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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 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.