Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
[...] I don't think we need to insist on factual accuracy - it's a novel (or a collection of short stories, or however you want to describe it) not an autobiography or even a memoir. It is a love letter to Bradbury's childhood and the people and places he knew.
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Indeed. For me it was the very unreality of them that made these earlier parts obvious as reminiscing. To contrast this with what it reminded me of, Stephen King's novella "
The Body": King was explicit in his use of an overt narrator looking back on his childhood to make the perspective obvious, whereas Bradbury was (in these earlier parts of the book) achieving the effect only through suggestion. It was very cleverly done, or would have been if he'd been able to keep it up. King bedded his story quite firmly in reality, while Bradbury (it seemed to me) wavered in and out of a sort of dream state, very much like the process of reliving memories.