Saturday, September 25, 2010

Dandelion Wine


It’s nice when you get to read a second book from the same author as a favorite book.  This time my attentions turned to Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.  I am impressed that he can write from so very different points of view and style of writing.  This book was SO different from Fahrenheit 451, which I really enjoyed reading (a sci-fi futuristic book).  This was not at all.  The book in essence was a series of short stories held together by the summer of 1928 in a fictional town in Illinois.  Just like the wine, the joys of summer between two brothers and many things that happened in the town made for a memorable visit.  While the story seemed to be held together by the boys' journey, it didn’t work for me.  Sorry, but I didn’t get the joys of the three friends walking through the ravine and finding yet another friend dead in the woods or Doug’s (he is the brother of the narrator) potential death from an illness, and the Time Machine (where’d that come from?).  I never tasted the wine that Bradbury was trying to have the reader drink.  While it was a quick read, I dozed numerous times.  Lucky I read the second half while riding the bike at the gym.  Not so high on this book.  I’d take a pass.  I still have The Martian Chronicles to read (still on the list) so Bradbury may get a higher rating.  Oh well.  Hey, there are a lot of books on the list and I’m not going to love them all, am I?  Only one more week of meeting this year’s RAs, so an updated favorite list coming next week!

No comments:

Post a Comment