Very sad today to hear of the passing of the legendary Ray Bradbury. Mister Bradbury was a true original: a gifted short-story writer and novelist with the soul of a poet, equally at home writing fantasy, SF, existential crime thrillers or all three at once. His best works had a dreamlike, surreal quality often laced with an aching nostalgia for a byegone America. We will definitely never see his like again...
I've previously mentioned two of Mr. Bradbury's works before:
Something Wicked This Way Comes ( here )
and Fahrenheit 451 ( here )
If you've never read his work before I strongly recommend you start with those two famous novels... and then, of course, there are The Martian Chronicles - sublime short fantasies of a uniquely Cold War America Red Planet - The Golden Apples Of The Sun, Dandelion Wine, Death Is A Lonely Business, and so many more...
RIP Ray Bradbury 22nd August 1920 - 5th June 2012
I've heard of the novel Fahrenheit 451. They were going to make it into a film at one point. Is that the one about burning books? A very sad day.
ReplyDeleteFahrenheit 451 was actually filmed in 1966 by Francois Truffaut. It's a strange little movie, starring Oskar Werner and the gorgeous Julie Christie, which doesn't really catch the tone of Bradbury's novel. It's worth watching as an interesting curio, although I don't think Truffaut's heart was really in it.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed about burning books and censorship. Various remakes have been often rumoured over the years but have never materialised...