and David Leiber have a baby boy. Alice thinks the infant is out to kill her; David takes the thoroughly modern approach and assumes it's some psychological problem on her part. Or is it? I found this particular premise a little too weird and outlandish to take as seriously as the story demands.

10. The Crowd--A man in an auto accident becomes obsessed with how fast a crowd gathers to gawk at his wreck. His research shows other crowds form just as quick, often with the same people. Is he becoming paranoid or is this a real problem? The story is the sort of dark fun that would make a classic Twilight Zone episode.

11. Jack-in-the-Box--A lonely boy's life mirrors that of his jack-in-the-box toy. Can he grasp or even escape his overly sheltered existence? The story is odd, even by Bradbury standards, but has a satisfying ending.

12. The Scythe--A dust bowl-era farmer and his family are driving to California when they make a wrong turn down a dead end road. There's a house at the end with a farm that stretches out a long way. Fields of wheat everywhere. When the farmer knocks on the door to the house, he discovers the dead owner laid out in burial clothes with one piece of fresh wheat in his hands. A note bequeaths the farm to whoever finds him. On the wall is a scythe with the inscription "WHO WEILDS ME--WEILDS THE WORLD!" The farmer doesn't realize how significant that inscription is as his family moves into a house full of food and warm beds. The looming melancholy makes the story fascinating.

13. Uncle Einar--A man with big green wings is stuck in Illinois after a freak accident. He settles down with a woman he meets, Brunilla, whose reaction to his appearance is describe thus: "She was startled, yes, but she had never been hurt in her life, so she wasn't afraid of anyone, and it was a fancy thing to see a winged man and she was proud to meet him." The story is quite sweet and charming.

14. The Wind--Herb lives a normal life with his wife, having dinner guests and such. The one abnormal thing is his friend Allin. Allin's a travel writer who's stopped traveling. He's holed up in his home thirty miles away, deathly afraid of the wind. It's a silly thing but they are good friends and Herb humors him. But is Allin's fear really justified? This is another typically enjoyable Bradbury oddity.

15. The Man Upstairs--Douglas is spending the summer at his Grandma's boarding house. A tall, dark, and mysterious man comes to stay. Douglas is sure there's something wrong with him. To what extent will he go to find out? The story is a little predictable, but only because it is so tightly written, with all the seemingly inconsequential bits being quite consequential by the end.

16. There Was an Old Woman--Death comes for Aunt Tildy but she has sworn not to go, and she is stubborn enough to resist even after the end. This story is an light-hearted look at overcoming death.

17. The Cistern--Two sisters talk about the town beneath their town, the rain cisterns that lead to the ocean. One sister fancifully imagines a couple living down there. The twist at the end is odd and not quite convincing.

18. Homecoming--Timothy is excited about the upcoming family reunion but he's a bit of a black sheep in the family. He doesn't have fangs or fur or future-sight or wings or anything special. He's just a regular 14-year old boy and a bit embarrassed by his lack of accomplishment. So the family reunion could be painful unless it worked out well somehow. Will there be a poetic moment in an otherwise melancholy boy's life?

19. The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone--A group of college friends wonder whatever happened to the famous author Dudley Stone. One travels to Stone's home town and finds the man claims that he is dead! Things are more normal than they appear in this delightful story about the important things in life.

Book Review: The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

Eight mid-western boys head out on a great Halloween adventure: to visit an old (and presumably haunted) house on the outskirts of town. Their big problem--they are supposed to be nine boys. Pipkin, the boy who found the house and is their favorite, is missing. Maybe he'll meet them at the house? The house is tall, gabled, brimmed with railings and lightning rods and chimneys. Around back is a gigantic tree with hundreds of candles and pumpkins decorating it. The boy meet the home's owner, Mr. Moundshroud, who wants to give them both a trick and a treat for Halloween. He takes them on a journey through time from the pre-historic dawn of man to the Mexican Day of the Dead. Each visit brings them close to Pipkin but not close enough. Each place brings out new ideas and images of how humans have celebrated Halloween throughout the years, even before there was a proper Halloween.

Bradbury's lively, poetic prose is as enchanting as ever. He evokes the boy-like wonder of exploring pyramids and climbing Gothic cathedrals. The adventure through time and over the earth is just as delightful as when I read this story in my pre-teens.

As an adult, I find an even deeper appreciation of it. The arc from pre-historic fear of the dark and ancient Egyptian fear of the sun's death to the modern celebrations of the Day of the Dead show a slow, gradual maturing of humanity's relationship to fear, death, and darkness. The Mexican feast is as much a celebration as a shiver. It has both the treat and the trick of Halloween blended together in the candy skulls that the boys eat. Bradbury gives a Eucharistic resonance to the boys' sacrifice at the end to save Pipkin. The moment is charming and I am sure I completely missed it as a child. Like Tolkien's The Hobbit, this is a book written for children that can be appreciated by adults.

Highly recommended for Halloween reading that blends into the Feast of All Saints (the reason for the autumnal season, as it were). As readers might guess, Julie and Scott at A Good Story is Hard to Find have discussed this book this year for their Halloween celebratory episode. Thanks for inspiring a delightful re-read, you two!

Book Review: The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Vol. 2

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Vol. 2

In memory of Ray Bradbury, who died June 5, 2012...we miss you!

The Ray Bradbury Chronicles is a series of authorized adaptations of Bradbury's short stories into comic book format. This volume adapts seven stories, three from The Marian Chronicles and four random stories. The stories are adapted by famous comic book artists like Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) with introductions by Bradbury (mostly describing the inspiration for the stories). The comics bring the stories to life but none are so outstanding as to be "must reads." Though, in my book, any excuse to read more Ray Bradbury is a good excuse.

The book also includes an introduction by Ray Bradbury. He describes how he collected comic strips from the newspapers in his youth and once sent a fan letter to Harold Foster, creator and illustrator of Prince Valiant. At thirty-two years old, he was hired by Universal Studios and credits his ease with screenwriting to his history of comics. He easily pictured the scripts as storyboards, the graphical way filmmakers plan out shots for films. His interest in comics definitely paid off for Bradbury!

Book Review: Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This is the fourth time I've read this book, though the first time in over 15 years. It's a science fiction classic about firemen who burn books in a not too distant and far too dystopian future. Bradbury is a great storyteller and weaves an amazingly lyrical narrative. It first grabbed me in childhood as an exciting adventure with a very vivid portrayal of the life of Guy Montag, fireman turned rebel.

One of the delightful things I discovered in this re-reading was the idea of the proper relationship to books. The government represented by the firemen sees books as a hazard that causes both inequality (reading books makes people think they're better than others) and rancor (people may disapprove of how they (as minorities) are depicted in books). The citizens have fallen away from reading and are constantly plugged in to their living rooms, which are now nothing other than parlors with wall-sized TVs on every wall. Montag's wife wants them to buy a fourth wall TV to complete the room. If she isn't watching TV, she's listening to audio programs on little seashell devices in her ears. Books don't even register as reality for her; when Montag brings them into the house she is filled with horror at what they mean. Not that they contain horrible ideas, but that their house will be burned down if they are discovered. It's as if the government had already won their point.

On the other hand, Montag learns to appreciate books, first by meeting Clarisse. She's the seventeen-year old neighbor with the funny family (her uncle was once arrested for driving too slowly at 40 miles an hour). She is interested in nature and people. She has real conversations with Montag about things that matter. She is a catalyst for Montag to explore the forbidden fruit he has been roasting for so long.

Like any amateur, he makes a bit of a mess in how he handles things. He tries to convince his wife's friends that they should listen to books but they all recoil in horror. He tries to play cat-and-mouse with his boss at the firehouse but he is not up to the challenge. He eventually has to flee for his life.

He falls in with a group of people who have been memorizing books, to preserve them for the time when the culture is ready. Interestingly, they constantly tell themselves that they are not more important or better than others for what they are doing. They are keeping a trust for civilization. In one scene, Montag is talking to Faber, a former professor who has been keeping a low profile though is in touch with the book people. Faber explains the difference between four-wall TVs and books:

."..you can't argue with the four-wall televisor. Why? The televisor is 'real.' It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'"
[Montag:]"Only the 'family' is 'people.'"
"I beg pardon?"
"My wife says books aren't 'real.'"
"Thanks God for that. You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and skepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full color, three dimensions, and being in and part of those incredible parlors."

The difference is between what's engaging and what's overwhelming. Books are a help in understanding reality, not a substitute for it or a way to tune reality out (though certainly some have used books that way). They help the reader to understand other people, other times, other places. But they don't force you to agree with them. The proper attitude toward books is not one of hostility or fear or submission. It's of wonder and learning and growing.

The book is definitely worth reading and worth re-reading. Bradbury's death a few months ago really is a great loss.

Hear some better commentary on A Good Story is Hard to Find, which is what inspired me to re-read the book. And now I am finally starting Jane Eyre, which they discussed quite a while ago.

Farewell, Ray Bradbury

I was greatly saddened by Ray Bradbury's death today at the age of 91. He is one of the favorite authors from my youth and is still one of my favorite authors today. He was a brilliant writer and an inspiration to me. I pray for the salvation of his soul and hope to meet him in the next life in God's big party up above.

Book Review: Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

The front cover of this book reads, "Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius within You." (Okay, so it's really my old version of the book with the subtitle; the new edition doesn't have it) It makes the reader think it's a how-to book about writing, or, perhaps worse, a self-help book. Thankful, it's neither. The essays included in this volume (including one with the title "Zen in the Art of Writing") are Bradbury's reflections on his writing career, his inspirations, and his advice based on those experiences.

Several essays tell of his experience writing one or another book, e.g. Fahrenheit 451 (written under the demanding deadline of a dime-per-half-hour typewriter in the basement of the Los Angeles library) or Dandelion Wine (the resurfacing of his youthful experiences in Sandusky, Ohio). Scattered throughout the essays are bits and pieces of the origin of Something Wicked This Way Comes. The full story of Mr. Electrico (a carny he met as a child) gave me chills.

A lot of his inspiration comes from ideas long buried in his subconscious that bubble up when he just sits and writes about a simple word or idea, like "The Lake" or "The Old Woman." He doesn't draw so much on his experience as much as he lets it pop out of his imagination or his subconscious or his Muse or whatever you'd like to call the creative genius that lives inside. In the essay "How to Keep and Feed a Muse," he talks about how his best stories come flying out willy-nilly, almost uncontrollably, when he begins to type about a certain situation or person. Often a character follows their own path to the end of the story. Life experience often fuels these stories. Sometimes they are unexpected experiences, like those from the six months he lived in Ireland while writing Moby Dick for John Houston. More surprising are his memories from childhood, even very early childhood (like his circumcision!) that are inspirations for stories.

Bradbury's advice is rather simple but subtle and requires a certain spirit and commitment to accept. As I've mentioned, he often recommends writers to work from what they know but to let that come out spontaneously. He often uses a word association to begin (like "The Lake" or "The Old Woman") and then writes. An hour or two later, a story suddenly is completed. The trick is to be open to what comes to you. And to have lots and lots and lots of practice writing. He says he started writing a thousand words a day in his teen years and has pretty much kept it up. It was only after years of imitating other admired authors that he found his own voice when he became less self-consciously a word smith and just let stories pour out of him. A role for word-smithing comes later, but the initial genius comes unreflectively or in a fire-hose spurt that you either catch in a bottle like magic or stand back and admire but also lose when it's over. For Bradbury, being a writer means finding your inspiration, your joy, and letting it out on a page.

This book is an excellent inspiration for people who want to be better writers. The concrete examples from Bradbury's career make a fine foundation for seeing the importance of life experience and the value of commitment to the task and the openness to what comes.

SAMPLE TEXTS (because who can have just one quote from Bradbury?)

"What can we writers learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping." [p. 13]

"Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasure. Sometimes it is a little hard to tell the trash from the treasure, so we hold back, afraid to declare ourselves. But since we are out to give ourselves texture, to collect truths on many levels, and in many ways, to test ourselves against life, and the truths of others, offered us in comic strips, TV shows, books, magazines, newspapers, plays, and films, we should not fear to be seen in strange company." [pp. 41-42] He goes on to cite "Lil Abner," "Peanuts," "Prince Valiant," Charlie Chaplin, Aldous Huxley, Tom Swift, George Orwell, Tarzan, and C.S. Lewis, among many others.