Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
May. 4th, 2012 07:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felicitykingI'm reading all my summer books now, because I know when summer comes, I'll be wishing it's winter. But when it's summer, I can think back on these books and remember what is about summer that is special, what is buried and waiting to be unearthed beyond the sticky humidity and. the hot-enough-to-melt-cement days.
If you've ever wonder what a Midwest summer is like, this book will describe it to you. Even though Bradbury later moved to LA, and wrote elsewhere, he spent much of his childhood in the Illinois. I'm from the Midwest as well, a born and bred Ohioan. Even though it's 2012 now, and the book was written in the 1946 (but takes place in 1928), some things about Midwest don't change: the quiet towns, the passage of time where nothing significant happens--and yet it is significant in its own way--and the underlying darkness that we don't notice because we feel safe.
DW concerns two brothers, Doug and Tom, and one idyllic summer where Doug realized he was alive. Actually alive. He can feel it in his feet, right down to the ground, and his decision to record as much as it possible.
There really isn't a plot to the book. It's really a series of vignettes about Doug's life, his family, and his neighbors. Being plotless actually helps the book. Because you really get to smell a way of life that is now gone: when trolleys once ruled the streets, when people met at ice cream parlors, when a town was small enough that you knew everybody, when dandelions meant wine and not weeds that must be extracted from yards.
I've read Bradbury before but never really loved him until now. The Martian Chronicles but was good but didn't do anything for me. Farenheit 451 is something I've tried to read but can never get into. But this. This. Was amazing. I kept expecting it to disappoint me but it didn't.
The thing I loved most about this book was the poetic way it was written. Every description was so vivid and lush. Bradbury doesn't just describe, he gets into the heart of something and makes you see it differently. I would quote but you have to read the full book to see how each description builds upon each other.
*********************
Oh, and Ray Bradbury, wherever you are, the Happiness Machine has been destroyed. It's called tumblr, and on any given day, you can find 3 sunsets on your dash, photography of Paris, London, and places from around the world. Mrs. Auffmann was wrong. It doesn't make you depressed that you can't leave, that you are awakened to dreams you never knew you had. She was right though that if you get too occupied with the happiness machine and leave other things neglected. She is also right in that seeing too much of one thing can make you less appreciative of it, take it for granted...mindless reblogging. But it also connected many of us together, so it's not a complete waste. And we use it for than just mindless reblogging. We try to educate each other about issues and raise awareness about things that matter. But, yeah, too often we neglect what really matter. But still. Not a complete waste.
I'm very sorry also to tell you that nobody appreciates the dandelions anymore. Yards are deplete of them. If you see them, it's on a home that nobody owns, a ruins where the grass is overgrown. I'm glad you aren't alive to see how dandelions are just tossed aside, instead of being used for cooking or wine-making.
But the ice cream trucks have replaced trolleys. Old people still are time machines to the past. Kids go trampling through the woods and enjoy the carnival. So, while some things have changed, other remain the same. So even though the dandelions are no longer bottled into wine to savour on cold, damp nights, idyllic memories are still being made.
If you've ever wonder what a Midwest summer is like, this book will describe it to you. Even though Bradbury later moved to LA, and wrote elsewhere, he spent much of his childhood in the Illinois. I'm from the Midwest as well, a born and bred Ohioan. Even though it's 2012 now, and the book was written in the 1946 (but takes place in 1928), some things about Midwest don't change: the quiet towns, the passage of time where nothing significant happens--and yet it is significant in its own way--and the underlying darkness that we don't notice because we feel safe.
DW concerns two brothers, Doug and Tom, and one idyllic summer where Doug realized he was alive. Actually alive. He can feel it in his feet, right down to the ground, and his decision to record as much as it possible.
There really isn't a plot to the book. It's really a series of vignettes about Doug's life, his family, and his neighbors. Being plotless actually helps the book. Because you really get to smell a way of life that is now gone: when trolleys once ruled the streets, when people met at ice cream parlors, when a town was small enough that you knew everybody, when dandelions meant wine and not weeds that must be extracted from yards.
I've read Bradbury before but never really loved him until now. The Martian Chronicles but was good but didn't do anything for me. Farenheit 451 is something I've tried to read but can never get into. But this. This. Was amazing. I kept expecting it to disappoint me but it didn't.
The thing I loved most about this book was the poetic way it was written. Every description was so vivid and lush. Bradbury doesn't just describe, he gets into the heart of something and makes you see it differently. I would quote but you have to read the full book to see how each description builds upon each other.
*********************
Oh, and Ray Bradbury, wherever you are, the Happiness Machine has been destroyed. It's called tumblr, and on any given day, you can find 3 sunsets on your dash, photography of Paris, London, and places from around the world. Mrs. Auffmann was wrong. It doesn't make you depressed that you can't leave, that you are awakened to dreams you never knew you had. She was right though that if you get too occupied with the happiness machine and leave other things neglected. She is also right in that seeing too much of one thing can make you less appreciative of it, take it for granted...mindless reblogging. But it also connected many of us together, so it's not a complete waste. And we use it for than just mindless reblogging. We try to educate each other about issues and raise awareness about things that matter. But, yeah, too often we neglect what really matter. But still. Not a complete waste.
I'm very sorry also to tell you that nobody appreciates the dandelions anymore. Yards are deplete of them. If you see them, it's on a home that nobody owns, a ruins where the grass is overgrown. I'm glad you aren't alive to see how dandelions are just tossed aside, instead of being used for cooking or wine-making.
But the ice cream trucks have replaced trolleys. Old people still are time machines to the past. Kids go trampling through the woods and enjoy the carnival. So, while some things have changed, other remain the same. So even though the dandelions are no longer bottled into wine to savour on cold, damp nights, idyllic memories are still being made.
