Goodbye, Mr. Bradbury

I just saw this flash across yahoo news.  Ray Bradbury, a legend of horror and science fiction, died last night at the age of 91.  Think of all the writing he packed into over those years.

He is one of the authors who is responsible for me being a teacher.

I can't remember the first Bradbury story I ever read, but I do remember stumbling across him in early junior high.  My guess is after reading Stephen King, I naturally gravitated toward Bradbury.  That and King pays Bradbury compliment after compliment in his classic Danse Macabre.  In that book, which is King's examination of horror literature, he includes Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes as one of the best 'modern' horror novels.  He also talks about some of Bradbury's classic short stories.

So it is likely from Danse Macabre that I found Bradbury.  And I was never the same.

Bradbury's horror was subtle.  He was like listening to your grandfather tell a spooky story.  And what I marveled over about Bradbury's styles was that he could take the most outlandish thing - say an infant trying to kill his mother - and build a totally plausible story around it.  So much so that when the horror finally hit, it was all the more frightening because it seemed so real and so natural.

I recall reading Bradbury's "The Crowd," which is about a man in an automobile accident.  He survives and spends time in the hospital.  While recovering, he recalls the events of the accident, namely the crowd that gathers around him - as if out of nowhere - and wonder if they should move him and how to help him.

Later on he witnesses another accident.  And, believe it or not, he thinks he recognizes some of the same faces in that crowd as being in the crowd that gathered around him.

Ultimately, the main character is in a second accident, and the same crowd shows up.  This time they move him and he dies.

That one freaked me out.

I recall reading another one - though it wasn't assigned - from one of my high school English textbooks.  It was called "The Flying Machine." In this story a man creates a machine that allows him to fly.  He brings the invention to his king.  The man expects to rewarded for his grand invention.  However, after demonstrating it to his king, the man is sentenced to be executed.

The man is shocked.  Then the king simply explains that while the inventor envisions using it for the good of the kingdom, someone else will use it to reign down death and destruction.

Another one that I read in school was "All Summer in a Day." A little girl's family has moved to a planet where it constantly rains all the time.  Once every few years (I can't remember how often) the rains stop and everyone can go outside and see the sun.  However, some boys in the little girl's class lock her in closet so she misses the event.

That one really hurt to read.

Again that was part of Bradbury's charm: he could make you care about characters in the most bizarre circumstances.

Then there is his classic "A Sound of Thunder," in which big game hunters can travel back in time to hunt the greatest of all predators: the T-Rex.  There are only two catches.  First, the T-Rex must be seconds from dying of natural causes (Bradbury notes that wiping out just one T-Rex before its time could - over millions and millions of years - change the present.  He expounds that wiping out that T-Rex before its time robs some large rats, for example, of scavenging on the corpse.  As a result of not having that T-Rex to dine on, that rat dies out.  Now what's the big deal about one rat?  Well, times that rat and all the little rats it will have over 50 million years and who knows that other life forms will be wiped out!).  Second, the hunters must stick to a computerized path.  To step on the plants and contaminate them could also change the present.

As it happens, one hunter flees from the path when the hunt goes wrong.  He is tracked down and the hunters return to their present . . . to find everything different.  Then they look at the man who fled from the path.  Beneath his boot is a crushed butterfly.  That one butterfly over millions and millions of years, changed their reality.

Mind blowing!  Who could ever think of that?  Brilliant!



Here are some of his best stories and novels (if you are unfamiliar with Bradbury)

Fahrenheit 451
The Illustrated Man
Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Halloween Tree
"The Veldt" (what happens when children turn on their parents)
"The Exiles" (some of the greatest writers are exiled to Mars)
"The Playground" (what happens when a father switches places with his son, wanting to spare his son all of the tortures of childhood)
"The Small Assassin" (a mom believes her baby is trying to kill her)
"The Lake" (a young boy loses the love of his life in a swimming accident)
"The Man Upstairs" (a vampire moves in upstairs)
"The Man" (a wonderful science fiction tale of Jesus)
"The Pedestrian" (a prequel of sorts to Fahrenheit 451)

I think one of his most interesting pieces of writing is the intro to Fahrenheit 451 and how he came to write it.  It was originally published in Playboy as "The Fireman."  However, he rented a type writer for  something like ten cents an hour in the basement of a public library and he turned the short story into the classic novel.

Mr. Bradbury will be sorely missed.  But unlike so many other authors, he was never in the news for outrageous behavior, scandals, or addictions.  May we all be lucky enough to see 91!