New Leaf July 2018 Discussion • Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I don't think it's enough to string together a bunch of short stories and call it a novel; the episodes needed to be unified/reconciled in some way or else should simply have been published as an anthology.

Yes, I was reading it as a collection of short stories, some more connected than others - something like Winesburg Ohio. It seems a bit far-fetched to call it a novel.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Here's a literary term which is new to me. Winesburg, Ohio is in the list of examples in addition to Dandelion Wine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up

A fix-up (or fixup) is a novel created from several short fiction stories that may or may not have been initially related or previously published. The stories may be edited for consistency, and sometimes new connecting material, such as a frame story or other interstitial narration, is written for the new work. The term was coined by the science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt,[1] who published several fix-ups of his own, including The Voyage of the Space Beagle,[2] but the practice (if not the term) exists outside of science fiction.

Fix-ups became an accepted practice in the 1950s, when science fiction and fantasy were making the transition from being published only in magazines to also being published in book form. Large book publishers like Doubleday and Simon & Schuster entered the market, greatly increasing demand for fiction. Many authors went through old stories, creating new manuscripts and selling them to publishers.

[CRussel]

Thanks for that, Bookworm_Girl. I knew the type of book, but didn't know it had a special name. And yes, it was increasingly common for those 50's SF authors and publishers. Whatever it's called, I think the whole thing hangs together quite well, personally. But then, I try to approach the books we read as they are. That doesn't mean I necessarily enjoy everything about them (!), but does mean I don't demand they be something else.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Here's a literary term which is new to me. Winesburg, Ohio is in the list of examples in addition to Dandelion Wine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up

I never heard the term either, and I'm not familiar with most of the books listed. Two that would fit, I think, but aren't listed are Shirley Jackson's Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons.

But in those books, Jackson kept to her gently humorous family stories; she didn't throw in "The Lottery" or "The Daemon Lover" or any of her other deeply unsettling stories as counterpoint. The family stories all have the same recognizable characters, the consistency of place and POV and mood, even though they were culled from years of magazine pieces and repackaged.

[Bookpossum]

That's interesting. I wonder if the consistency was there in the stories written over the years, or if she had to tweak them in putting them together. It would be quite a feat to keep that consistency if the stories were written at many different times - as opposed to being written close to each other and then published at different times.

Meanwhile, back with Dandelion Wine: I was interested in Bradbury's use of the idea of machines as being sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not. For example, the last ride on the trolley car before the tracks were to be pulled up and a bus brought in to replace it. Then, the children learned that the tracks were still there for the old route to the lake, where the trolley no longer went. I did like that idea of the trip into the past.

Another example was the lawnmower which the boarder was using, but was planning on making obsolete with the newly invented grass that never needed cutting. (These days people have that of course, but it's plastic.) It would mean the loss of the dandelions and thus the dandelion wine, which couldn't be allowed to happen.

Machinery going wrong was represented by the Happiness Machine and the Tarot Witch fortune-telling machine. There was also the Green Machine, which meant that Fern and Roberta could move around more easily, but had caused an accident, fortunately not serious.

[gmw]

There are fix-ups and then there are fix-ups. As the Wikipedia article notes, some are obviously short-story "cycles" rather than novels, such as Asimov's I, Robot. Others - not mentioned in Wikipedia but relevant to my point - like Asimov's Foundation come together to form a natural and consistent chronology; it's still arguable whether it forms a distinct novel, as such, but at least everything fits together.

Dandelion Wine was obviously "fixed-up" to try and turn it into novel form - and for my tastes that was a mistake. I'd rather have read it as a collection of separate but related stories rather than being tantalised with links that don't hold up for a novel. That is: trying to pretend there is a novel where there isn't just gives the reader the wrong idea and sets them up for disappointment. Keep it as obviously distinct stories and the reader doesn't go looking for links that are not there.

[astrangerhere]

I read Dandelion Wine one week after I read Virginia Woolf's The Years. And the more I read, the more I found the books similar. Woolf is known for her rambling, sometimes stream of consciousness style, and I feel like Bradbury was doing something similar. I realize that, as others have noted, that this was due to the stories being stitched together, but it was still striking in the reading.

I was struck by the overall sense of foreboding in all the stories. At any moment, any one of these pieces could have could have gone completely Hitchcock and it would not have felt out of place. I feel like that connected the stories more clearly and cleanly than anything else. Most of the foreboding seemed to be the inevitable end of summer (childhood?), or for the loss of things one can't hold on to (happiness, young love, youth).

I was grated by the happiness machine, like many of you, and I also note that I felt it was casually antisemitic in its choice of making the "grasping Jew" the object of the morality tale. I was also grated by the old woman grappling with the little girls. I found the little girls' meanness and cruelty offputting, especially as the boys had been shown with a reverential purity of spirit hithertofore.

I think the time machine pieces about the old soldier were the most compelling. The boys held him in awe, but his adult caretakers thought he was a doddering old fool. There was a distinct reverence for the elderly by the boys that I also appreciated.

All in all, I am pleased to have read this and found it a nice departure from other Bradbury I have read.

My favorite quotes from the book:

"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now...Be what you are, bury what you are not..."

"Being cruel and thoughtless is much more entertaining when you are twenty."

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

That's interesting. I wonder if the consistency was there in the stories written over the years, or if she had to tweak them in putting them together. It would be quite a feat to keep that consistency if the stories were written at many different times - as opposed to being written close to each other and then published at different times.

The stories seem to be the same in their original form--many have appeared in anthologies. I expect the bridges between the stories might have been new for the book-length volumes.

Meanwhile, back with Dandelion Wine: I was interested in Bradbury's use of the idea of machines as being sometimes a good thing, and sometimes not. For example, the last ride on the trolley car before the tracks were to be pulled up and a bus brought in to replace it. Then, the children learned that the tracks were still there for the old route to the lake, where the trolley no longer went. I did like that idea of the trip into the past.

Another example was the lawnmower which the boarder was using, but was planning on making obsolete with the newly invented grass that never needed cutting. (These days people have that of course, but it's plastic.) It would mean the loss of the dandelions and thus the dandelion wine, which couldn't be allowed to happen.

Machinery going wrong was represented by the Happiness Machine and the Tarot Witch fortune-telling machine. There was also the Green Machine, which meant that Fern and Roberta could move around more easily, but had caused an accident, fortunately not serious.

But saying machines are sometimes good and sometimes bad is saying ... what? I saw the trolley and the lawn mower stories as simply meaning that progress may require sacrificing tradition--a trade-off that isn't always a good idea. I don't know what to make of the Tarot Witch machine, but the Happiness Machine was shown to be a stupid idea, and the Green Machine accident was a result of human error.

Originally Posted by gmw

Dandelion Wine was obviously "fixed-up" to try and turn it into novel form - and for my tastes that was a mistake. I'd rather have read it as a collection of separate but related stories rather than being tantalised with links that don't hold up for a novel. That is: trying to pretend there is a novel where there isn't just gives the reader the wrong idea and sets them up for disappointment. Keep it as obviously distinct stories and the reader doesn't go looking for links that are not there.

Yes. We agree again.

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I was struck by the overall sense of foreboding in all the stories. At any moment, any one of these pieces could have could have gone completely Hitchcock and it would not have felt out of place. I feel like that connected the stories more clearly and cleanly than anything else. Most of the foreboding seemed to be the inevitable end of summer (childhood?), or for the loss of things one can't hold on to (happiness, young love, youth).

I got a sense of foreboding in the Lonely One pieces--the looking-for-Doug story (and just what WAS Doug doing in the ravine that night?) and the Lavinia story. The beginning, when they went to pick grapes, was creepy, with all the animal symbolism, but it didn't lead anywhere, and I still don't get it.

I was grated by the happiness machine, like many of you, and I also note that I felt it was casually antisemitic in its choice of making the "grasping Jew" the object of the morality tale. I was also grated by the old woman grappling with the little girls. I found the little girls' meanness and cruelty offputting, especially as the boys had been shown with a reverential purity of spirit hithertofore.

The little girls were mean, the old women were marginalized--was the message of the Green Machine story that women should stay home where they belonged?--the 30ish women were spinsters--they too apparently weren't supposed to leave their homes lest the Lonely One got them. And when Lavinia killed the Lonely One, was she hailed as a heroine? No, the boys were outraged and Lavinia faded from the story. And then of course Clara and Elmira dabbled in witchcraft. Grandma was allowed to flourish in the kitchen--she knew her place.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I think the time machine pieces about the old soldier were the most compelling. The boys held him in awe, but his adult caretakers thought he was a doddering old fool. There was a distinct reverence for the elderly by the boys that I also appreciated.

The time machine was one of my favorite episodes. I liked that the time machine and the ability to "far-travel" were not accomplished via technology but powered by human interaction. I often wish I could go back in time to when I was a kid and learn more stories like that from relatives who are now long gone.

The happiness machine was also about human interaction in the here and now. I was thinking that TV and the internet became like the happiness machine with the ability to travel anywhere and anytime. And, with social media one can have many friends across the globe. However are you really fulfilled or lonely and unhappy if you don't have face-to-face interaction? I wondered what Bradbury thought about these technologies in comparison to his happiness machine.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I was struck by the overall sense of foreboding in all the stories. At any moment, any one of these pieces could have could have gone completely Hitchcock and it would not have felt out of place. I feel like that connected the stories more clearly and cleanly than anything else. Most of the foreboding seemed to be the inevitable end of summer (childhood?), or for the loss of things one can't hold on to (happiness, young love, youth).

I think the time machine pieces about the old soldier were the most compelling. The boys held him in awe, but his adult caretakers thought he was a doddering old fool. There was a distinct reverence for the elderly by the boys that I also appreciated.

All in all, I am pleased to have read this and found it a nice departure from other Bradbury I have read.

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

The time machine was one of my favorite episodes. I liked that the time machine and the ability to "far-travel" were not accomplished via technology but powered by human interaction. I often wish I could go back in time to when I was a kid and learn more stories like that from relatives who are now long gone.

The happiness machine was also about human interaction in the here and now. I was thinking that TV and the internet became like the happiness machine with the ability to travel anywhere and anytime. And, with social media one can have many friends across the globe. However are you really fulfilled or lonely and unhappy if you don't have face-to-face interaction? I wondered what Bradbury thought about these technologies in comparison to his happiness machine.

I couldn't agree more about the Colonel Freeleigh segment. And this theme recurs with Helen Loomis. Even the older machines are good (the trolley, for example). The compelling part of all three is taking the time to listen, be in the moment, and not always be in a hurry to be somewhere else. The Happiness Machine is the ultimate "now isn't good enough, I need something better/newer/faster" machine and Bradbury's pretty clear about what he thinks about that!

I should note that Bradbury resisted eBooks until 2011, when he finally gave in. I could post innumerable links on the subject, but let's go with The Guardian.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

[...] The happiness machine was also about human interaction in the here and now. I was thinking that TV and the internet became like the happiness machine with the ability to travel anywhere and anytime. And, with social media one can have many friends across the globe. However are you really fulfilled or lonely and unhappy if you don't have face-to-face interaction? I wondered what Bradbury thought about these technologies in comparison to his happiness machine.

I think that one of the reasons why the happiness machine story failed was because it took such a superficial and childish view that it came across as condescending. It's something many Sci-Fi short stories are guilty of. I read this:

or Saul will want to come out like he did last night, and against our judgment sit in it

and immediately thought of the first Harry Potter book and its "Mirror of Erised" - but in HP we get a few more hints to think about the nature of happiness, but the Bradbury story kept it mostly superficial:

The machine says, “You’re young.” I’m not. It lies, that Sadness Machine!

Which is not to say that there isn't food for thought in the idea, and it wasn't completely devoid of insight:

If you died from overwork, what should I do today, climb in that big box down there and be happy?

[BenG]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Here's a literary term which is new to me. Winesburg, Ohio is in the list of examples in addition to Dandelion Wine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fix-up

The Martian Chronicles which e Literary Club read a couple of years ago is another example of a fixed up novel.

Altogether Bradbury wrote four books set in Green Town:
Dandelion Wine
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Farewell Summer
Summer Morning, Summer Night

I haven't read the last one yet.

[Dngrsone]

Late to the party, but i have made it here nonetheless.

So, without reading through the forty-plus replies so far, here are my thoughts on this months book:

I have no idea why Dandelion Wine was so hard for me to read. I mean, the prose was well-crafted, the plot was not difficult (actually, was it even really there?). Yes it was very episodic, but there is nothing especially wrong with that. My favorite parts were the suspenseful moments which put me in mind of Stephen King.

Let us pause a moment on that thought-- it has been a good two decades since I've actually read any Stephen King. I mean, I went through many of his works up to date in the mid-'80s, which neglects literally three decades of work. I've read It (never again!) and The Stand (ditto), and have found his shorts and novellas more to my liking. So, I want to say that Bradbury does King better than King does, but to honest, I don't know if that is true. Bradbury did not go for the finish though, for better or worse (probably better) during these episodes. It heartened me to read that young Miss Levinia won the evening against the Lonely One,

Overall, this book encapsulates our theme of "Summer" as well as dandelion wine does in the book. I was surprised to find that this actually is a thing, though I did recognize that the grass that only grows so tall is not, as it was something my father bought into back in the '80s using nearly the identical pitch used in 1928 here.

So here it is. Another fine book that I would not have read, would not have finished most likely, without the New Leaf Book Club's help and encouragement.

I wonder if mayhaps I should be starting on next month's book now, so as to actually finish by deadline?

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by issybird

I first encountered this in audiobook three years ago and loved it then. I decided to change it up this time around and read it; I think I liked it better still (and bumped my GR rating to five stars from four as a result). Reading let me control the pace; savor the beautiful prose; linger and reread particularly striking instances of imagery. And yet listening to it as a tale retold by a raconteur had its strong appeal also as it enhanced that sense of a man looking back on his childhood, so I'm not saying it's a worse experience; equally marvelous, just different.

I debated a few times with myself whether I might get through this faster if I just listened to it during my daily commute. Likely, I would have missed a lot of that wonderful prose, though.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

Overall, this book encapsulates our theme of "Summer" as well as dandelion wine does in the book. I was surprised to find that this actually is a thing, though I did recognize that the grass that only grows so tall is not, as it was something my father bought into back in the '80s using nearly the identical pitch used in 1928 here.

Since the book was so nostalgic, I wondered what shared memories of childhood were evoked for everyone. For example, we used to chase lightning bugs and capture them in jars for our bedrooms at night. I wish we had them here in the Western US. Also, we didn't view dandelions as weeds. They were fun to pick and make beautiful flower chains. I would not have guessed that someone would have experienced the grass that doesn't need cutting sales pitch.