Bradbury ever bring you to tears? If so, which stories do it to you?

While reading "There Will Come Soft Rains" aloud to my children my voice cracked and I had to stop reading after the part about the kids with their arms outstretched waiting to catch a ball which would never come down. The silihouette of that image burned into the side of their dying home is similarily forever burned into my mind. My youngest asked me, "Are you crying?" and I replied, "Yeah, it's just so sad, isn't it?" to which he simply shrugged and said, "Yeah, I guess."
Pffft, kids.....

While reading "The Other Foot", "The Long Rain", and "Kaliedescope" aloud I also had not-to-dry eyes. These stories are emotional rollercoasters and can really bring out the dramatic range of emotions and send you plummeting to that depth which actors and actresses yearn to find themselves. Great stuff for reading aloud, if even only to the walls.

"Long After Midnight" left me starring off into nothingness attempting to give a name to the emotion I may have been feeling for the first and only time in my life. The word "numbness" certainly doesn't do it justice. Bradbury should come up with a word for it and patent it.

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Two that come to mind (more, I'm sure if I think about it):
"Heavy-Set" and "The Dwarf".

To (almost) paraphrase John Wayne, "never cry - it's a sign of weakness."

("All Summer in a Day")

Ahh, now ya got me cryin again.

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Unquestionably, "Death and the Maiden". Five paragraphs into the story, and I am ready to be put on a ventilator from sobbing.

How about The Swan. It can be found in Dandelion Wine. True love, misplaced by many years, always get me to tears.

The Laurel And Hardy Love Affair is a very poignant story for me, and at the end, when his daughter asks if he is crying after seeing a man and woman and their child walking along the Champs Elysees in Paris and the woman calls him "Ollie."

A lot of his stories are so so bittersweet, it's like a cleansing cry when you do shed a tear or two. The Lake gets to me deeply, also several of his Mexican tales does it, not The Catacombs, but its the one where the family can't afford the funeral arrangements, so they put the patriarch back at the head of the table and charge admission, I think. What's that title, anybody?

A friend of mine always cries at the end of "Kaleidoscope," but I think the only one that actually made me cry was "I Sing the Body Electric!"

quote:

Originally posted by sceneshifter:
The Lake gets to me deeply, also several of his Mexican tales does it, not The Catacombs, but its the one where the family can't afford the funeral arrangements, so they put the patriarch back at the head of the table and charge admission, I think. What's that title, anybody?

"The Life Work of Juan Diaz."

I can't remember the title of the story, but it was about Ray and his father who had Alzheimer's, his dad is collecting golf balls. That one got me because my gram had that, and I could really relate to the story.

The end of Halloween Tree where Moundshroud says " You would give one year from the far, burnt-out candle end of your life..."

'Gotcha' does it for me, shortly after scaring the wits out of me. A double-whammy.

Thanks Dandy!

In anticipation of receiving my copy of Farewell Summer in the mail, I have begun the annual ritual of re-reading Dandelion Wine. I cannot get through a single chapter in this most precious of Bradbury works without the tears streaming down my face, It must be that my Dad grew up in Tiskilwa, Illinois, a very small town South and West of Chicago, really the intersection of two roads, and told me of similar happenings in his own childhood that Ray captures so well in the book. I know I am an emotional person, and I would not give that up for anything, but just once I would like to get through this marvelous work without the tears blurring my vision. I just want to kiss Ray for capturing these emotional triggers in his works and descriptions of small town life, before mass media, TV, and constant entertainment from without took over all our childhoods. It was the pure joy of discovery that Ray captures in that summer of '28 and I remember those feelings from my childhood and those of my Dad through his memories told to me so long ago. I look forward to more tears in the upcoming reading of Farewell Summer.

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

“A Dog’s Tale” by Mark Twain always gets to me, and when Francie Nolan gets the flowers from her father in “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” and “The Last Leaf” by O. Henry and the ending of “All In A Summer’s Night” by Ray Bradbury and when Piglet (being such a small animal) is frightened by a firefly that lands on the top of his Christmas tree and…Oh, bother.