Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
Maybe, but I would have preferred less sentiment in the first place, and more of an even-handed approach to the good and the bad. It felt like there was a disconnect between the wallow in nostalgia and the quite depressing events described. I think the book would have been better with a first-person adult narrator looking back on the summer and offering perspective and context from a distance of years.
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But that would have been a completely different book. Not at all what Bradbury was trying to do, IMO. That's like thinking
Catcher in the Rye should be told from the perspective of someone other that Holden Caufield.
While I'd say that the Happiness Machine is probably my least favourite part of the book, I don't dislike it, and it's not at all sentimental, but an important commentary on the modern attitude that everything can be fixed with technology, something that Bradbury was fairly passionate about. He comes back around to that theme again with the demise of the trolleys because they're too slow compared to buses.
Overall, while I enjoyed this book in my re-read (and remembered virtually none of it from my teenage read 55 years ago
), I have to say that it's no better than 3 1/2 - 4 stars for me. Not that it doesn't have marvelous writing (it does), with delicious phrasing. But I think I've lost that ability to escape into the mind of youth to some extent, at least the magical part. I suspect others who want more structure are reacting to that same thing.
I'm reminded of another book I read recently and which I've talked about in the
Welcome thread --
A Long Summer Day. That had the same quality of beautiful writing (though of a different style), but with the structure and perspective of adults. It was a solid 5 stars for me. And I think that was because that perspective was easier for me immerse myself in, even though it was set earlier and in a completely different society.