07-21-2018, 06:20 PM | #46 |
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In several areas the lightning bugs are gone because of spraying for mosquitos, at least in SC.
Also in 1971 the Apollo 15 astronauts named a crater on the moon after this book, Dandelion Crater. |
07-21-2018, 07:36 PM | #47 | |
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Then there is the multi-viewpoint chain of stories, often about an organization, following its historic flow over time. This style is not limited to short stories made into novels, it can be a series of novels. Think of the Stainless Steel Rat stories. Or Fritz Leiber's Change Wind stories. The simplest is simply a string of short stories about a single character, or a group of characters, strung together. Lots of those sorts. Bradbury seemed to create a different form, the mosaic novel. Look at The Martian Chronicles. Virtually nothing interconnected in character or organization, no particular flow of time, just a massive cluster of vignettes placed together to create prismatic whole. A very different form from the above. . . Just my 2 cents worth. . . |
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07-21-2018, 07:43 PM | #48 | |
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Another favourite was collecting tadpoles and growing them into frogs. I now feel very guilty when I think of those poor little frogs which would have to try to find some water, as we didn't have a pond - I just had them in a fish tank. |
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07-21-2018, 08:06 PM | #49 | |
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Last edited by BenG; 07-21-2018 at 08:32 PM. |
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07-21-2018, 08:10 PM | #50 | ||
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07-21-2018, 09:06 PM | #51 |
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The throbbing buzz of cicadas is definitely a distinct summer sound. I've never heard the term July flies. In the book, Tom talks about determining the temperature from the cicada buzz. Who knew there was some partial truth to this method? I couldn't find anything based on cicadas, but Dolbear's Law uses cricket chirps.
https://lifehacker.com/5817534/how-t...crickets-chirp |
07-21-2018, 11:40 PM | #52 |
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I grew up with Cicadas... and tree frogs. Nothing sums up summer in Florida like those two sounds (okay, and rain... real rain, not this pathetic spitting we get occasionally out here in the land of fruits and nuts).
Lightning bugs weren't so prevalent in my neighborhood (probably for the aforementioned reason of mosquito spraying), though I did see them often on visits to family and camping trips. When I brought my kids East to visit my mom in rural PA, the lightning bugs were an amazement for them, for sure. |
07-22-2018, 05:28 AM | #53 |
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I'm coming late to the party, but thought I'd post a quick review. I have mixed feelings about the book; on the one hand I loved the language and the imagery, on the other I thought it was a bit disjointed and without structure. I thought it would have worked better if all the stories were told from the perspective of the 12 year old Douglas, and got a little lost when the point of view wandered in seemingly random directions. That said, it was a wonderful set of interwoven stories told by a master wordsmith. Some of the stories worked better than others, some were very intriguing (I personally enjoyed the serial killer thread, and was quite satisfied with its denouement).
My favourite thing in the whole book? That the elderly, as seen through the eyes of the children, are living time machines. |
07-22-2018, 07:02 AM | #54 | |
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07-22-2018, 07:34 AM | #55 |
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Bradbury was a short story writer; he wrote over 600 of them.* His only novels that I can recall that weren't fix-ups were Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree, and the three Crumley mysteries.
*I've read well over 200 of them. |
07-24-2018, 11:12 PM | #56 | |
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I finally was able to listen to this. I think the experience (at least the first time) was enhanced by listening to the audio book instead of reading it.
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I also loved the introduction with Doug "conducting" the wake-up of the town. Lovely imagery there. I laughed through the "witch" scenes (I can't remember names there) and felt sorry for Tom that he had to participate, although the end of that wasn't satisfying. |
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07-25-2018, 04:24 AM | #57 | |
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When I hit that scene, with the boys rushing to listen to the old man, I was reminded of The Simpsons episode with the lemon tree (I think). Milhouse shouts "Hey, an old man is talking!" - or something like that - and they all rush to sit down and pay attention. Hmm... make of that what you will. |
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07-25-2018, 08:10 AM | #58 | |
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Yes, I loved the Colonel as well. It seems to me that there is a theme of memory running through the book - Bradbury's memories of his childhood and the town in which he was a boy, but also the memories of the Colonel, which died with him, and those of the other old people in the book, Helen Loomis, Mrs Bentley, and Great-Grandma. Great-Grandma telling Doug:
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07-25-2018, 09:25 AM | #59 |
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The interest in old people and their memories is one of the things that felt false to me, given Doug's supposed age of 12. When I think back to my childhood, I was much more interested in my grandparents' stories of the past when I was significantly younger than that; by 12, and for the next few years, I wanted little to do with anyone who was ancient and old-fashioned--I wanted to be around people my age or a little older.
If it were a matter of one person, e.g., the colonel, who captured Doug's interest, fine, but there are far too many old people in a book that's ostensibly about Doug's summer. What does Doug do all summer besides hang out with old folks? |
07-25-2018, 11:17 AM | #60 | ||
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Many of the earlier, more consistent, parts of the book were so idealised as, it seemed to me, to invite the reader to imagine it was and older person reviewing their childhood. (I think issybird made a similar observation earlier.) It's what makes the ideal of a kids respecting the stories of the older generation so attractive, despite its unreality. Kids don't, but older people do, and may try desperately to remember those things they heard as a child. And that thought, it seems to me, makes the connection with... Quote:
You're right, kids of that age (approximately the age of the kids sitting down to listen to Abe Simpson) don't want to listen to old farts prattle on. Which is not to say they all miss it, some learn a lot by a sort of osmosis, but mostly they'll be grumbling all the while. At the time of the colonel we had still managed to stay mostly with the boys, and I was still hoping for a consistent theme, and that theme, it seemed to me, might well be the unreality of the life we remember. Too much else came in to disturb that theme later, in my opinion, but it still remains the most pervasive feeling I am left with now, after this distance in time from reading it: it's an old man's memory of his childhood, so of course it is unreal. |
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