On 27 March I wrote in my blog entry titled "Sunshine Stopped Play": I have ordered a second-hand edition of Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" (my copy has long gone - and you can't get it on the Kindle.) I want to read the scene again where Douglas Spaulding puts on his new tennis shoes and races off into summer.
And now Ray Bradbury has gone, in body anyway. The sound of tennis shoes on gravel remain. Why is Ray Bradbury more important for me than many other other writers? He straddled the past and the future; he recognised the present. He captured childhood in a jar, let us look at if for a moment and then released it to fly wherever. He looked at the stars through the lens of a soda bottle and saw things clearly. He saw people as they are. Ray Bradbury's stories, however disturbing, always left me feeling that we have it in us to do better, to put things right if only we can come to terms with our restless yearning and realise that we would never have all the answers. Because there are none.
Ray Bradbury was an influence and still is. In that sense he is there I'm my Timeline with Dylan & The Beatles.
My secondhand copy of Dandelion Wine did arrive. It looks as if it as never been read. Shame. I shall pick it up, read it, then pass it on. Ray Bradbury still has something important to say.
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