Farewell Summer [Audio CD]

Ray Bradbury (Author), Robert Fass (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2006

A poignant and brilliant sequel to Dandelion Wine from the author of Fahrenheit 451 In Green Town Illinois, Douglas Spaulding is in the midst of a small civil war with the old pitted against the young in this, the second book in Bradbury's semi-fictionalised account of his childhood. As the school board's figure of authority Mr Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to outwit the boys at every turn, their antics increase and become ever more daring and mischevious. Once the shadow of winter draws across Green Town, the boys quickly realise that their enemy is not so much the senior members of their own community, but rather time itself which is ever ebbing away, just beyond the reach of their most daring trick yet: a bold attempt to sabotage the town's clock.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This poignant, wise but slight "extension" of the indefatigable Bradbury's semiautobiographical Dandelion Wine picks up the story of 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding in October of 1928, when the warmth of summer still clings to Green Town, Ill. As in his episodic 1957 novel, Bradbury evokes the rhythms of a long-gone smalltown America with short, swift chapters that build to a lyrical meditation on aging and death. Playing at war, the imaginative Douglas and his friends target the town's elderly men, and the outraged 81-year-old bachelor Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to organize a counterattack against the boys' mischief. Rebelling against their elders—and the specter of age and death—Douglas and his gang steal the old men's chess pieces before deciding that Time, as embodied by the courthouse clock, is their true nemesis. The story turns on a gift of birthday cake that triggers Douglas and Quartermain's mutual recognition: "He had seen himself peer forth from the boy's eyes." Soon thereafter, Douglas's first kiss and new, acute awareness of girls serves as the harbinger of his inevitable adulthood. Bradbury's mature but fresh return to his beloved early writing conveys a depth of feeling. Look for a Q&A with Bradbury in the Aug. 21 issue.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Ray Bradbury, now in his mid-80s, explains in his postscript that the original Dandelion Wine manuscript included much of the material in Farewell Summer. His publisher at the time thought the book too long, and advised Bradbury to shelve the latter half. He certainly took the advice to heart. Fifty years later, here comes this satisfying denouement, one that speaks to themes of youth, aging, memory, and regrets. Reviewers praise Farewell Summer as an ideal swan song for a storied career that produced award-winning works like Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes and earned Bradbury the prestigious National Medal of Arts.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Sound Library (November 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792745191
• ISBN-13: 978-0792745198
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,057,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ray Bradbury has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Among his many famous works are 'Fahrenheit 451', 'The Illustrated Man' and 'The Martian Chronicles'.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get., October 23, 2006

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Farewell Summer: A Novel (Hardcover)

A measure of how much I was drawn into this book is the fact that I picked it up at 2:00 in the afternoon- and by 9:00 that same evening I had finished it. I hope that Mr. Bradbury will not be upset that I felt compelled to finish in one afternoon what it took him 55 years to complete. It must be nearly 35 years ago now that I first read Dandelion Wine. I have lost track of the number of summers that I have reread it since. This book is a continuation of that unusually prolonged summer of 1928.

While this book's predecessor is the penultimate anthem of eternal youth (second only to Huckleberry Finn) this second part is...different. Here, Douglas Spaulding runs up against adulthood in more ways than one (perhaps it was that fever that he suffered late in the first book.) He starts out by waging war against time and its avatars in Green Town. He ends up by accepting that time and life must flow or be frozen into an unnatural caricature of life. Both 13 year-old Douglas and his 81 year-old nemesis Calvin Quartermain come to realize this. Puer aeternus and "hold-fast the dragon" come to see themselves through each other's eyes- and time and life begin their natural flow once again.

There are many references here to the characters and events of the first book- if you loved it you will find much in this second book to please you. However, the spirits of the two books are really quite different. I do not find this objectionable since it saves Douglas Spaulding from becoming a sort of eternal Peter Pan. Childhood can be magical, it should be remembered fondly and not sealed in or out, but you can't stay in that state forever.

A word about the conclusion- if you can keep a straight face as the two main characters each say goodbye and hello to their "little friend" respectively then you are one up on me...

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A charming and profound sequel to DANDELION WINE, November 3, 2006

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Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell Summer: A Novel (Hardcover)

What a great time to release a gentle gem like this --- a nostalgic tale set in October that shares its longing with the real-time October going on all around us.

I can honestly say that my emotive brain "composed" its thoughts on FAREWELL SUMMER in the midst of summer's waning breath, as we worked this week to clean up the nearly leafless orchard for another season. As I raked and carried mound after mound of leaves and twigs, I felt myself wholly embraced by the scene of bright, low-angled sunshine, cool northwest breezes, and a long slate line of snow-bearing clouds looming just beyond the old abandoned rail line to Princeton, Ontario.

In this charming sequel to his equally memorable DANDELION WINE of half a century ago, Bradbury has returned to the lives of his teenage boy characters, still on the verge of puberty in small-town America. His fictitious Green Town, Illinois could be Berea, Ohio, or Gimli, Manitoba, or my familiar Princeton, Ontario --- any one of thousands of places that were once (or still are) imbued with a culture that understands change yet tenaciously protects old-fashioned values like character and loyalty. And no matter who you are or how long your family has lived in one place, those small town values don't simply come along with rural genes; they have to be experienced, absorbed and learned by each new generation.

That's the delicate and essential space Bradbury has so charmingly re-visited in FAREWELL SUMMER, as Doug and his little "gang" wage a mini-war of wits against several local elders who wield power on the school board and at city hall. A series of boyish pranks culminates in the most daring escapade of all --- an elaborately planned night-time assault on the town hall clock. Stop time, and you stop the inevitable decline of life that looms with approaching adulthood --- or so Doug and his pals have figured it! But of course, the curmudgeonly old folks still remember the lovely wild dreams of their own youth, and a combination of coincidences and consequences catch up with the boys and show them another side of their onetime "enemies."

This is how Bradbury has caught the essence of that complex yet evocative transition between childhood and a new level of awareness that comes with responsibility and self-worth. One day Doug and his cohorts, much older and wiser, would tough it out with a new generation and in turn take on the role of wise and eccentric elders who figure so prophetically in the young boys' lives.

Bradbury easily could have exploited the archetypal generation-gap conflict that is a mainstay of so much literature and created a story with predictable proportions of humor, nostalgia, tension, conflict, winners and losers. But as his numerous fans in so many genres already know, that's just so much superficial "stuff" on his palette.

The same Ray Bradbury who strides across undiscovered universes to find the footprints of God is just as adept with the comparative microcosm of a little town basking in golden autumn light and fallen leaves, a place where lives aren't as simple and tranquil as in a Norman Rockwell or Peter Etril Snyder (for we Canadians!) painting.

Here, practical jokes and profound wisdom make peace with one another, and all of Bradbury's characters, young and elderly, finally stand together amid the sweet expiration of memory and delight that was summer --- and will be again.

--- Reviewed by Pauline Finch ([e-mail])

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Back to Green Town, Illinois..., October 23, 2006

By 

Jack Karolewski "explorerjack" (Davis, California) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Farewell Summer: A Novel (Hardcover)

I first read Dandelion Wine when I was 16 in 1967. Now, almost 40 years later, this sequel is profound and bittersweet. I wish the story went on further (it only takes about 90 miutes to read), but any trip back to Green Town is always worth it! October is the perfect month to read this book too.Bradbury's reflections on youth and mortality surely mirrors his own current thoughts, as he just turned 86 on August 22.If this is his literary finale (and I pray it is not!), it is indeed fitting --- lyrical, deeply resonant, and filled with wisdom collected from a lifetime of joy and struggle. Ray reminds us that "life is an ice cream cone", so savor its preciousness and its fleeting quality and its rich goodness, and love and share the forever summer that resides in all of our souls...