I used to think I was on the short end of the stick with Bradbury's work and already knew what to expect from him and what not. But this time Ray surprised me a lot, unfortunately not in the best possible way.
Retrospective
If you haven't read "Dandelion Wine" yet, but are suddenly looking at "Summer, Goodbye," you better read the original story so you know what it's about and what went wrong with the sequel. Here's a little introduction. The action takes place in a quiet, you might say, backwater town in the American South. The little boy Douglas Spalding and his brother Tom, smelling the warm weather days, open a new season of fun, mischief and adventure. They will discover the price of friendship, see the mystical withering of old men, feel the fear of danger, and feel the attraction of the ravine as a playground.
Each story is filled with such nostalgia and romanticism that the author himself appears not as a gray-haired narrator, but as a young tomboy with skinned knees, pockets full of rocks, buttons, paper clips and lonely coins. A world without worries, where only amazing and interesting events happen, where everything scary and fussy belongs to abstract Others. A sweet time where health, education, and well-being are taken care of by adults, and children take care of everything else.
Ray Douglas Bradbury, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and poet, was born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. He graduated from a Los Angeles high school in 1938. Although his formal education ended there, he became a "student of life," selling newspapers on L.A. street corners from 1938 to 1942, spending his nights in the public library and his days at the typewriter. He became a full-time writer in 1943, and contributed numerous short stories to periodicals before publishing a collection of them, Dark Carnival, in 1947.
Fairy tale, goodbye!
But the fairy tale is over and the children have grown up. And now the indefatigable narrator moves on to events marked by the all-pervasive phrase "Summer, goodbye. What does that mean to adults? Just a change of season. But for children, it's a whole era. The tree house ceases to be a warm and comfortable bastion of adolescence. School routines, homework, and endless lectures from their elders are approaching. Can they not understand that we do not want to grow up, grow old and die?
And so Douglas Spalding declares war on the ancient enemies of all boys and girls, teens and preschoolers - adults. In this confrontation one can guess not only the usual rivalry between fathers and children. No, it is much more serious and deeper than that. Where did the elderly come from? Weren't they always like that? They couldn't have been like children! They couldn't! It's a conspiracy by another race, aliens. And their goal... their goal is to make us obedient and soulless slaves. We shall walk about day and night in stuffy tweed jackets, with diplomats in our arms, sitting in dusty offices and fiddling with meaningless paperwork. And so for weeks, if not years, if not forever. That is their plan. You bastards!
Something's gone wrong.
The plot is worthwhile, the idea a diamond in the rough, but what's next? What shape would Ray Bradbury give it? It turned out to be ridiculous. The characters became as if they were cardboard, their actions sometimes without logic, and certainly in their thoughts can get bogged down like a quagmire. Mindless cruelty, it would seem, should turn at least some lesson for the obnoxious boy, but in fact he has no remorse and does not make any conclusions.
At times it seems that the characters are tossing and turning and doing something out of despair, as they do not know what to do with themselves. And there is a creative impasse in the author's mind. Perhaps Bradbury did not have the patience or inspiration to write a serious and heartfelt book about growing up, saying goodbye to childhood, naive dreams and daydreams. Or maybe the first publisher was right to reject the unnecessary ending. And now, so many years later, attempts to blow the dust off the successful and stand-alone book, ended in an inept game with the reader.
Sometimes writers have enough of a small volume to give voice to big thoughts, to say a lot and make them believe, or at least think about their own point of view. Here, however, one senses some initial intent, but its development is not to be found in the short chapters of "Summer, Goodbye." Or everything is so skillfully veiled between the lines that I have to admire the skill of the writer, who deftly cheated the not very diligent reader, which I am.
Disappointment
Before this strange book, I had no idea that it turns out that male power is passed on from grandfathers (strangers!) to guys who have reached puberty. I don't know where this author's fantasy came from, but here it is, and it's already presented to the reader. The only pity is that this idea is presented in the work of almost as the main, the final. Do not even want to think with whom, or rather, with what he spoke first Mr. Quartermaine, and then Douglas! That's ridiculous... Is that why I read "Summer, Goodbye!"? Of course not. I bought this book to learn about the new adventures of the little hero of Dandelion Wine. Still, I experienced the disappointment rather than the joy of returning to the tenderness, heat, and youth of this summer world.
When summer ends, one cannot do without disappointment. For me, the words "Summer, farewell" contain so much unspeakable longing and sadness that it makes me weep. It is such a short and unpredictable time of year in our region, and we have to wait for it for a very long time. Apparently, this is why "Dandelion Wine" will remain a fond memory and nostalgia, and "Summer, Farewell" will become a logical disappointment...
Dedicated to all those disappointed.
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