{"id":6208,"date":"2018-03-08T17:49:47","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T01:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=6208"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:43:46","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:43:46","slug":"ray-bradbury-dandelion-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2018\/03\/08\/ray-bradbury-dandelion-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: DANDELION WINE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>DANDELION WINE (DW) is certainly Bradbury’s most personal book, because it is so clearly based on Bradbury’s own life as a boy in small-town Illinois. It was published in 1957 as a novel, not a short story collection, though actually it’s a hybrid, what SF critics call a ‘fix-up’ (http:\/\/www.sf-encyclopedia.com\/entry\/fixup<\/a>), a book made up of previously published material, strung or stitched together often with added material. Since the book editions of DW do not identify the previous material, once again I’ll copy the TOC from Bill Contento’s Locus Index. (The * after some titles indicates no prior publication; a remarkable number of sections were previously published as short magazine pieces.)<\/p>\n

Dandelion Wine<\/strong> Ray Bradbury (Doubleday, 1957, 281pp, hc)<\/p>\n

Illumination \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss The Reporter May 16 1957
\nDandelion Wine \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Gourmet Jun 1953
\nSummer in the Air \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss The Saturday Evening Post Feb 18 1956
\nThe Season of Sitting \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 vi Charm Aug 1951
\nThe Night \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Weird Tales Jul 1946
\nThe Lawns of Summer \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Nation\u2019s Business Feb 1952
\nThe Happiness Machine \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 14 1957
\nExorcism \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 vi *
\nSeason of Disbelief \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Collier\u2019s Nov 25 1950
\nThe Last, the Very Last \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss The Reporter Jun 2 1955
\nThe Green Machine \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Argosy (UK) Mar 1951
\nThe Trolley \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Good Housekeeping Jul 1955
\nStatues \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss *
\nMagic! \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss *
\nThe Window \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Collier\u2019s Aug 5 1950
\nThe Swan \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Cosmopolitan Sep 1954
\nThe Whole Town\u2019s Sleeping \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss McCall\u2019s Sep 1950
\nGood-By, Grandma \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss The Saturday Evening Post May 25 1957
\nThe Tarot Witch \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss *
\nGreen Wine for Dreaming \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss *
\nDinner at Dawn \u00b7 Ray Bradbury \u00b7 ss Everywoman\u2019s Magazine Feb 1954, as \u201cThe Magical Kitchen\u201d (?)<\/p>\n

Bradbury had done something similar with THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES (1950; TMC), but that wasn’t presented as a novel, but as what I call a ‘linked-collection’ of related stories, listed in a table of contents at the front of the book. (Somewhat like Asimov’s I, ROBOT — the same year!) DW has no such TOC; there are page breaks between sections, but no titles. The TOC above shows that the material for this 1957 book was first published in the early 1950s — once RB’s reputation had been established by TMC. My guess is he was relaxing, or indulging, writing what he wanted to write rather than imitating what was popular, and managing to get into the ‘slick’ high-paying magazines, like Good Housekeeping<\/em> and Saturday Evening Post<\/em>. Only one of the items above was published in a genre magazine — that fifth item, in Weird Tales<\/em> in 1946.<\/p>\n

There’s a more significant issue with both this book and TMC, one I\u2019d not recalled before embarking on this reread program: Bradbury wrote many more Green Town stories than those in DW; he wrote many more Mars stories than appeared in TMC. He wrote Green Town stories and Mars stories throughout his life. They were his go-to settings for the kinds of stories he liked to write, and there were only half a dozen different kinds of stories he liked to write — or perhaps, there were only half a dozen different settings that he used, over and over, for most of the stories he wrote.<\/p>\n

Yet the stories written in any one setting were not consistent. Especially when TMC was assembled, RB and his editor Walter Bradbury at Doubleday (no relation) apparently chose from among RB’s published Mars stories those which were more-or-less consistent, and those which could be fitted into a framework of an overarching story. (Much as what we now call the Biblical \u201cNew Testament\u201d was assembled in the 4th century by church officials who chose some ancient texts, those which were more or less consistent, and left out those which were not \u2013 and limited the \u2018gospels\u2019 to four, on numerological grounds!) So not only were some early Mars stories left out of TMC, but RB continued to use Mars as a setting for later stories, stories that were not necessarily consistent with the broad story arc established by TMC. The same is true for stories set in Green Town, and DW.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Green Town stories, for example, those not incorporated into DW, he varied the protagonist’s name, his age, and his family situation. Some Green Town stories have an adult returning to his home town. Some don\u2019t involve the boy Douglas at all, in any guise.<\/p>\n

The key issue of DW is that it is almost entirely a realistic novel, with no science fiction and almost no fantasy, save one or two episodes. It’s Bradbury’s homage to his own Arcadia, his Eden, the perfect past that adulthood and progress threatened — that key theme of his entire career.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

So: DANDELION WINE is about Douglas Spaulding, age 12, as he spends Summer of 1928 in this small Illinois town of Green Town, living with his family in a boarding house and next door to his grandparents’ house. The book opens and closes beautifully with Douglas looking out over the town from the fourth-floor cupola in his grandparents\u2019 house, first at dawn, later at dusk, watching lights go on or off, and imagining himself as a conductor, cueing a performance.<\/p>\n

The summer is bookended by two key moments in Douglas\u2019 life: early on, while walking in the woods with his father and younger brother, Douglas has a sense of deep perception and realizes that he\u2019s alive<\/em>!, in a way he\u2019d never realized before. Subsequently he keeps a notebook of \u201crituals\u201d and \u201crevelations\u201d that he experiences throughout the summer. Then, near the end of the book, the counterpart realization occurs, as he\u2019s witnessed people in town die, and even as he sees cowboys \u2018killed\u2019 in the movies and realizes what death actually means. His great-grandma does die, after saying, \u201cI\u2019m not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family. I\u2019ll be around a long time.\u201d (A sentiment echoed by the recent Pixar animated film Coco<\/em><\/strong>!) And so Douglas realizes, and tries to write down, \u201cI, Douglas Spaulding, someday must\u2026\u201d but can\u2019t finish it.<\/p>\n

In between, much of the book describes incidents that do not involve Douglas. Grandpa harvests dandelions from the lawn and makes wine, for the family to sip throughout the next winter; a boarder offers to plant a type of grass that doesn\u2019t need cutting, and suffers Grandpa\u2019s wrath (a typical RB rant against \u2018progress\u2019); a man tries to invent a \u201chappiness machine\u201d; two little old ladies drive an electric car and worry they\u2019ve killed a neighbor.<\/p>\n

The \u2018happiness machine\u2019 episode involves a man obsessed with building a device to provide true happiness, that turns out to be a box that displays scenes and plays music from the most wonderful examples in existence. (It reminds me of the Edward G. Robinson death scene in the film Soylent Green<\/strong><\/em>, with scenes of gorgeous scenery and music by Beethoven.) But his machine malfunctions, and he concludes that true happiness is accepting what is stable, not transitory or easily forgotten, and that stability is looking at one\u2019s household of wife and children, his family. It\u2019s a typical RB statement of true verities.<\/p>\n

Another incident is about an elderly woman, who saves every receipt and ticket stub, who is visited by children who can’t believe that she really was ever a girl, or even that she has a first name, and think her childhood photos were of someone else. At first disconcerted, the old woman comes to respond by admitting this is in some way true; and so she burns all the souvenirs of her past, and allows to the children that she was never pretty, or has a first name.<\/p>\n

Another: a friend of Douglas\u2019s, John Huff, announces his family is moving away to another town, and they\u2019re leaving tonight. The boys play one last game of \u201cstatues,\u201d during which John takes the opportunity to leave. And Douglas, heartbroken, decides he hates John Huff.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s even a serial killer episode, concerning several elderly ladies who walk across the town\u2019s ravine to see a movie, despite rumors of the \u201cLonely One,\u201d who\u2019s apparently killed a couple other women. Sure enough they find a woman, just murdered, and summon the police, but then attend their movie anyway. Later one of them, Lavinia, returns to her home, locks her door, and then realizes someone is inside the room with her\u2014 The end.<\/p>\n

(This episode, \u201cThe Whole Town\u2019s Sleeping,\u201d was first published in 1950; in 1954 RB wrote a companion piece, told from the man\u2019s POV, though the resolution is different than what\u2019s [later! In 1957!] implied in DW. \u201cAt Midnight, in the Month of June\u201d and the earlier story were both published in Ellery Queen\u2019s Mystery Magazine<\/em> in 1954; this other story was reprinted in The Toynbee Convector<\/strong> in 1988.)<\/p>\n

There are one or two sections that do have some fantasy content. The most obvious is the section about Elmira Brown, who thinks she is the target of a neighbor, Clara Goodwater, whom she suspects is a witch, especially since Elmira\u2019s postman husband Sam reports that Clara has ordered books about becoming a witch. Elmira has suffered many misfortunes, including general clumsiness, and has failed, time and time again, to become president of the Ladies Lodge. In the finale of this story, Elmira concocts a potion to counteract the witchcraft, but collapses on stage, upon which Clara repents \u2013 and pulls the pins out of her Elmira doll.<\/p>\n

The second fantasy item concerns a \u201cTarot Witch\u201d at a local carnival, which dispenses fortune cards. Doug and his brother Tom get a blank card, which they decode, via flame, to reveal a hidden lemon juice message, which is \u201csecours\u201d \u2013 \u201chelp\u201d. The boys try to \u201crescue\u201d her and are outwitted by the manager, who throws the Tarot Witch doll into the ravine.<\/p>\n

And maybe there\u2019s a bit of fantasy in a late episode in which Douglas falls into a fever, and the town junkman brings round some bottles of water, grandly described, which heal Douglas by morning.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

It\u2019s necessary at some point to discuss Bradbury\u2019s prose style. It wasn\u2019t consistent across all his works, but in the stories closest to his heart, his style was his most recognizably florid and breathless. And his characters typically speak as Bradbury writes — In this sense, if in no other, RB is like Rod Serling, who also wrote speeches for his characters in long paragraphs of prose utterly unlike the way actual people speak. RB\u2019s style was more restrained in other tales, e.g. the Mars stories, but especially in the Green Town stories of DW, and in the other stories that responded to his personal experience \u2013 the Ireland and Mexico stories, the Hollywood stories \u2013 he orated, he expounded, as if bursting from within at the glory of the world and passion of his beliefs.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a typical passage (not searching for an extreme passage, just a typical one), near the beginning of DW, as Douglas, his dad, and his brother, wander in the woods:<\/p>\n

\nAnd he was gesturing up through the trees above to show them how it was woven across the sky or how the sky was woven into the trees, he wasn\u2019t sure which. But there it was, he smiled, and the weaving went on, green and blue, if you watched and saw the forest shift its humming loom. Dad stood comfortably saying this and that, the words easy in his mouth. He made it easier by laughing at his own declarations just so often. He liked to listen to the silence, he said, if silence could be listened to, for, he went on, in that silence you could hear wildflower pollen sifting down the bee-fried air, by God, the bee-fried air! Listen! The waterfall of birdsong beyond those trees!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is pretty good \u2013 but a little of this goes a long way. You get used to it, and calibrate your reception of this prose to follow the story, sometimes despite what can seem excessive, even obscuring. At times this rapturous, poetic prose verges on the ungrammatical; you can read entire long paragraphs without quite understanding what is supposed to be going on. I’ll provide some of those examples in future posts.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another passage, about those water bottles that heal Douglas\u2019 fever:<\/p>\n

\nDerived from the atmosphere of the white Arctic in the spring of 1900, and mixed with the wind from the upper Hudson Valley in the month of April, 1910, and containing particles of dust seen shining in the sunset of one day in the meadows around Grinnell, Iowa, when a cool air rose to be captured from a lake and a little creek and a natural spring. Now the small print\u2026 Also containing molecules of vapor from menthol, lime, papaya, and watermelon and all other water-smelling, cool-savored fruits and trees like camphor and herbs like wintergreen and the breath of a rising wind from the Des Plaines River itself. Guaranteed most refreshing and cool. To be taken on summer nights when the heat passes ninety.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/p>\n

Finally, though: about this book, DANDELION WINE. As I mentioned earlier, I\u2019m rereading some of my favorite sf\/f authors, in part to revisit that golden age when I was 12, and in part to reconsider what I think science fiction means, what it\u2019s about, after 50 years of reading it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no science fiction in DANDELION WINE \u2013 but there are stories that reveal Bradbury\u2019s attitude about change, about technology. The \u201cHappiness Machine\u201d episode is one: the device is unnecessary and destructive, since true happiness lies in the verities of family. The \u201cGreen Machine\u201d episode is another: two old ladies try out new technology, but it\u2019s dangerous and uncontrollable. The \u201cLawns of Summer\u201d episode suggests that the conveniences of technology (grass that doesn\u2019t need cutting) aren\u2019t worth the loss of traditions.<\/p>\n

Bradbury famously said \u201cI don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.\u201d (https:\/\/www.brainyquote.com\/quotes\/ray_bradbury_124755<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And so did Bradbury write science fiction? Or some illegitimate counterpart? (In those nonfiction anthologies from the 1950s that I blogged about late last year, Bradbury was noted as an exception to the general rule for how science fiction should be rigorously scientific.) Yes, he did. Bradbury, to this day, is recognized as a major science fiction author, and I don\u2019t want to fall into the \u201cNo True Scotsman\u201d fallacy of thinking that a recognized science fiction author didn\u2019t really write science fiction, according to some private definition. Yes, Bradbury wrote science fiction, especially in THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES and FAHRENHEIT 451, as I\u2019ll explore in future posts. And my job is to understand what science fiction really means, and is about (as opposed to fantasy), in a way that accounts for Ray Bradbury.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

One final tease: I\u2019ve only realized during the past couple months of rereading Bradbury, that my own childhood, the places I grew up in, correspond rather remarkably to the three settings of RB\u2019s key books: Mars, Suburbia, and Green Town. I need to post further family photos from my early life, the places I grew up, to justify this claim. Perhaps this is why, despite my relatively hard-nosed attitude about science fiction vs. fantasy, I still feel a deep affection for the works of Ray Bradbury.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Wait, one more tease: I\u2019ll follow up on RB\u2019s oddly remarkable sequel to DANDELION WINE, FAREWELL SUMMER, in a separate post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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