Literary The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

[Wearever]

I saw it as humans being out of their depths, being out maneuvered by the Martians, in each story, even in the last one when the Martians were gone.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

I was disappointed that a book about Mars only contained two (arguably) three stories about real Martians. I felt the material about real Martians (as opposed to colonists) contained the most imagination, which is what I was hoping for.

My feeling was that the point of the book was not alien (to us) life forms, but the behaviour of humans in alien conditions.

I found the tragedy of what happened all too believable, when you consider the havoc we have brought wherever we impose ourselves on a new environment, whether it is the early colonisers of Australia, or the settlers moving into the American West, the Spanish in South America, and so on.

The rockets were the Silver Locusts of the original UK (and elsewhere?) title - see the very short story titled The Locusts - and they brought in them the plague of humans.

And from the rockets ran men with hammers in their hands to beat the strange world into a shape that was familiar to the eye to bludgeon away all the strangeness, their mouths fringed with nails so they resembled steel-toothed carnivores, spitting them into their swift hands as they hammered up frame cottages and scuttled over roofs with shingles to blot out the eerie stars, and fit green shades to pull against the night. And when the carpenters had hurried on, the women came in with flower-pots and chintz and pans and set up a kitchen clamour to cover the silence that Mars made waiting outside the door and the shaded window.

Again in The Naming of Names Bradbury writes of the need for the colonising people to place their own names on everything. It is only now, more than 200 years after Europeans first came to colonise Australia, that we are reverting back to the place names given by the Aboriginal people, especially for places of particular significance such as Uluru, which used to be called Ayers Rock.

I read an older version of the book, with the original dates. I didn't have a problem with this, as for me it was happening in an alternate universe. However my copy doesn't have the story Usher II, so I shall be interested to hear about that one.

By chance, the bookmark I was using for this book was one I received from an organisation I support called "Indigenous Community Volunteers". On it is quoted an Aboriginal proverb:

We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love - and then we return home.

Somehow, it seemed very appropriate to contemplate the truth of this, and to learn to step more lightly on our own world, rather than to continue with the frontier mentality of using up, destroying and then moving on to the next place, whether that is another part of our own land or another planet.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Usher II is one of the gems of the book! I envy your first reading of it.

If you like "artistic" Science Fiction short stories, I can recommend the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger).

I read Usher II tonight. I totally understand what you mean now. That was completely unexpected! Thanks for the recommendations on other authors.

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

My feeling was that the point of the book was not alien (to us) life forms, but the behaviour of humans in alien conditions.

I found the tragedy of what happened all too believable, when you consider the havoc we have brought wherever we impose ourselves on a new environment, whether it is the early colonisers of Australia, or the settlers moving into the American West, the Spanish in South America, and so on.

The rockets were the Silver Locusts of the original UK (and elsewhere?) title - see the very short story titled The Locusts - and they brought in them the plague of humans.

I read an older version of the book, with the original dates. I didn't have a problem with this, as for me it was happening in an alternate universe. However my copy doesn't have the story Usher II, so I shall be interested to hear about that one.

After reading the short story all about locusts by Doris Lessing in African Stories recently, I have a new appreciation for the fear and destruction that they can bring! I liked the reference to the rockets as "Silver Locusts."

Regarding Usher II:

Spoiler:

You should find a copy if you can. It is all about book banning and full of literary references. I think you would like it! Basically after the frontiersman and the missionaries come the elitist people who are the culture/thought police to clean-up the place and enforce bureaucracy (which is not democratic). Then the next story addresses the old people coming.

[Bookpossum]

Thanks so much for this. I'll see what the library's copy has in it.

Locusts can be devastating here too.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

My feeling was that the point of the book was not alien (to us) life forms, but the behaviour of humans in alien conditions.

I found the tragedy of what happened all too believable, when you consider the havoc we have brought wherever we impose ourselves on a new environment, whether it is the early colonisers of Australia, or the settlers moving into the American West, the Spanish in South America, and so on.

Apart from the initial exploration of Mars, then rebellion by one crew member against the other humans explorers, I didn't feel that the book particularly explored Mars as an alien environment. It could have been some new land on Earth, and as such, wasn't particularly science-fiction.

Each to their own. But I prefer more genuine "alieness," more vaulting imagination in the sci-fi I read. For me, that is what sets science-fiction apart from other genres. It does exist in places in the book.

The silver locust concept is great, but the Martians vanish right at the start, and don't return (except as a brief ghost). As such there is very little interaction between Earth and Mars.

For all it's simplicity, I believe that Edgar Rice Burroughs generally does a better job of conjuring up the strangeness of Mars.

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Again in The Naming of Names Bradbury writes of the need for the colonising people to place their own names on everything. It is only now, more than 200 years after Europeans first came to colonise Australia, that we are reverting back to the place names given by the Aboriginal people, especially for places of particular significance such as Uluru, which used to be called Ayers Rock.

Interestingly, place names and description words do frequently survive the suppression of a preceding culture. They are often all that remains of the preceding language. One can see this on the road-signs of any long-trip through North America, and also in the remnants of Celtic words in English vocabulary.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I am reading the later edition with the dates in the 2030s. I just discovered that this edition doesn't have "Way in the Middle of the Air" like the older version. Instead they added "The Fire Balloons" and "The Wilderness."

[fantasyfan]

I found TMC a very rewarding experience. The best of the stores are wonderful and quite well crafted with interesting thematic reverberations. "The Long Years", for instance, is a mirror of "The Third Expedition." The latter plays with the idea that the Martians create images which finally destroy the crew by playing on their loneliness and need for an image of Home. In "The Long Years" Hatheway recreates images of his lost family so as to survive loneliness and need. Both stories end with death and have deeply haunting conclusions.

I found the abandonment of Mars by the settlers rather difficult to accept as believable. Why go back to a deatroyed civilization? Well, perhaps one could see it as an example of humankind's tendency to embrace a society that provides only an illusion of fulfillment and happiness. Viewed this way, the answer provided by the final story is that only by becoming "Martians" in the sense of rejecting the culture of Earth, with its false visions, and the beguiling dreamlike betrayal it offers--and beginning anew is there a possible future for the race. Thus, the Martian Chronicles end where they began.

I read "Usher II" and there is no doubt but that it is a gem--a kind of brilliant ironic miniature of Fahrenheit 451. It was deleted to be replaced by "The Fire Balloons". I prefer the latter tale as I feel that it fits into the general atmosphere and world of TMC better than "Usher II" but tastes vary and many may prefer the other.

[Wearever]

I read the first edition, and that may have had more martian interaction than the later version. Having 2 versions is confusing. However it must have been important enough for Bradbury to increase the dates and add or take away stories. I remember 2 stories where the martians were gone in the older version. Still their impact was felt even though they were gone. The story that had the last expedition tossing empty wine bottles into the canals without any regard to the place they were, really made me think that the martians left just in time. Soon Mars would look like earth. Same problems different planet.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Wearever

I read the first edition, and that may have had more martian interaction than the later version. Having 2 versions is confusing. However it must have been important enough for Bradbury to increase the dates and add or take away stories. I remember 2 stories where the martians were gone in the older version. Still their impact was felt even though they were gone. The story that had the last expedition tossing empty wine bottles into the canals without any regard to the place they were, really made me think that the martians left just in time. Soon Mars would look like earth. Same problems different planet.

I think that was part of Ray Bradbury's point. We humans tend to not be very good about learning from our own mistakes and just repeat them over again where ever we go.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

I found TMC a very rewarding experience. The best of the stores are wonderful and quite well crafted with interesting thematic reverberations. "The Long Years", for instance, is a mirror of "The Third Expedition." The latter plays with the idea that the Martians create images which finally destroy the crew by playing on their loneliness and need for an image of Home. In "The Long Years" Hatheway recreates images of his lost family so as to survive loneliness and need. Both stories end with death and have deeply haunting conclusions.

I found the abandonment of Mars by the settlers rather difficult to accept as believable. Why go back to a deatroyed civilization? Well, perhaps one could see it as an example of humankind's tendency to embrace a society that provides only an illusion of fulfillment and happiness. Viewed this way, the answer provided by the final story is that only by becoming "Martians" in the sense of rejecting the culture of Earth, with its false visions, and the beguiling dreamlike betrayal it offers and beginning anew is there a possible future for the race. Thus, the Martian Chronicles end where they began.

I read "Usher II" and there is no doubt but that it is a gem--a kind of brilliant ironic miniature of Farenheit 451. It was deleted to be replaced by "The Fire Balloons". I prefer the latter tale as I feel that it fits into the general atmosphere and world of TMC better than "Usher II" but tastes vary and many may prefer the other.

One aspect of TMC is that is was not conceived as a whole. Bradbury wrote his "Martian" stories as separate short stories, to be sold (and printed) as separate stories. Only later were they given the "mosaic novel" for, at the request of the publisher. Should all the stories be included? Only the ones that fit best? The ones the author (or publisher) liked?

I'm a "kitchen sink" type of person, I would have liked to have seen them all together.

But that's me. . .

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

One aspect of TMC is that is was not conceived as a whole. Bradbury wrote his "Martian" stories as separate short stories, to be sold (and printed) as separate stories. Only later were they given the "mosaic novel" for, at the request of the publisher. Should all the stories be included? Only the ones that fit best? The ones the author (or publisher) liked?

I'm a "kitchen sink" type of person, I would have liked to have seen them all together.

But that's me. . .

And of course we can't expect the stories to be accurate as to conditions on Mars of course either. Knowledge of the other planets was a lot different back when the stories were written. Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr books are a similar case.

[AnotherCat]

I finished the book a couple of days ago now and have wondered what I thought of it with respect to any intentional messages or propaganda from the author within it, that apart from my having enjoyed it as a read. There are the obvious storylines encompassing disordered colonization of a planet having (or not having) indigenous peoples, atomic war, recolonization as "Martians", etc. but whether Bradbury is trying to tell readers something other than a good story I am undecided.

First, I live in a country that was colonized in two waves by different peoples and it had no indigenous peoples before that. It was colonialized during the early days of the second wave (to Britain). While I have spent quite a lot of time in both Australia and the USA (they having indigenous populations) over the years I would not like to comment as to whether their colonization and colonialization was, on balance, good or bad (I have spent no time at all in Canada). But I do know that the most vociferous commentators on these matters there tend to see, as they do in my own country, things through heavily filtered glasses, and often a psychology of guilt or sense of entitlement (often exaggerated) and self-interest, rather than through a prism that splits the history into rational threads balancing the good and bad outcomes against each other (and in the context of past values) from which a future can be laid out. So I don't regard myself as any sort of "expert" capable of reading those types colonization/colonialization experiences as being targets of messages in Chronicles.

Second, I have tried to find some authoritative information as to what Bradbury himself stated were the messages he may have wished to deliver through his story. Apart from various and prolific views of others on the internet, the place where myths are made, some claiming to be voicing Bradbury's own words, I have found nothing more reliable such as a well researched biography along the lines such as someone like Walter Isaacson would write. I have found a copy of the biography Bradbury Chronicles... but on first blush it seems to be a friendly recount of Bradbury's life with no depth with respect to his works.

What does seem to be so though, is that Bradbury himself, when asked, often changed his claims as to what the messages were behind his stories, and in the case of Chronicles and Fahrenheit, at least, did so several times for each. Which kinda leads to the possibility that when he wrote those books he did not have any clear idea of presenting any specific propaganda in them, but rather was just trying to tell a good story (and in my view there is nothing wrong with that). I remember one English class where the teacher made the point that we should not be over zealous in reading messages into the literature we read as it may be that all that was intended by the material was that it made a good story or provided a frame for a good story. That stuck in my memory and while the literati seem to be free with interpretations of author's works without much challenge we do see the writers of song lyrics quite frequently correcting the pontificators (perhaps the best known being Lennon's repudiation, backed by McCartney, of the claims that the title Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was an LSD based pun).

With respect to whether the book was science fiction or not, I felt it was not carefully crafted to be science fiction (that even considering the lesser scientific knowledge of Mars, space travel, etc. when written), so turned out more as fantasy for me. But I have no qualms either way so for me a mixture of both, which perhaps added to its attraction.

So until I hear from Bradbury himself (rather difficult now :-)) and his swearing to the truth of the matter as to what his messages were, if any, I am leaving Chronicles, for myself, to just having been a very good story, disjointed though it is. And it has led me to likely reading more of his novels, so a good nomination as far as I am concerned.

[fantasyfan]

Very interesting thoughts AnotherCat!

[Kyle Connor]

How big a difference are we talking here between the 1950 and 1997 version?
I read the earlier one and ya, you can enjoy it if you read it with the mindset of a person in the 50's.

[BenG]

My favorite Bradbury Martian story not included in the Chronicles is Dark They Were and Golden-eyed. It can be found online HERE.

There is also a sequel to Way In the Middle of the Air in The Illustrated Man. The Other Foot takes place twenty years later and the shoe is on, well, the other foot.