This book is for my upcoming BOOK CLUB discussion and my reaction after reading it was a BIG surprise. I totally enjoyed it and am not sure I'd say the same if I had been required to read it in high school or college. But today, especially with my love for books, it was a GREAT read. So much of what he described 66 YEARS AGO, rings true today.
From the author, RAY BRADBURY (1920-2012) -
- "So my love of books is so intense that I finally have done - what? I have written a book about a man falling in love with books."
- "I've always believed in quick writing, so that I could get things out before I had time to think about them. I wanted to be true to whatever inner logic there was in myself. I didn't want to be true to any one group of people in the world. I wanted to be true to my own anger. I've always been afraid of belonging to groups. I don't want to be a Democrat or a Republican or a Communist or a Fascist, or - just an all-American. I wanted to be, as far as I can be, myself and find out what I think, and get it out in the open and then intellectualize about it. And see what I think."
The book's INTRODUCTION was written by NEIL GAIMAN in 2013. The following few lines really caught my eye -
- "And fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gift of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over."
To give you a feel for BRADBURY's WRITING, I'll share several passages that made me stop to read them a 2nd AND/OR a 3rd TIME. So brilliant. Thought-provoking. And remember, this book was published 66 YEARS AGO!! -
Pg 5
"Well," she said, "I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together."
Pg 55
"With school turning out more runners jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers, instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be."
Pg 71
"I don't talk things, sir," said Faber. " I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I'm alive."
Pg 137
"This dark land rising was like that day in his childhood, swimming, when from nowhere the largest wave in the history of remembering slammed him down in salt mud and green darkness, water burning mouth and nose, retching his stomach, screaming! Too much water!"
Pg 146
"But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing."
Pg 149
"When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. ........ And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was an individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death."
Pg 149
"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there."
Pg 150
"I hate a Roman named Status Quo' he said to me. 'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."
OK, so what do you think???
JOAN
PS - Awards aplenty for this book -
- Hugo Award for Best Novel (1954)
- Prometheus Hall of Fame Award (1984)
- Geffen Award for Best Translated SF Book (2002)
- California Book Award Silver Medal for Fiction (1953)
