I have so much I want to say, yet the words are lost in sadness. One of the masters of words, the inimitable Mr. Ray Bradbury died today. He was 91, yet gone far too soon.
A lot of people cite his Fahrenheit 451 as his most seminal work…or at least, the most remembered. For me, it’s the sheer poetry and lyricism of Something Wicked This Way Comes (the opening line of which I quote in this blog post title) or the brilliance of the collection of short stories that introduced his work to me: The Illustrated Man.
Who can forget The Veldt? The Long Rain?
I first read The Illustrated Man at age 10, as a fifth grader at Holy Family Elementary in Parma Heights, Ohio. Though a Catholic school, we had a lay teacher, a young man, who not only wasn’t Catholic (the horror!), but was Greek and all of 23 or 24, fresh out of college. Mr. Koutis (yes, I remember his name) exposed our small class to all sorts of great literature, including that of Mr. Bradbury.
These stories changed my life. The richness of the prose transported me. Reading Bradbury was like sitting down to a ten-course meal composed of everything awesome.
I never had the privilege of meeting him in person. I am so very, very sorry he is gone.
My sadness knows no bounds.
Comment
Dearest Maria the Lima, I couldn’t agree with you more about Ray Bradbury. One of the most memorable events in my life was at a Calif. Lib. Assoc. convention (sometime around 2003) where I had the great honor of shaking Mr. Bradbury’s hand and telling him how much he continued to affect my life. He was in a wheelchair and looked like it was difficult for him to be there. Yet, he was able to talk with animation about love and how that was what life is all about. Approximately 50 people attended. We hung on to every word, responding wholeheartedly to what he was saying. We cheered. We laughed. We were hardcore fans! Afterward, as each of us took our turn to meet him, some of us could laugh and talk with him, and some of us could only stutter! The whole thing was so great! Truly, his life was not about Fahrenheit 451 even though that is a great book and caused quite a stir. For the many who read no further, they sure did miss a lot, as you have so eloquently said. And, as you also said, “He was 91, yet gone far too soon.”