When I last made an entry in this blog I
very much had cancer on the mind, and maybe in the blood, and the throat, and
who else knows where. What a wimp! Turns out it was nothing more horrific than
a beauty mark. True it was in an unusual location, in an area that had seen
heavy radiation, making it just a little more suspicious than your ordinary coincidence,
but still, it was virtually nothing – really.
What this all means is that I’ve gone nearly
three years cancer free: from a stage four cancer to zippo. That’s nothing to
complain about.
As I was writing, “No Mister Nice Guy”
by Alice Cooper was playing in the background. I hope that doesn’t apply here.
The Death of Reading
“Somebody Told Me”, by The Killers opens
this segment.
When did I stop reading? The last time
was several weeks ago, but the seed was planted almost a year ago when Ray
Bradbury died.
It is without any ill will that I say I
was not particularly affected my Mr. Bradbury’ s death; saddened as much that
anybody must die but not more so. I’d never been a fan. This fact was what
bothered me.
I’d never read anything less than
glowing reviews of Ray Bradbury’s fiction yet, of all that I could recall
having read, I was less than enamored. I read several of his short stories in
the now defunct Twilight Zone magazine. I generally found them pointless,
sometimes with an overbearing simplistic hint of an implied morality that fell
short of addressing any significant issue. Nevertheless they were well written
and potential held off my eventual disappointment until the last word had been
read.
Upon his death it occurred to me that in
the past I’d been a jaded individual, somewhat morose, unrecognizable from my current
sunny disposition. I owed it myself, and to Ray Bradbury to give him a second
chance.
I grabbed my dog-eared (Does anyone
smell a cliché?) of Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, a non-fiction
encyclopedia about all things horror, at least up to 1981. I was a little
surprised that in writing about Ray Bradbury King had noted some of the same
weaknesses that had bothered me. He, of course, stated them with much better
words. In any event he did have a recommendation, Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Armed with Stephen Kings guidance and
some memory of things that occurred to me I headed on down to the nearest
second-hand book store to purchase some choice Ray Bradbury reading material.
(As someone who’s own books have long disappeared from the discount bins I feel
this is decently ethical at least, in part, because Mr. Bradbury is dead and would
not be deprived the enjoyment of any royalties.) I purchased Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian
Chronicles, and I Sing the Body
Electric.
I started with I Sing the Body Electric, a collection of short stories. First up
was “The Kilimanjaro Device”. Hmm, a little obvious, contrived – not so good,
or at least not to my liking. I read a little no but was going nowhere fast.
Better to put this one down and start on something else.
I picked up The Martian Chronicles. Disappointed, that’s where I’d start. I
expected something, a story, a tall tale, I wasn’t sure. What I had instead
were several stories. They were linked, referenced each other, yet stood alone,
and that was the problem. Most of them weren’t very good. The Martians weren’t
a people, or culture. They weren’t real. I suppose that describing the
indescribable is admirable but when the indescribable is not actually described
but is instead reduced to a purple prose dump I think that in writers-speak
that has to go down as a fail.
What happened next is most unfortunate.
The two unfinished books stood before me like the unfinished vegetables that
would keep me away from my desert. I not only didn’t finish reading them, I found
myself unable to start any other books. What a waste!
Fortunately time heals most wounds. I’ve
recently started E.L. Doctorow’s City of
God.
The final song in tonight playlist: an alternate take of “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” by
The Beatles.