My mom referred to "The Whole Town's Sleeping"/"The Lonely One" as "a masterpiece of scariness" years after reading it. I read it first as part of the book--don't think I could have stood it on its own. It was enough reliving it every time I walked home during college.

quote:

Originally posted by Chapter 31:
Dark,
My humble respects to you. An inspiring anecdote. And to all you teachers, my sincerest regards.

They also love "Frost and Fire," which is brilliant, eh?

DW is my favorite Bradbury book. The public library had a recording of Ray reading "John Huff's Leavetaking" and I was always checking it out. They sent me a note saying that the record had a scratch and I would have to pay $3.66 for it. When I went in to pay they told me that I could have the record! When I got home I couldn't find a scratch on it at all. What an awesome deal! In fact, I have since listened to it so much I now have "John Huff's Leavetaking" memorized.

Does anyone have the quote from "Dandelion Wine" about how some people feel things more deeply than others, and small things mean more to them?

You'd be a very luck bug indeed if someone here had the quote you seek committed to memory and would type it for you here!
I suggest you do what most of us here would do, to wit: get the book out and skim through it! I may do so later myself, it's such a fine book...

I would, but I don't have the book.

You must get it! Cheap in paperback at bookstores, sometimes available at libraries,
sometimes found in thrift stores or used book stores... Maybe available on line?
Our Russian friend may have it in English on his site:
http://immersion.raybradbury.ru/
Anyway, seek and ye shall find!

Hmm? How about Mr. Jonas talking to Douglas while the boy is in his summer fever:
"Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them."

The old Junk Man then proceeded to give Douglas 2 bottles of remedy: "Green Dusk for Dreaming Brand Pure Northern Air,"
"... bottled by a friend. The S.J. Jonas Bottling Company, Green Town, Illinois - August, 1928. A vintage year, boy...a vintage year."

Hello all
I'm surprised to see a website dedicated to Ray Bradbury, since a few years ago, I read that Mr. Bradbury was not fond of the Internet.

I literally fell in love with Mr. Bradbury 43 years ago at the tender age of twelve. While combing the bookshelves at the local library, I discovered 'Martian Chronicles.' "Chronicles" was the second science fiction novel I'd read... Henry Winterfeld's "Star Girl" being the first.

One week later I returned and discovered what would become my favorite novel in the whole wide world, "Dandelion Wine."
I've literally lost count of how many times I've read "Dandelion Wine," because to me the novel has been a therapeutic balm for me over the years.
Enjoying sandwiches enveloped in the "bee fried air," losing a friend for life, figuring out a plan to get those new pair of tennis shoes to fly through summer in, building a happiness-machine, sadly realizing that you're just an old lady... not a pretty little girl...was always an old lady...and always will be, !!THE RAVINE!, falling in love with a woman three times your age, and hearing for the last time, the sound of a trolly ten thousand light years away......

I can read "Dandelion Wine" from cover to cover or I can close my eyes, flip the pages, pick a chapter, and enjoy a short story.
Ray Bradbury and "Dandelion Wine", over the years, have been my 'shrink' and 'drug' of choice. Mr. Bradbury is a wonderful storyteller and amazing writer. He makes words dance.
Wish I could meet him.

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

Amen! Well said, Colfreeleigh (love the name!) and welcome aboard!

I've just had a perfectly appalling idea. How about an annotated edition of "Dandelion Wine"?

It would explain such things as what fox grapes are and whether they would really be ripe early enough in the summer for the grape-picking scene to take place when it did in the book.

It could go into such details as the variety of lawnmower-free grass William Forrester tried to foist on Grandpa Spaulding, and a section on electric cars, why they went out when and how they did (production ceased before 1928 and is only just now starting again, albeit "hybrids") which could actually prove quite interesting.

All right, feel free to throw brickbats at me now. I'm running off in my Royal Crown Cream Sponge Para Litefoot tennis shoes, never mind that it's a fictional brand....

One step further, on Dandelion's great idea: how about an illustrated verbatim version a la the classics (when you were a kid) of Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Call of the Wild, 20,000 Leagues, etc. So much can be missed in Dandelion Wine by today's youth because, as in so much of RB's works, the allusion go flying over heads to oft down and clicking on a computer game.

Wouldn't it be something to get hit instead right between the eyes with images and explanatory notes of the Penny Arcade, Shiloh, Ching Ling Soo, the Lonely One, a batch of Golden Wine, and a machine to make you happy. Or are we talking sacrilege here?

As with Narnia, a DW movie version would enhance the chances of such a publication (only if done by a top notch producer) -- in a perfect world!

It's so exciting to me that there are so many people who love Dandelion Wine as much as I do. I too, cannot count the times that I have read it. I always keep a couple of extra copies on hand because I use it as an introduction to Bradbury for people who don't like "SF/fantasy".
I have had many of these people thank me and say that they will indeed be investigating his other work.

I still have a copy of the script I adapted from it and sent to Ray for his 75th birthday.

I don't know...
One of the magical things about reading a wonderful book like this is the very personal, unique, and ineffable images and emotions that arise within each individual reader.
I will admit, though, that the recent film versions of both "Narnia" and "Lord of the Rings" showed sensitivity to this phenomenon and did a fair job of depicting the characters and scenes of those books in a way that didn't disappoint many folks' personal imaginings.
Still, a film of THIS masterwork?
Bradbury elicits images, feelings, and even smells with just a few perfectly-chosen phrases when other great authors will require paragraphs or even pages.
(Hey! that last sentence rhymes!)

It would be nice to have an OPTIONAL supplement, but such a thing should not come WITH the book as it detracts from the reader's imagination.

As for films, way too often they just use what's available rather than exactly what's described in the book. I was so excited when "Little House on the Prairie" was going to come out as a TV series because I would finally get to see what a brindled bulldog was. Then they used this shaggy mutt that had never been any kind of a bulldog. As I recall, it was later replaced by a sort of black-and-white border collie. Years later, I did get to see a brindled bulldog, though! It's just a sort of a brown bulldog with black stripes--the one I saw was a darker brown than tan--but the book never says that--just expects you to *know* when the only bulldogs you've ever seen are plain light tan. Grrr.