Book Review - Driving Blind
Apr. 6th, 2002 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroyRay Bradbury is one of the only authors I have ever seen in person. I still have the poster for his lecture up on my wall. A lot of what he said was stuff I'd heard before-- he used a lot of the same anecdotes that he used in the introductions to his books, or in his other associated essays (do you own a copy of Zen and the Art of Writing? I do). But despite the fact that I knew a good two thirds of the things he was going to say before he said them, I still left feeling like a new man.
Bradbury does that for you. If there's any author that could possibly be described as "life-affirming" accurately, it's RB. You don't read his best short stories; you savor them. This is a man who never grew up, who never forgot what it felt like to look up in the sky and desperately want a pair of wings. His stories are full of tastes and smells, little details that make the worlds he creates deep and textured. And yet he never, ever overcomplicates his ideas.
This collection of stories is no exception. Driving Blind is one of the later works of his career, but in this book more than many others RB takes a long walk through the past. There are a few future-based stories ("Mr. Pale" springs to mind), but for the most part the book takes you on a loving tour of an America that never was... but that many remember. Reading this book is like watching a clear summers day go by; there are moments of brilliant sunshine and of quiet rest beneath the beauty of night, but rarely, if ever, is there a cloud to block your view.
Rating: *** (out of four)
Recommendation: You know who you are-- the ones who want to sit out on your porch at night and watch the sun set. Read this. It isn't for your kids; it is definitely for you.
Bradbury does that for you. If there's any author that could possibly be described as "life-affirming" accurately, it's RB. You don't read his best short stories; you savor them. This is a man who never grew up, who never forgot what it felt like to look up in the sky and desperately want a pair of wings. His stories are full of tastes and smells, little details that make the worlds he creates deep and textured. And yet he never, ever overcomplicates his ideas.
This collection of stories is no exception. Driving Blind is one of the later works of his career, but in this book more than many others RB takes a long walk through the past. There are a few future-based stories ("Mr. Pale" springs to mind), but for the most part the book takes you on a loving tour of an America that never was... but that many remember. Reading this book is like watching a clear summers day go by; there are moments of brilliant sunshine and of quiet rest beneath the beauty of night, but rarely, if ever, is there a cloud to block your view.
Rating: *** (out of four)
Recommendation: You know who you are-- the ones who want to sit out on your porch at night and watch the sun set. Read this. It isn't for your kids; it is definitely for you.