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Ray Bradbury Recovering from a Stroke
Ross Karchner writes "Just thought you and the readers would be interested to know that Ray Bradbury, one of the greatest living Science Fiction writers, is recovering from a mild stroke. While he is not dead, it is a reason to pause and wish him luck in recovery. " As a fan of Bradbury's work, I can only echo Ross' sentiments: Good luck, Ray. Get well soon.
I agree that we're in a difficult transition period. During the early part of this century it was easy to see that technology was going to take off, but not to see exactly where it would lead.
Modern authors have the difficult task of incorporating the latest advances in science and technology, while retaining the mysticism and fantacy which authors like Bradbury brought to their works.
Reality is almost a hinderance to modern authors. No longer can we imagine vast civilizations on Mars.
On the other hand, technology has brought about great change in our society. This allows SF authors to do what they do best: explore new facets of human experience. Where Bradbury explored Mars, authors like David Brin explore the stars, and Neal Stephenson explores the infinite virtual worlds of human imagination.
Hopefully the next few generations of SF writers will be frontier poets and authors writing of new-found opportunity, not academics writing of that which could have been.
Douglas Rudd
Venn ist das nurnstuck git und Slotermeyer? Ya! Beigerhund das oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
I LOVE the work, but I've been pretty shocked at a few public appearances he's made recently. I suppose I'm shocked whenever a man who is obviously intelligent, and clearly has the same taste in entertainment as myself, has such radically different political views than I do.
Generally, he's seemed pretty conservative and closed-minded, and I found myself getting angry and turning off the TV (it was CNN, as I recall). I felt bad about missing an opportunity to see a man whos words I had read so often, but I just couldn't take it.
I remember reading a short story of his where this guy stumbles across a mysterious machine. He pokes around and it captures him inside itself. There he finds a note explaining he is in an automatic casket - it flips him in the yard and buries itself. Yikes what a nightmare. Creepy creepy.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Ray Bradbury is one of the original band of SciFi authors who defined the genre in the late '40s and early '50s.
Along with Asimov, Heinlem (sp?), Clark, and maybe Philip K. Dick (who am I missing here?), Bradbury pushed story telling to placed it had never been before.
He was probabably never as optimistic as Asimov or Clark, - he always seemed a little dark, especially compared to other 1950s stories (except, of course for PK Dicks work).
For instance (from the Amazon review of his best known work Fahrenheit 451):
For those of you who think SciFi that makes you scared of humanity began with Gibson, go an read something like The Martian Chronicles. These were written in the 1940's and yet talk about things that no one else was talking about until the 1960s - things like the potential negative impact of human civilisation.
I'll never, ever forget the haunting story (I think it was from this book) about the last surviving martian, hunted over his planet by a man with a big gun, having seen his civiliastion wiped out in his lifetime.
Get well soon, Mr Bradbury - you deserve to live to see Mars.
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Kim Stanley Robinson, Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card, and Poul Anderson all write SF that has it's roots in the 50's work, and already have the depth of work that means they will be read for a long time yet.
Stephenson and Gibson take SF places it never went before, even in the weirdest writing of Dick.
Don't worry, there are plenty of great authors out there. Crime fiction didn't die with Agatha Christie, and SF has got a lot more potential than that.
The 50's authors will always be read, but in 30 years, we'll look back on the Golden Age of '90's SF and wonder who could ever replace them.
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And for the record I loved Martian Chronicles. The chapter about the house that wakes up, lives, and dies all without any humans was spooky.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Of course, nearly all sci-fi has it's roots with Jules Verne. From reading Bradbury's work, I believe he was very fond of Verne, as some of the Martian Chronicals sounds like the style of Verne's sci-fi vision.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
I hope he recovers.
The funny thing is, I don't really think of him as a science fiction author. He's kind of a word poet; he has more image than narrative in many of his works.
I can and will never foget stories like "The Pedestrian," "The Murderer," and of course, "Farenheit 451," all of which speak much more strongly to the world of today than to the world in which they were written.
"A Sound of Thunder," "Here be Tygers," the list goes on and on. But what about stories that have little or no fanstasy elements such as "One for His Lordship and One for the Road?"
One of the wonder of Bradbury's work is how thoroughly he is a writer of books. His work, while it has been translated to film, doesn't hold up well in the process. It's because people don't really talk the way he writes. His dialogue, if you read it aloud, comes across bombastic and grandiloquent, but when you read it on the page, it is a marvel. Honeyed phrases, sweeter in memory than on the tongue.
He writes the way we all wish we could talk if weren't constantly filled with the fear of sounding foolish. He writes the way we would talk if we could access the wonder of our frozen hearts. He writes the way we all would talk if we felt the pulse in our veins and knew that it was a clock counting the seconds to our death. He writes the way we would talk if we were fully alive.
I hope he recovers. And I hope even more that his work will remain read and vital, so he doesn't suffer the fate of "The Exiles."
BTW, I remember a longish short story (short novella?) of his, about a man risen from the dead trying to bring fear to a cleansed and scientific modern world. It begins something like "He came out of the earth, hating." and it ends with him shoved into a crematorium. I'd like to find the story, I read it over twenty years ago, but it still hangs with me. Anyone remember the title and/or which anthology it is in?
Get well, Mr. Bradbury.
OTOH, he also tells a story about one that was turned down by an editor that bought most of his stories, because "it's not science fiction; it's a love story that just happens to take place on a space ship".
I agree; he's one of the writers who's influenced the way I write (when I can get up the courage to write anything but papers these days), along with (don't hate me) E.B. White, Dave Barry, and Garrison Keillor. His prose is haunting; reminds me of Sherwood Anderson, what he called "low fine music" in dialogue...
Analyzing or dissecting what I find enjoyable in literature always gets me down. Sometimes I just want to read it. But sometimes it's fun, just as it was fun to talk about "Dogma" after seeing it, just as I want to understand why I find Bradbury's work interesting now that it might cheer him up when he needs it.
Then again, if I were recovering from a stroke, I might not want to hear/see people looking at my work as though it were a car -- "oh, I admire the way he put that chassis together, real professional job" -- because writing/art is different, it comes from a private place, it's difficult and brave for a person to reveal himself through writing --
So all I'll say is, hope you feel better soon, Mr. Bradbury. Good health and good luck.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftam esse delendam.