June 6, 2012 Daily Beast
The fantasy writer Ray Bradbury scorned the label of “science-fiction writer” and taught generations of readers the benefits of letting their imaginations run wild, writes Malcolm Jones.
At some point in the last few decades, Ray Bradbury, who died Tuesday at 91, began to be taught in public schools. The book of his that is usually selected for classroom dissection is Fahrenheit 451, his futuristic postulation of a world where books are not merely banned but burned. (The only piece of science that a lot of non–science majors carry with them through life is the knowledge that paper burns at 451 degrees Fahrenheit.) It’s an appropriate book for middle-school English classes, because it is full of issues that can be discussed.Students can talk about censorship, dictatorship, and a world where visual images are celebrated over the world of print. It’s an eerie little book, because since its publication in 1953, its ideas grow more prescient with the passage of time. There’s always some benighted school or library board banning more books or some fringe group burning Qurans. Television screens seem to grow bigger in direct proportion to the declining numbers of books in homes. Among his many talents, Bradbury was able to see the future with appalling clarity.
But for those of us who grew up reading Ray Bradbury novels and stories before they made the approved list in schools, it was always a little saddening to see our children come home lugging Fahrenheit 451, because that was not the Bradbury we grew up loving. It was an anomaly in his canon (he said so himself, always insisting, when people called him a science-fiction author, that Fahrenheit 451 was the only science fiction he ever wrote; the rest, he insisted, was fantasy). As parents, we could only hope that our children would go on to discover the good stuff.
But for those of us who grew up reading Ray Bradbury novels and stories before they made the approved list in schools, it was always a little saddening to see our children come home lugging Fahrenheit 451, because that was not the Bradbury we grew up loving. It was an anomaly in his canon (he said so himself, always insisting, when people called him a science-fiction author, that Fahrenheit 451 was the only science fiction he ever wrote; the rest, he insisted, was fantasy). As parents, we could only hope that our children would go on to discover the good stuff.
Bradbury was the perfect author for dreamy kids, kids who can spend hours finding the figures in clouds, or who get lost in reveries about desert islands or space colonies on parched planets. The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes all have solid plots and characters, but the best parts are pure reverie—what it’s like to while away twilight on a front porch swing, or the feeling of almost uncontained excitement when a carnival pulls up on the edge of town. It was as though Bradbury was our secret ally, the first grown-up we ever ran into who broke with the party line and sided with us. Reading a Bradbury story, you heard this voice whispering, your parents and teachers will tell you that you’re wasting your time with all this daydreaming, but I’m going to tell you they’re wrong—time spent indulging your imagination is anything but time wasted. That was his message, and we took it to heart.
More at Daily Beast plus video of Ray Bradbury on His Love of Books, and Life.
Photo above - Ethan Pines for the NYT.
Photo above - Ethan Pines for the NYT.
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