| Although it's only
July 4th at the time of this
writing, I can't help but think of
the Doors'
refrain, "Summer's almost gone."
Maybe it's because I just finished
rererereading Ray Bradbury's
poignant and wise Dandelion Wine, a
book that was a summertime rite of
my adolescence. It had been at least
ten years since I last read it, so
it's hard for me to pinpoint why I
find it so touchingly appropriate
now. Is it because I have grown into
the ideas of mortality framed by the
narrative, or did those seeds so
long ago sown burst into bloom at
memory's touch? It is nostalgic
without being maudlin, instructive
without being pedantic.
Few books treat childhood with
so much insight and respect. The
children are not precocious
wiseacres, but rather keenly
observant, sensitive, and
thoughtful beings with
an intense curiosity about
life. 12-year-old Douglas
Spaulding and his 10-year-old
brother Tom are at the center of
events in Green Town, Illinois,
Summer of 1928. It is the summer
when Douglas loses his innocence,
thus ending an age. Bradbury is
also keenly aware of and
ambivalent about the technologies
changing the rhythms of life in
this small midwestern town, so in
a larger sense the book is saying
goodbye to an American way of life
which by the time of the book's
writing in 1957 was long gone. And
although it's never mentioned, the
story takes place one year before
the start of the Great
Depression--a great wicked
something which will eventually
shatter the fragile community so
idyllically portrayed here. But as
much as Dandelion Wine is
a meditation on mortality, it is
equally a celebration of life.
The book starts magically on an
early summer outing to pick
berries and foxgrapes. Bradbury is
a master of suspense and lends a
tense supernatural air to the
outing, calling to mind with
concise yet vivid descriptions the
almost narcotic air of childhood's
summer days. But there is
something lurking out there--not a
bogeyman (there will be those
later), but a great, natural
force. Douglas exults when he
discovers what it is: the
revelation that he is alive.
Echoing Laura in Thornton
Wilder's Our Town, he asks his
younger brother, "Tom...does
everyone in the world...know he's
alive?" He is elated by this new
awareness, but there is a darker
flipside to the joyous epiphany.
Through deductive reasoning and
after watching many of the
townspeople die--some of old age,
others by more sinister means--he
realizes that he, too, must one
day die. And, after watching his
great-grandmother opt out of life,
so too does he realize that the
decision whether or not to
live is a matter of personal
choice.
While Dandelion Wine is both a
heartbreaking and heartwarming
evocation of a bygone era, above
all it is about embracing the
moment, letting go of
the past, and forgetting the
future.
|
Time's
Arrow
Martin Amis
I don't
like to use terms like
tour de force, but really
there is no other
description which comes to
mind when considering
Martin Amis's astounding
book Time's Arrow. A story
told in reverse, where
effect is cause and cause
effect. The simple premise
of telling a story
faithfully in reverse,
starting with death and
ending with birth, yields
achingly poetic
descriptions and opens a
whole can of metaphysical
worms. What's most amazing
is the degree of suspense
in wanting to know where
the protagonist (a
psychosomatic amnesiac)
was before he got to where
he ended up. This book
will fascinate anyone
who's ever run films in
reverse for the pleasure
of watching water run
uphill and bullets being
sucked into guns.
Einstein's
Dreams
Alan Lightman
I used to assign this book
to my English students
because it's easily
digestible standalone
chapters made for easy and
entertaining reading. It's
also a tiny book, perfect
for carrying in one's
pocket for quick little
impromptu reads at bus
stops and bank lines.
Framed as the dreams
Einstein might have had
while formulating his
theory of relativity, the
vignettes are as poetic
and humane as they are
philosophically
intriguing. Lightman, a
professor of physics at
MIT, rifs on different
possibilities of the
structure of time by
couching the mindbending
postulations in mundane
contexts, deftly balancing
theoretical physics with
human interest. More than
an intellectual exercise,
it is a strangely
consoling book which calls
into question our
preconceptions of the
inflexibility, linearity,
and irreversibility of
time. So much so that it's
the one book I gave my
mother when she was
diagnosed with cancer.
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