Ebony and Ivory
Feb. 6th, 2008 08:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kilroySo, I've been reading short stories. I may have mentioned this. And among other stories I've been reading, I picked up one of Ray Bradbury's recent collections, and one of Harlan Ellison's older books that I'd been missing.
Flash back to high school: Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury were the two opposing poles of fiction between which I defined my existence. They are utterly, utterly different-- their stories would explode on contact with each other like matter and anti-matter. When Harlan's on his game he can hurt you like no other author alive, show you something raw and painful enough to slap you into a higher state of consciousness. A good Bradbury story suffuses you with all that is innocent and hopeful and makes you remember things you knew as a child but have long since forgotten. They both wrote things that were true enough to bring tears to my eyes, and it was between those two opposing, essential truths that I tried to make my way. I loved them both.
That's the image that I really wanted to record today. Not the fact that One More for the Road is a lazy, self-indulgent piece of garbage that makes me think Bradbury has forgotten how to actually write. Nor the fact that while the Ellison book is much as I remember his writing, real life kept butting in and distracting me from absorbing it. I want to remember the wrestling giants, the transformation they caused in me. And I want you to remember as well.
Flash back to high school: Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury were the two opposing poles of fiction between which I defined my existence. They are utterly, utterly different-- their stories would explode on contact with each other like matter and anti-matter. When Harlan's on his game he can hurt you like no other author alive, show you something raw and painful enough to slap you into a higher state of consciousness. A good Bradbury story suffuses you with all that is innocent and hopeful and makes you remember things you knew as a child but have long since forgotten. They both wrote things that were true enough to bring tears to my eyes, and it was between those two opposing, essential truths that I tried to make my way. I loved them both.
That's the image that I really wanted to record today. Not the fact that One More for the Road is a lazy, self-indulgent piece of garbage that makes me think Bradbury has forgotten how to actually write. Nor the fact that while the Ellison book is much as I remember his writing, real life kept butting in and distracting me from absorbing it. I want to remember the wrestling giants, the transformation they caused in me. And I want you to remember as well.