Ray has a way of leaving permanent impressions in our minds. We may forget the details of many important personal experiences and watershed events of our own lives, but Ray's images survive. What an exceptionally gifted man he is. He is like an artist, painting pictures for us to hang in the galleries of our minds.
In THE PICASSO SUMMER, the image of Picasso creating masterpieces in the sand with a popsicle stick is the one single image that sticks in my mind the most. What's yours?

Or is it the silhouette of children playing ball, with the ball forever suspended in mid-air and the children's arms raised and ready to catch a ball that would never come down in THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS?

Both images are keepers for me.

Some of the most impressing images sticking in my mind are from Chrysalis: the cocoon-like state of the man, with all the indications that something's going on inside -- the morning he is getting out and shows no visilble signs och change whatsoever (while having a smoke in the kitchen (!), this scene is brilliant, an action so profane it builds up a beautiful contrast to the high expectations of the two doctors) -- and, finally, the surprise ending, where the transformed man just lifts off the ground heading for the stars...

This last image of flying also occurs in Here There Be Tygers: You just do it, as if it were the most natural thing to do. I often had this kind of experience while dreaming, so somehow it felt at the same time quite familiar when I read the story.

There are many lingering mental images from the great man's stories. The first that comes to mind is sloshing through the pale jungles of venus in the constant rain trying to find the Sun Dome...

Braling II,

I was also thinking of listing an image from THE LONG RAIN. My most memorable image from that story is when the captain pauses to look back at the man he left behind sitting under the tree.

That's kind of fascinating. I had the same image . . . the guys plowing through constant rain, trying to find a sun dome. The image that is indelibly etched in my mind is the guy who gave up and committed suicide by leaning his head back and holding his mouth open. Powerful story, huh?

Hey, thanks for this topic. It's intelligent and most interesting.

_

One of my most memorable images is from 'Death and the Maiden'.

...when Ol' Mam looks out the keyhole of the house she has hid away for such a long time, and sees death as the young lad she was supposed to have married many long, long years ago. Death coming as this young fellow has made an impression on me that has lasted for years.

Ironically, I happen to see a 'Twilight Zone' episode on TV the other day, which was nearly had the exact same story-line. Here, a very young Robert Redford as death coming to visit this little old lady who feared death, made me say,
"Wow! Shades of Bradbury!!"

The doomed astronauts falling through space in "Kaleidoscope". I saw 2001: a Space Odyssey around the time I discovered Bradbury's little gem, which also contains a supreme moment filled with loneliness and adventurous expectation - notably when David Bowman leaves Discovery to investigate the giant monolith.

Nard, thanks for reminding me of "Nothing in the Dark," a subject on which I have commented here before. I had more to say, which can be found here: http://www.raybradbury.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000299.html