Brian Sibley, who I mentioned yesterday, has posted a delightful blog about his long friendship with Ray Bradbury. Like me, Brian first encountered Bradbury through The Golden Apples of the Sun - which is, in fact, an excellent place to start, since it contains "The Fog Horn", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" and "A Sound of Thunder", all essential reading.Brian's blog also links to an excellent interview he conducted with Ray in 2004.
5 comments:
Congratulations on a great new opening to your site! You've certainly got something to blog about -- and I would still say that even if you hadn't mentioned me twice on your opening page!! ;-)
And how right you are to talk of the importance of - and the impact made by - the stories in 'The Golden Apples of the Sun'.
One of those tales which, once read, I NEVER forgot was 'The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl' - which is why I later chose to adapt it as a radio play for the BBC.
The opening paragraphs are typical of Ray's brilliance at rooting bizarre, unexpected or abnormal events in the commonplace and ordinary, thereby bringing them close enough to our own everyday experiences and thus make them all the more terrifying:
"William Acton rose to his feet. The clock on the mantel ticked midnight.
"He looked at his fingers and he looked at the large room around him and he looked at the man lying on the floor. William Acton, whose fingers had stroked typewriter keys and made love and fried ham and eggs for early breakfasts, had now accomplished a murder with those same ten whorled fingers..."
Thanks, Brian. And congratulations on being the first person to (successfully!) post a comment. I know from my page counter that I've had a few visitors, mostly from the raybradbury.com message boards I would guess, but no one has yet made it through the labyrinthine blogger validation system. I thought having to say a magic word before you can enter went out with Ali Baba.
My pleasure, Phil...
Actually, I wasn't ABSOLUTLEY sure that I had succeeded in finding a way into the Cave of Wonders with my Ali Baba incantations; so, I actually ended up posting this comment TWICE --- as you may (or may not) have discovered!!
Anyway, now I have trail-blazed and, as the poet put it, "beaten a path to your door", others will most assuredly follow!
I will try this again Phil. My son has set up a blog and he was able to chronicle his trip from California to Minnesota and posted photos each evening. If you would ever want to check it out you might find it interesting: www.tonycloyd.com.
Again, as I said in other comment which didn't post, I think that this is an excellent idea.
Michael! So glad you could make it! I'm going over to Tony's blog right now to take a look. How's Florida this August? Or are you still in Minnesota(?) right now?
Post a Comment