ENJOY

http://www.calendarlive.com/books/reviews/cl-et-book3se...y?coll=cl-books-util

TAKE CARE
PATRICK

Hey, Patrick. Thanks! Gotta Run out and get a copy of the LA Times today. Good to hear from you!

"Bradbury, sci-fi's Mr. Electrico," appears as the headline in the print edition of today's, September 3, 2007, LA Times for the Now and Forever article. The lengthy favorable review appears on the front page of the Calendar section.
The headline was most likely left off the online edition to save space.

Nice review. Thanks for the link. I got a notice from Amazon.com that my copy shipped yesterday, so I should get it in the next few days. I am pretty interested in reading Leviathan 99. Moby Dick was nearly my undoing on my MA comprehensive exams. I had read everything on the reading list before taking the exams--except Moby Dick. It nearly cost me passing. When I found out I had passed and finished my MA in English, I celebrated by finally reading Moby Dick.

It's great to see such a positive review, especially of Leviathan, which I have worried about - I'm not a great fan of Bradbury's fictions based on literary figures, and was afraid that this science-fictional piece might be a bit clunky. I can't wait for my copy to arrive.

Mr Dark, never read Moby Dick? What a confession! I've never read it either, at least not from cover to cover. What I have done is re-read many chapters over and over. Melville is probably the only writer who could do an entire chapter about the colour white and get away with it...

I strongly suspect that without Melville, Bradbury would never have written Something Wicked This Way Comes. Ray has probably said something to that effect himself.

I am also very curious to read Somewhere a Band is Playing. From the synopses I've read, I wonder whether this story might have been involved in some way with the great Bradbury-Serling bust-up. It does sound a bit like the Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance". I wonder if dandelion has a view on this.

So, Mr. Bradbury celebrates his 87th birthday with a flourish of new releases which still receive critically significant and thought-provoking reviews, as evident in Mr. Diehl's article in the L.A. Times. Mr. B's passion for life and books and writing are truly inspirational - and humbling!

Tomorrow, I will step into (merely) my 32 year of teaching. RB's 7+ decades as a painter of images and dreams upon the printed page and in spoken word are always praiseworthy. Nobel, actually!

FH451 (Patrick) your post has fanned the sparks. My course is set. The recognition of RB's works is still headline news, and, as those of us here well know, it should be!

As progress is made on the big screen works of 451 and Ill Man, isn't it ironic that a decade into tapping away our thoughts on this site, we still have much to debate. That White Whale was never an easy creature to understand, nor one to capture.

"Write On," Mr. Bradbury! New canvas has been hoisted. We stand by for your next journey be it by land, sea, space, or places yet to be determined...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fjp451,

I actually finally did read it. I thought the chapters on the story itself were fantastic; as I'm not into whaling, the chapters that constituted the history and description of whaling were less compelling for me. That period of US literature is amazing: Whitman, Emerson, Poe, Irving, Brockden Brown, Hawthorne, Thoreau, etc., it is just unreal.

I'm a nautical nerd so I loved all the detail about whaling, but the movie that Ray wrote the screenplay for is very good, anyone who doesn't think they can make it through the book should watch it. They paid a lot of attention to detail as far as the fittings on the ship, etc., and they have footage of men doing real old fashioned whaling, the way they used to do it in Melville's times. Can you tell I love this movie?

quote:

Tomorrow, I will step into (merely) my 32 year of teaching.

Wow - I've just passed my 10th year in the classroom, but that's quite an achievement! My hat off to you, Frank.

We can all be humbled by Mr B's bottomless wellspring of energy & passion for his work.

quote:

Mr Dark, never read Moby Dick? What a confession! I've never read it either, at least not from cover to cover.

I have made it through Melville's opus, but it must admit it was quite arduous at times, and I felt like jumping ship. ('Billy Budd, Sailor' is a more accessible Melville masterpiece).
The John Huston / Bradbury film is fantastic. The telemovie with Patrick Stewart was enjoyable but inferior, though Stewart was (as always) superb.
About a year ago I saw Australian Shakesperean actor John Bell perform MOBY DICK as a one man stage show - playing all the characters in a two hour monologue - an absolutely stunning and mesmerising performance.

Thanks, Oz-crumley!!! Get your pencils sharpened and desks all in line!

Here are a few things to ponder as the year begins:
http://www.borg.com/~rjgtoons/edu.html

(The Moby Dick reference is appropriate, I thought.)

Enjoy!
fp

quote:

Originally posted by oz-crumley:
Wow - I've just passed my 10th year in the classroom...

Do the Australians begin classes in the Fall of the year, that is to say March? Or September, in the Spring?

Our school year runs from Feb. to December (beginning and ending in the Southern Hemisphere summer). We have four 10-week terms, with two weeks' break between each term, and roughly six weeks' break over Christmas / New Year.
So we don't have a really long summer break like US schools, but we do have (I think) more frequent breaks.

Cor, Christmas holidays AND summer holidays all rolled into one!

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Christmas holidays AND summer holidays all rolled into one!

Isn't that getting ripped off?