Bradbuy's "Farewell Summer"

My first experience with Ray Bradbury was Dandelion Wine.  It was the first book we had to read in my Freshman Honors English class.  The funny part was that we didn’t even read the entire book; our teacher just picked random chapters and had us read those.  We jumped from one short story to another with barely any connection between these young brats to these silly old ladies.  Our teacher tried to explain at one point why two old ladies running a guy over was funny, but really, if you have to explain a joke, the funny is gone.

It was a pretty horrible experience, and I wanted nothing to do with Bradbury after that.  I kept away from him fairly well until graduation.  There might have been another book or short story in between then, but they didn’t leave a very strong impression.  It wasn’t until college when I picked up a copy of The Illustrated Man that I was blown away.

Bradbury has a very musical narration as he tells his stories, and each tale is vivid and evokes a very specific emotion with childlike wonder, even in, or especially with, the horror tales.

Since The Illustrated Man, I have loved everything I’ve read by him, from well-known books like Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles, to more obscure titles like The Halloween Tree.  I just reread Fahrenheit 451 for my book club, and this time around, perhaps because I’ve had a few years to mature, I was deeply moved and this has become one of the most important books I’ve ever read in my life.  It’s essentially perfect as a story, wonderful milieu, and the most prophetic dystopian novel ever told.  Except for the fire department, every horrible aspect in that vision of the future has come to pass.

Bradbury is incredible and will go down as one of the most important authors of the Twentieth Century.

The catalyst for focusing this post on him is because of his novel Farewell Summer, which title was the inspiration for last Friday’s poem.  The story and my poem have nothing in common beyond the words “farewell” and “summer.”

Farewell Summer is the sequel to Dandelion Wine.  It’s October and Doug, who is turning into a teenager, realizes that he’s growing up and does not take the news well.  In fact, he rebels against the thought of growing up, ever.  So much so that he goes to war with the senior citizens of his town.

He gathers the boys to attack the old men’s houses, steals their chess pieces, and even attempt to stop the city clock in a futile effort to halt time.  It’s a simple, ridiculous premise that feels magical and completely encapsulated how I felt about growing up at that age.

This story is so good that I want to go back and read Dandelion Wine again, just so I’ll appreciate what my teacher failed to instill back when I was 14.  The older I get, the more impossible it is for me not to be in love with any of Bradbury’s work.