Here's to You, Ray!

photo by Alan Light, 1975.

I just can't say enough good things about Ray Bradbury. You cannot call yourself American without having read, "Farenheit 451," his genius novel about censorship. Most of us were required to read it in high school and for good reason. It's a classic!

But I knew him earlier. Ever since he first scandalized me in junior high with a one-sentence chapter in "Something Wicked This Way Comes," I've been hooked. He seems to slough off conventions in order to tell the story the way it needs to be told while evoking vivid sights and smells and provoking new ideas.

Of all his works, "Dandelion Wine," is my favorite. It is an ode to boyhood and summer. And it's sequel, "Farewell Summer," is pretty great too. He can instantly transport me to Greentown, Illinois on my 9th birthday, though I've never been there, nor have I ever tasted vanilla-lime ice, nor been chased home by a killer at midnight.

If you prefer his science fiction, may I recommend "The Martian Chronicles," a novel written like a series of short stories telling loosely the history of our colonization of Mars. It contains the genius "The House of Usher II," an allusion to Poe, but about Martians of course.

My most recent Bradbury read, "Now and Forever," contains two novellas, "Somewhere a Band is Playing," and "Leviathan '99."

"Somewhere" treats you to the best of his 'nostalgia' writing in which he invites you to see and smell the things he holds most dear in real life, like buckets of cream cooling in the shadows, or the dripping refrigerator, or the cat sitting on your chest while you sleep, breathing your air.

I cannot attest to the genius of "Leviathan" because I have not read "Moby Dick" nor even seen the movie which uses the screenplay penned by Bradbury. But if you are a Melville fan, you might find this story of a mad space captain chasing the tail of a white comet fascinating. One of Bradbury's characters mentions reading every other chapter of "Moby Dick" while in Mystic Seaport. I wonder, I just wonder if Ray ever did that.

Your words for the week, gleaned from "Now and Forever:"

natty - neat or smart in appearance or dress.

panoply - complete or full display, as in dress, armor, show of military power, etc.

gantry - a frame of scaffolding used to support an upright rocket before launch.

jerkwater - insignificant, out of the way.