Does anyone else notice that Bradbury's always focusing on emptiness? Stripping everything away from everything, all that's left is the bare minimum, square one.


I don't know if this makes any sense. I just thought it was interesting. Like in illustrated man, for instance, all of the stories seem to zero in on heplessness, hopelessness and surrender. . . . into . . . nothingness.

Any thoughts?

The time that the Illustrated Man was written
I believe was around 1951. Half a decade from Nagasaki, and Hiroshima it seems to me that the Cold War had begun, and things were pretty tense. I kinda percieve his metaphor of this Man with the world needled into his skin forever searching for his own resolution is a wonderful example of the shifting conditions of the day. This Illustrated Man could also represent the everyman wrestling with the predicament of faceing a world of constant change. I feel This man could also represent the Myth of Atlas with responsability for the weight of the world on his shoulders, yet so commited that his life story has been indelibly set in his skin. As for the Emptyness I think he provides us with an ever carefully stroked canvas that as the story evolves becomes more tightly detailed until the motive idea is in crisp view. Then there is a Gotcha or a Hmmmm. I love his style, his vocabulary is like the spice cabinet of a fine chef, and with it he cooks, oh how he cooks!

I've long noted that Bradbury seemed particularly adept at writing about the empty spaces between things and wondered how he could do that and carry on a story with such other little things to consider as character and plot! The film which comes closest to the impression of Bradbury's take on things for me is "Paris, Texas." Watch the whole film by all means, but pay attention to such details as the scene by the huge dinosaur replicas in the California desert. These dinosaurs were the focal point of a film called "The Wizard," with Fred Savage and Luke Edwards. In no way were they portrayed in that film in the haunting and magical light of "Paris, Texas." The way the dinosaurs look in that brief scene in "Paris, Texas," now that's the way Bradbury would have written them. Sorry that in all these years I have not come up with a more exact description of his evocative powers.

I don't think anyone CAN come up with an exact description of his writing style, it's completely enigmatic and in a class of it's own, I think.

And as much as Illustrated man leaves me with this incredible unsettling feeling every time I put it down, I feel like I need to keep reading it.

That's how I stayed up all night reading "The October Country."