07-16-2018, 07:56 PM | #31 |
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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.
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07-16-2018, 09:06 PM | #32 | ||
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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 Quote:
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07-16-2018, 09:53 PM | #33 |
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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.
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07-16-2018, 10:33 PM | #34 | |
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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. |
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07-16-2018, 11:32 PM | #35 |
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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. |
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07-17-2018, 05:07 AM | #36 |
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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. |
07-17-2018, 08:23 AM | #37 | ||
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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: Quote:
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07-17-2018, 10:18 AM | #38 | |||||
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07-17-2018, 10:18 AM | #39 | |
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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. |
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07-17-2018, 11:15 AM | #40 | ||
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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. |
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07-17-2018, 09:51 PM | #41 | ||||
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07-17-2018, 11:48 PM | #42 | |
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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. |
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07-21-2018, 02:31 PM | #43 |
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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? |
07-21-2018, 02:45 PM | #44 | |
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07-21-2018, 05:29 PM | #45 | |
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