Summer Morning, Summer Night - Book Review

While browsing Amazon.com recently, I came across Ray Bradbury's Summer Morning, Summer Night, a compilation of old and recent stories and recent sketches with the shared theme of Summer in his beloved Green Town. A chance to revisit the Bradbury country depicted so well in my favorite Dandelion Wine, I grabbed it and chewed my way through it when it arrived.

The older stories were familiar and comfortable and well done, perfect demonstrations of Bradbury's artistic power; the more recent stories were less so but worth reading nonetheless. The sketches were obviously filler, with most not really worth the effort and probably better left unpublished. But it was a reason to read Bradbury again and I was glad to have it. There was a time when I read him for the seasons - Dandelion Wine for Summer and, well, the rest of his work for Autumn but I've allowed that tradition to lapse. Too bad for me. I need to see what I can do to change that.

Anyway, this slim volume was the perfect antidote to the snowbound few days we had here recently. A brief glimpse of the promise of Summer.

Much Ado About Huck Finn

A whole lot of fuss is being made about a new edition of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn that omits certain offensive words. While I don't think this is censorship - that's government's job and, besides, a regular edition is easily available. And since the copyright on the book has long expired and it's now in the public domain, I'm not opposed to publisher's making an honest dime for their efforts. I still don't think it's a good idea.

Huckleberry Finn was written to make the reader uncomfortable. Underlying a story seemingly intended for the youth market is the story of how a boy comes to view his friend, Jim, a runaway slave. Finn attains enlightenment; it's wrong for a free person to own another person. In short, as any high-school teacher or college professor will tell you, Huckleberry Finn is the story of America itself. Bowdlerizing the language is an insult, not a good-intentioned effort to spare someone's feelings.

This kind of thing isn't anything new. Here's Ray Bradbury in his Coda to his prescient Fahrenheit 451:

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology, The Martian Chronicles.

But, she added, wouldn’t it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women’s characters and roles?

A few years before that I got a certain amount of mail concerning the same Martian book complaining that the blacks in the book were Uncle Toms and why didn’t I “do them over”?

Along about then came a note from a Southern white suggesting that I was prejudiced in favor of the blacks and the entire store should be dropped.

Two weeks ago my mount of mail delivered forth a pip-squeak mouse of a letter from a well-known publishing house that wanted to reprint my story “The Fog Horn” in a high school reader.

In my story, I had described a lighthouse as having, late at night, an illumination coming from it that was a “God-Light.” Looking up at it from the viewpoint of any sea-creature one would have felt that one was in “the Presence.”

The editors had deleted “God-Light” and “in the Presence. . .”

. . . There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist / Unitarian, Irish / Italian / Octogenarian / Zen Buddhist, Zionist / Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib / Republican, Mattachine / FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.

(While I'm quoting Bradbury, and since you've come this far, I might as well quote my favorite part of his Coda. It's relevant to this issue, too:

In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger-choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book.

All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m going out again, giving it the old try.

And no one can help me. Not even you.)

Hemingway says all American literature stems from Huckleberry Finn and he's right. Leave the offensive language alone. Don't worry. We're readers. We can take it.

Farewell Summer - Book Review

It only seems appropriate that I finish reading Ray Bradbury's Farewell Summer at the end of summer; I often read his work during the season for which it's written: Dandelion Wine in Summer, The Halloween Tree and Something Wicked This Way Comes and, well, just about every other work of his in Autumn. But this book is his latest novel length work and as a fan and a stickler for completeness it's necessary that I read it and though there were parts of it where Bradbury's old genius shone through and I enjoyed it, overall it wasn't a very rewarding experience. For fans only, I'd have to regretfully say.

Dandelion Wine is my favorite work of Bradbury's and I think his preface to the book is the finest piece of writing you could ever hope to come across. It didn't demand a sequel but Bradbury, in his Afterword, insisted it did. I won't get into an argument with him but, instead, leave the two books as evidence that I'm right. Farewell Summer retreads much of Dandelion Wine and while it's held together by a single narrative event - a "war" between Douglas and his friends against the old codgers of the town with a very special lesson learned by all at the end - and Dandelion Wine is a string of related incidents held together by a single theme, Summer is the much slighter work of the two. And the final scene with Douglas in a conversation with, uh, a part of his male anatomy, well, talk about TMI. C'mon, Ray. You've done better. You can do better.

(Or maybe not. Bradbury, like most artists, has his greatest work behind him. It's not reasonable to expect him to produce art the same caliber of which he created in his relative youth. It's not an age thing, really. It's just that he's had his say. Now he's saying it all over again. It's enough that he's alive and still a delight to have around and to have the old works to enjoy. I don't need anything new.)

More Ray Bradbury - On Video!

I can't figure out how to embed the video here so here's the link to Bradbury talking with is biographer Sam Weller.

Interesting for fans. Maybe non-fans, too.

Ray Bradbury Hates big Government

I'm late to the game on this - the Bradbury-hates-Big-Government meme's been floating around the conservative blogosphere for a few days now - but I had this marked to post so I might as well post it.

Hey, have you heard writer Ray Bradbury doesn't like big government? It's true:

“There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.”

The native of Waukegan, Ill., has never been shy about expressing himself -- he described President Clinton with a word that rhymes with "knithead" back in 2001-- nor is he timid about correcting people when it comes to his own perceived legacy. Bradbury chafes, for instance, at the description of his work as science fiction -- in the past he has pointed out that, to his mind, "Fahrenheit 451"is the only sci-fi book in his vast body of work -- and despite his passion for more national space projects, he is not technology obsessive by any means.

“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”

Sounds like Bradbury's got the curmudgeon dial cranked to 11 - and, yeah, he's at odds with himself about wanting less government and having the government getting us to the moon and Mars but, well, there you are - but close readers of his work will notice this stance is nothing new. Take a look at his introduction to Fahrenheit 451 and you'll see an author railing against political correctness long before political correctness had sunken its fangs into our culture. He's a radical old man, that Bradbury, and I'm glad to see him still alive and kicking and grousing about one thing or another.

Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'

Via Althouse, Ray Bradbury waxes poetic about a few things, not the least of which is God:

Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, says he will sometimes open one of his books late at night and cry out thanks to God.

"I sit there and cry because I haven't done any of this," he told Sam Weller, his biographer and friend. "It's a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, 'At play in the fields of the Lord.'

It's a good interview - it must've really irked the CNN interviewer to learn that Bradbury spends his days watching Fox News - though for a fan like me, there's nothing new here. But Bradbury's biographer has a new book out and so does Bradbury so he's newsworthy and that's a good thing. We're not always aware of giants walking among us so we should take note, especially when they have some positive things to say about God and faith.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes has come up on Roger Ebert's overlooked DVD of the week:

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" qualifies as a horror film, but it's an altogether different kind than we've been getting lately. The new breed of horror movies are essentially geek shows, exercises in despair in which all hope has been abandoned and evil rules the world. Bradbury's world of fantasy calls back to an earlier tradition, to the fantasies of Lord Dunsany, Saki and John Collier (but not H. P. Lovecraft!) -- horror fantasies in which evil was a distinct possibility, but men also had within them the possibility of redemption. Robards is offered a choice in this movie, and it is a choice. Things need not end in disaster.

Something Wicked is one of my favorite Ray Bradbury novels and I'm glad to see it was turned into a movie worth watching. I've only seen bits and pieces of the movie on the Disney Channel but from what I've seen I'd have to agree with Ebert. There's an overwhelming sense of foreboding in even those small clips.

Sounds like this is one to put on the must-see list.

Bob Dylan: Like a Complete Unknown

Bob Dylan gets stopped by the New Jersey police for no other reason than wandering around:

The incident began at 5 p.m. when a resident said a man was wandering around a low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood several blocks from the oceanfront looking at houses.

The police officer drove up to Dylan, who was wearing a blue jacket, and asked him his name. According to Woolley, the following exchange ensued:

''What is your name, sir?'' the officer asked.

''Bob Dylan,'' Dylan said.

''OK, what are you doing here?'' the officer asked.

''I'm on tour,'' the singer replied.

A second officer, also in his 20s, responded to assist the first officer. He, too, apparently was unfamiliar with Dylan, Woolley said.

The officers asked Dylan for identification. The singer of such classics as ''Like a Rolling Stone'' and ''Blowin' in the Wind'' said that he didn't have any ID with him, that he was just walking around looking at houses to pass some time before that night's show.

The officers asked Dylan, 68, to accompany them back to the Ocean Place Resort and Spa, where the performers were staying. Once there, tour staff vouched for Dylan.

The officers thanked him for his cooperation.

How unlike Professor Gates' reaction when confronted by the police! And how differently things turned out!

Glenn Reynolds picks up on the Ray Bradbury tie in.