5.0 out of 5 stars
It motivated me to reread Bradbury's work, February 28, 2004
This review is from: Ray Bradbury (Twayne's United States Authors Series) (Hardcover)
Ray Bradbury is a writer whose talents are so broad that his work defies simple categorization. Most people consider him a science fiction writer, but that is incorrect. In many cases, the science in his stories is wrong. For example, in "The Martian Chronicles" he has liquid water flowing in canals on the surface of Mars. At the time the stories were written, it was already known that no such canals existed.
As Mogen very correctly points out, the science in Bradbury's stories is often put forward as a metaphor rather than a fact. Stories such as those in "The Martian Chronicles" describe human situations carried to extremes and the purpose of the science is to provide the extreme. Bradbury also captures some of the standard human fears of the future, mind-numbing routine and the unusual.
Mogen's analysis of "Fahrenheit 451" is the best I have read. It is a story about a society where conformity is enforced by burning books. Firemen in this story do not put out fires, but set them to destroy contraband books. There is no better moment in literature than when the woman with an illegal library sits on her kerosene soaked books and lights the match herself rather than have the firemen do it. A dystopia in the classic tradition of Orwell and Huxley, "Fahrenheit 451" examines a future where Big Brother exists in a small sense.
Mogen briefly examines the primary work of Bradbury: his short stories, screenplays, and poetry. While there is some personal biographical information concerning Bradbury, the bulk of the ink describes his work. I have always enjoyed the stories of Ray Bradbury, considering him one of the very best writers of short stories. Mogen provides us with an analysis of some of his work, and unlike some literary analysis you appreciate the stories more after reading his interpretations than you did before. This book has motivated me to go back and reread all of Bradbury's classics.
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