I remember the first time I read Fahrenheit 451. Mr. Bradbury’s chilling words thrilled and haunted me. I was aghast at the world he had created: a future completely devoid of reading— a lifelong necessity for me. I didn’t just love books, I adored them. The rustle of pages and the smell of printer’s ink had helped me through some of the darkest times of my childhood. When I had a book in my hand and I was lying safe and warm in bed (well past midnight!), I knew I could survive whatever middle school threw at me. Books became my best friends, and the catalyst that pushed me into teaching.
During my training in college, I was fortunate enough to experience Montag’s bewilderment, Clarisse’s passion, Mildred’s ennui, and Beatty’s paradoxical insight. My blood ran cold at Bradbury’s images of a society obsessed with entertainment and materialism. I had always idealized the 1950’s as somewhat Utopian, but Bradbury saw the truth: that American society was spinning toward intellectual starvation.
I read the book a second time last spring. I was rapidly becoming disillusioned with the public school system. I didn’t fully understand why my ideals were disintegrating, but Bradbury did. I wanted to teach children to question, to laugh, to wonder, to discover, and instead, I was teaching them how to answer test questions. Bradbury had already predicted it in his novel:
"Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they fell stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change (61)."
This speech is empirical evidence of Bradbury’s prophetic insight; it is a call to action, a beacon for the idealists and poets to shout until someone finally pays attention. It gave me the courage to be the writer I have always wanted to be.
The Martian Chronicles also inspired me. It is a tale of perseverance, desperation, the chaos of progress, and the inevitability of mankind’s destruction. "The Million Year Picnic" in particular left me feeling mystified and disoriented and utterly lonely. The final scene, where William Thomas incinerates his former way of life and coaxes his tentative family to the canal to view “Martians,” provoked such quiet anguish in me that I wept.
A few years ago, I discovered “Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed.” I instantly fell in love with Bradbury’s lyrical descriptions of transplanted Earthlings. The setting was magical; the characters poignant: permeated with sorrow, but tenacious in their hope. Each line was mesmerizing and completely honest.
The short story "All Summer in a Day" has been a staple in my English classroom since I started teaching eight years ago. His prose is hauntingly beautiful and his ability to transcend space and time and speak to the human experience through the eyes of children is poetic. Every year, without fail, my students sit stunned by the injustice of Margot’s tale; in that quiet moment, I can feel the spellbound heartache passing between them and me: a soul-bridge created completely out of one man's near superhuman capacity for storytelling.
It is hard to explain what I felt when I learned of Ray’s death. I felt as if there was suddenly an emptiness in me, as if I had been "poured out like water." I felt a mysterious and unutterable sadness: a luminous grief for a good friend to whom I never got to say goodbye.
The world has lost a priceless artistic spirit. Ray Bradbury created a cosmos where splendor and sadness walk side by side; he gave me the courage to reach for impossible dreams.
I’ll never forget him.
