A Lockdown Pause: Images in Ray Bradbury Stories

Something a little different today, as I take a brief pause from my Lockdown Choices series...

Some years ago, I presented a paper on images in Bradbury's fiction, at a conference in France. Note the term "images", rather than "imagery". The point being: I talked about how characters within Bradbury stories experience images such as photographs, paintings and tattoos.

As is my wont, I made a Powerpoint slide show to illustrate my talk. And now, these many years later, I've glued the slide show to a recording of me reading the paper. Here it is, for your delectation and delight. (Click the little square in the corner to make it fill the screen.)

By the way, my pronunciation of "Peirce" is correct. I say this to forestall a load of comments from those who assume it is pronounced the same as "pierce"...

If you'd prefer to read the paper, you can find it on my Academia page, here.

Time Capsule

Although I am a child of the 1960s, imagery from the 1950s and earlier is quite fascinating to me. One of the wonders of studying a writer like Bradbury is that his peak output dates from earlier decades. While his texts are readily available between modern covers, there is a distinct charm in finding an earlier edition of his work. The 1940s pulp magazines are particularly interesting, as they place the familiar short stories - works we know best from Bradbury's books - in their original publication context.

On a related note - stay with me! - I was amazed to see some recently discovered 1950s posters, which have been found undisturbed in their original context. Part of a London Underground station, Notting Hill Gate, has been closed to the public since the 1950s - and yet advertising posters from the era have miraculously survived intact and undisturbed for fifty years or more. You can see these fascinating images on mikeyashworth's Flickr page.