Ray Bradbury

From Philosopedia

Bradbury, Ray (Douglas (22 August 1920 — )

One of the better-known science fiction authors, Ray Bradbury wrote The Martian Chronicles (1950) and Dandelion Wine (1957). In 1953, he wrote Fahrenheit 451, a picture of a future totalitarian state in which people learn from state-operated television what they are allowed to know. The state allows no books, and individuals with any books are burned along with their libraries. His work has been adapted to film as well as to television, the latter in such venues as Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and The Ray Bradbury Theater.

Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, to Leonard and Esther Bradbury. The family moved frequently because his father was a lineman who looked widely for work during the Great Depression. They settled in Los Angeles, where he graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1938. For a time, he sold newspapers on Los Angeles street corners.

His first story was written on a sheet of butcher paper at age 11. In 1938 the teenager published his first professional story, "Hollerbochen's Dilemma", in Imagination!.

In the early 1940s he wrote science fiction, stopped selling newspapers, and began writing full-time. His "Big Black and White Game" was selected as one of the Best American Short Stories.

On 27 September 1947 Bradbury married Marguerite "Maggie" Susan McClure. Before her death in November 2003, they had four daughters: Susan, Ramona, Bettina, and Alexandra.

In 1950, after publishing The Martian Chronicles, he earned money selling short stories to Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, McCall's, and Collier's Weekly. The book received critical praise for its style (poetic, symbolic, weaving the macabre with nostalgic lyricism) and was called an allegory for man's moral blindness in the face of "manifest destiny." It describes a time when America was experiencing a feeling of xenophobia and a fear of nuclear annihilation.

In 1953, his Fahrenheit 451 portrayed a time when all books are banned, firemen supervising their burning. The title refers to the temperature at which paper burns. The book was made into a movie by François Truffaut (1966) and Frank Darabont (2007). BBC Radio 4 has aired at least two dramatizations as well. In 2004, Bradbury was outraged by Michael Moore's high-handed rip-off of Bradbury's title for Fahrenheit 9/11.

In 1972, he wrote a volume of poetry, When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.

He has won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award. Also, Bradbury has been nominated for an Academy Award (for the animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright and has won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree.

In November 2000, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters was conferred upon Mr. Bradbury at the 2000 National Book Awards Ceremony in New York City. A crater on the moon bears the name Dandelion Wine in honor of his renowned short story collection. British pop singer Elton John based his song "Rocket Man" on the Bradbury story of the same name.

In 2001 he published From the Dust Returned, a Halloween tale of an enchanted house occupied by strange residents in Illinois.

In a 2007 interview with Los Angeles Weekly, Bradbury said that scholars, literature teachers, and readers have long misunderstood his Fahrenheit 451. It was not intended, he said, as a warning about censorship, but is "a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature".

A Unitarian, Bradbury in 2009 was interviewed by Jennifer Steinhauer, exclaiming that he dislikes the internet, books put onto Yahoo, and libraries that are under-funded. At the age of 88 he was asked if he had problems remembering, he responded,

• “I have total recall,” he said. “I remember being born. I remember being in the womb, I remember being inside. Coming out was great.”

• “Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

Bradbury had a stroke on 7 November 1999 but, when asked by children how they too can live forever responded,

• I tell them do what you love and love what you do. That’s the story on my life.

Bradbury has a website.

Works

The Martian Chronicles (1950, collection)

The Illustrated Man (1951, collection)

Fahrenheit 451 (1953, novel)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962, novel)

I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)

The Halloween Tree (1972)

Tomorrow Midnight (1966)

The Autumn People (1965)

{CE; UU}