New Leaf July 2018 Discussion • Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

[CRussel]

Now I don't agree at all. I think that appreciation of the young for the elders is very much a part of so many cultures that it's completely believable. Look at First Nations. Look at American Natives. Look at Alaskan Natives. Look at most Asian cultures. Look at Australian Aboriginal. All have both a respect of and an appreciation for their elders because of the knowledge the elders have. We perhaps see it less in northern European cultures and North American, but even here there are plenty of examples so I don't find it at all out of line or unbelievable.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Now I don't agree at all. I think that appreciation of the young for the elders is very much a part of so many cultures that it's completely believable. Look at First Nations. Look at American Natives. Look at Alaskan Natives. Look at most Asian cultures. Look at Australian Aboriginal. All have both a respect of and an appreciation for their elders because of the knowledge the elders have. We perhaps see it less in northern European cultures and North American, but even here there are plenty of examples so I don't find it at all out of line or unbelievable.

But the attitudes of indigenous peoples toward their elders aren't relevant to a story set in a small town in the U.S.

Here, it's supposed to be a 12-year-old who's so overwhelmingly appreciative of his elders that he basically hangs out with them all summer, absorbing their stories. I just don't buy it, not at that age. And not with people outside his family, either.

The old-people stories are a big part of why the book doesn't work for me as a novel, particularly as a novel supposedly about Doug's summer. When I think of my childhood summers, I think of beaches, barbecues, carnivals and amusement parks. I think of picking blueberries and getting poison ivy. I think of riding my bike with my friends. I don't think of hanging out with my grandparents.

[CRussel]

And today's attitudes towards elders in a small town in the USA are NOT the same as the attitudes of a 1920's 12 year old's in a small town in the USA, nor should we try to extrapolate from today's attitudes (IF I even accept that you are correct about it, which I don't without some scientific evidence.) My point, which you apparently missed, is that a view that venerates elders and their knowledge is FAR from uncommon. And certainly doesn't detract from the story.

[Bookpossum]

The 1920s setting makes it very much another time and place from our modern self-absorbed society. Sadly for me, my grandparents had all died before I was born, but I certainly used to enjoy the company of people of various ages, and still do, though these days I’m one of the older ones!

[gmw]

Respect and appreciation of elders is quite a separate thing to seeking out the company of your elders - with a group of your peers that are not family - for the deliberate intention of listening to them repeat their memories. (When you're in the middle of your summer holidays, its not raining, or fogged in or cold, and you have a deep mysterious ravine to explore.)

Expectations may force certain behaviour, and in indigenous communities there is are traditions and perhaps duty involved because this is how their education and history is handed down. Younger children often exhibit a fascination with their elders, and we get older we begin to realise what we may have been missing, and on an individual basis some are inclined to befriend the older generation.

Exceptions to rules abound, so I'm not suggesting the situation described is an impossible one, it just seemed unlikely enough - to me - to be a humorous juxtaposition: old man reciting memories, group of young boys in the middle of their summer holidays. What are the odds?

[Bookpossum]

Well, the boys found the Colonel interesting because they wanted to hear about the battles and know which side he was on - the sorts of things that boys of that age would be interested in. They didn't really hear what he was telling them about the futility and horror of war.

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.

[gmw]

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.

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.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Catlady

... I don't think of hanging out with my grandparents.

Bradbury's father had employment problems, and his family drifted a bit looking for work, so his grandparents were the safe harbour when he was a young child. That may have been a big influence here.

[gmw]

Anyone here speak Russian? I was very surprised to find this 1998 Russian movie based on the novel: Vino iz oduvanchikov. (It was mentioned in the Wikipedia article.) One of the photos shows that they even included the Happiness Machine.

[Catlady]

The more removed I am from reading Dandelion Wine, the more I dislike it. It lacks a consistent POV, the stories are largely unrelated to one another, the tone varies widely. It does not create in me a feeling of nostalgia, but a feeling of annoyance.

FYI, I found two downloadable radio dramatizations of the Lavinia story.

Jeanette Nolan in "The Whole Town's Sleeping" (Suspense, June 14, 1955).

Agnes Moorehead in "The Whole Town's Sleeping" (Suspense, August 31, 1958).

And YouTube has a TV dramatization, titled "The Lonely One" (Ray Bradbury Theater, July 10, 1992):

[orlok]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Now I don't agree at all. I think that appreciation of the young for the elders is very much a part of so many cultures that it's completely believable.

What he said.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

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. .

I found some of these contradictory, and some of that in a good way, some not good.

The good as expressed by Whitman's:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself;
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I thought there was a disconnect between the Colonel as time machine and Mrs. Bentley whose memories were discredited. My explanation is that the Colonel was remembering great events while Mrs. Bentley only held onto personal history and I have some sympathy for that, and for Mrs. Bentley's husband's advice to her to let the past go. However, and I say this with some trepidation given the battle in the Three Musketeers thread, I think that was due in part to the gender divide and that's a little more unsettling. It was natural that the boys would thrill to the memory of battles, but girls' lives are of value too, but perhaps not so much for the 12-year old Doug. Girls mostly figured tangentially at most in these stories.

Another similar disconnect was between the Happiness Machine (bad) and the way Miss Loomis was able to bring Bill with her as she traveled in her memories. But there's a sting in that; is Bill to live his life waiting for death and rebirth? That seems to contradict the sense of living in one's life now.

Originally Posted by Catlady

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.

I thought the choice of the age of 12 was deliberate, as the last year of unalloyed boyhood. In another year the 13-year old Doug would have other interests and girls would figure more prominently. It recalls Penrod to me and other stories of that ilk in that.

In fact, Doug was older than Bradbury was in 1928 and I imagine that year was chosen for the reasons stated upthread; the last full year before the Depression hit and even the last year of the Coolidge presidency, as a personification of a certain rural idyll.

[issybird]

One thing I meant to mention concerns Colonel Freeleigh as the Time Machine, as his memories were demonstrably faulty. I looked up Ching Ling Soo and he died in an onstage accident in London in 1918, and not in Boston in 1910. What does this say about all memories and does it matter?

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

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.

Zoysia plugs! (I remember them, too.)

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by issybird

I thought there was a disconnect between the Colonel as time machine and Mrs. Bentley whose memories were discredited. My explanation is that the Colonel was remembering great events while Mrs. Bentley only held onto personal history...

Wasn't it a completely different group of kids? It was Doug and a couple of boys his age for the time machine but it was Tom and a couple of girls with Mrs. Bentley, right? I don't remember the girls' ages (if they were ever stated) but were they younger than Doug too? I know Tom was 10.

Either way, to me this was a case of them believing that the Colonel had a history as an adult but the girls not believing that Mrs. Bentley could have been a child. Believing that an adult could have done things is one thing, believing that an adult used to be a child was just too much.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Wasn't it a completely different group of kids? It was Doug and a couple of boys his age for the time machine but it was Tom and a couple of girls with Mrs. Bentley, right? I don't remember the girls' ages (if they were ever stated) but were they younger than Doug too? I know Tom was 10.

Either way, to me this was a case of them believing that the Colonel had a history as an adult but the girls not believing that Mrs. Bentley could have been a child. Believing that an adult could have done things is one thing, believing that an adult used to be a child was just too much.

That's persuasive. I was fixated on the gender issue and didn't pay attention to the age issue.