Remembering Ray Bradbury

[mckitterick]

James Gunn remembers Ray Bradbury.

On a personal note, though Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles helped put me on the path toward a life in science fiction, Dandelion Wine is perhaps my favorite book of his.

He was a hero to many readers, old and young:



Goodbye, dear muse.

Chris

Comments

[stina-leicht.livejournal.com]

shit. you made me cry all over again. :)

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Bradbury does that on his happiest days; on the day we lost him, everything makes us cry.

[dotar-sojat.livejournal.com]

At the youth hostel I stay at when I go to WisCon, back in 2009 I found a copy of THE ILLUSTRATED MAN in the people's library. I took it and left my copy of the RED SANDS OF MARS.

I read it and then found a copy of THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES. Some excellent, excellent work in both.

I don't know if Bradbury wrote the lines, but I vaguely remember them from "The Martian Chronicles" mini-series in the late 70s. I bought that series on DVD earlier in the year just so I could hear them again:

"There is no secret. Anyone with eyes can see the way to live: by watching life. Observing nature and cooperating with it, making common cause with the process of existance. By living life for itself. Don't you see? Deriving pleasure from the gift of your being. Life is its own answer. Accept it and enjoy it day by day. Live as well as possible, expect no more. Destroy nothing, humble nothing, look for fault in nothing, leave unsullied and untouched all that is beautiful. Hold that which lives in all reverence because life is given by the soverign of our univers. Given to be savored. To be luxuriated in. To be respected. But that's no secret. You are intellegent, and you know as well as I what must be done."

Powerful words. A challenging way to live one's life.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That is beautiful and true. So quintessentially Bradbury.