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A Giant is Gone: Ray Bradbury Dies

 

Today I learned that Ray Bradbury had died.

From the day I snagged a library copy of Fahrenheit 451 (due to a school board election in which one candidate ran on the platform of removing it from the curriculum), Ray Bradbury had me hooked. It’s funny how his short stories sneaked in to the most unusual of places. I found  “The Flying Machine” and “A Sound of Thunder” in my middle school English textbook, and my junior year, after reading “The Fall of the House of Usher”, my American Lit teacher stuck a photocopy of “Usher 2000” in my hands. There were anthologies edited by Martin Greenberg that had his stories within, and somewhere in my days as the librarian for the science fiction society I belonged to in college, I acquired a used hardcover copy of  three of his anthologies bound together- The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, and Dandelion Wine.  I just read a short essay on Bradbury criticizing him for not having written anything of note since the 1960s, but I completely disagree- although these are probably still my favorite stories, I love his writing for making me think.

I heard Bradbury speak once, on a double bill with Douglas Adams. I have to say that Douglas Adams, as much as I love his writing, was not a great speaker. Bradbury, however… Even in a wheelchair, mere days after a stroke, he was compelling and fascinating. Age, and even illness, did not stop his agile mind.  Just this year, I discovered the “official” graphic novel of Fahrenheit 451, with an introduction by Bradbury, where he wrote about how, as time passed, he had been able to reflect and recognize the origins of the book. Which has, ironically, been the target of censors many times, including his own publishers. If not for libraries, this book could never have been written- it’s a true dime novel, written on a typewriter in the basement of a library, at the cost of ten cents per half hour. You can find it at your library and check it out today, knowing that libraries have not only defended the book, but also allowed for its creation in the first place.

Bradbury resisted having his books come out as ebooks, but they did recently come out in that forrm. If you’ve never read his work now is an excellent time to start, and you have all kinds of choices.  A giant of literature, with the talent to create compelling, disturbing, and sometimes terrifying visions of the future present, he will be missed.

 

 

Posted on June 6, 2012 by , 1 comment

Linkity Links: Monster Kids, Scary Stories, Fifty Shades, and Maurice Sendak

First, I’ve learned about a couple of cool Kickstarter projects. We received an email telling us about a documentary about “Monster Kids”- the kids who grew up on classic creature features and horror movies and became the next generation of artists, moviemakers, writers, and actors. From Rose Fox at Genreville, I learned about Nightmare Magazine, soon to be presented by Creeping Hemlock Press, and edited by John Joseph Adams. The lineup for the first issue is impressive- it includes original short stories by Sarah Langan and Jonathan Maberry, among others. Both of these projects are still in need of funding, so if you’re intrigued I encourage you to check them out.

Not that long ago, I wrote about an excellent reason to read the classics– Harry Clarke’s illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination At the time, I had seen them only in an article from io9, but now, those who would like a full scale experience (and don’t have the book) can go here to the book design blog 50watts.com and see how disturbing they really are when they fill the entire screen.

And, over at Agnostic, Maybe, Andy Woodworth discusses why the Brevard County Library System’s quandary over Fifty Shades of Grey should lead to pairing Banned Books Week with “National Update Your Collection and Challenge Material Policies Because You Probably Need To (No, Seriously, Do It)” week. Apparently the Fond du Lac Library in Wisconsin declined to purchase it as well, but at least they made the decision, based on their selection policy, BEFORE purchasing the book. Not that the average person who wants to check out Fifty Shades of Grey will care whether the reason it’s not there is because of selection policy or because of censorship, but librarians are going to have to take a position, because it affects them now, on a practical level. It’s going to be an interesting Banned Books Week this year, no matter what.

Finally, Maurice Sendak and his impact on children and children’s literature (and me) can’t be summed up in a couple of paragraphs here. When I went to Amazon.com to look at children’s bestsellers, up at the top was Higgelty Piggelty Pop!  I was a little surprised, since I don’t think of it as being as well known as many of his others. It’s an odd little book, with a lot of story devoted to eating (and being eaten, by a lion). This afternoon one of my kids said “I don’t care” in response to something, and the other said “Well, you’ll be eaten by a lion”. They were referring to Sendak’s Pierre, in which a little boy who only responds to his parents with “I don’t care” is, in fact, eaten by a lion. And then there are the Wild Things, who scream to Max “Oh please don’t go! We’ll eat you up, we love you so!”  And so I was glad to have this article come my way. It does an excellent job of expressing why Sendak’s nightmares and bizarre fantasies are so powerful for so many. And maybe also why he wrote so much about being eaten.

And that’s all for now! Whew!

Posted on May 10, 2012 by , Reply

Why Read The Classics?

Well, for one thing, they’re available. The Brevard County Library System in Florida pulled the erotic bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey from its shelves this week after determining that it didn’t meet the library system’s selection criteria. Library services director Cathy Schweinsberg said,

“Nobody asked us to take it off the shelves. But we bought some copies before we realized what it was. We looked at it, because it’s been called ‘mommy porn’ and ‘soft porn.’ We don’t collect porn.”

What I find most interesting about this is that the intrepid reporter covering the story (click here to see it) did a little browsing in the library catalog, and found a variety of well-known erotic titles, including The Complete Kama Sutra, Fanny Hill, Lolita, Tropic of Cancer, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and Fear of Flying (if she ever leaves journalism, she could have a bright future as a readers advisory librarian). When the library director was asked why these titles, with content of a similar nature, were on the shelves, she said:

“I think because those other books were written years ago and became classics because of the quality of the writing… This is not a classic.”

(I wonder if they own Twilight?)

So if I want to check out erotica from the Brevard County Libraries, it has to be well-aged, and well-written. (I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t live in Brevard County). But this whole incident raises an interesting point. There are many who look down on the horror genre- on post 1974 horror in particular (to use Becky Siegel Spratford’s demarcation) and who wouldn’t dream of having those nasty covers, those possibly badly written books, anywhere nearby, because they’re not old enough and haven’t been canonized yet. And a lot of books ARE badly written and never will become classics. But people want them. They want that feeling. It’s not fair to dismiss the desires of your readers and users, whether those desires involve erotic Twilight fanfiction or ravening zombies.

If you happen to have a library that doesn’t have the horror fiction you are looking for, it doesn’t mean you’re out of luck. They are in disguise, lurking in the depths of the library- Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson… Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, Dracula, Victor Frankenstein. If you can’t find the latest, try out the early greats. And then harass your librarian to get you the new stuff while you read… the classics.

Posted on May 5, 2012 by , Reply
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