Listened to on Audible. Sequel to Dandelion Wine, which I read in the summer of 1970 (I think). Might have been earlier. But I read a lot of books the summer of 1970. I was laid up (so to speak) with broken jaws. So I probably don't remember it well. Not sure how old Douglas was originally but here he is approaching 14. He and his friends are waging war on the senior members of the school board. The book takes place in October and the kids have been sent back to school a week early. They would be positively unbelievable about the kids going back to school on August 7 (in my former high school this year). Even I had trouble believing it. But a teacher friend explained that it is because they all have to be on a semester system.

The boys took on the old men of the town (Green Town, based on Waukegan, IL which was Bradbury's home town). They carved pumpkins to look like these old men. Another time they stole the chess pieces that the old men played with in the park during a storm. Douglas' grandfather persuaded him to return them. Later they attacked the innocent clock tower in the belief that they could stop time and, thus, keep from growing up or growing old. They go to a haunted house and he gets kissed by a girl.

Best line: "Did we do anything today we might get licked for?" "I don't think so." "Then we might as well go in."

When Bradbury writes of Green Town I am always reminded of my own home town, also in Illinois, but closer to the city. I was there briefly this fall. I noticed the changes - there are many. But the parts that reminded me of Green Town are still there. I tried to go to Centennial Park but my GPS kept taking me to Dawes Park. Finally, I had to rely on my own memory. Found there were others at the picnic who had also been misled by their GPS.

4.5. Farewell, Summer is an ode to all of life, one that asks both the young and the old what the meaning of existence is- and neither of them have the answer. although this falls a bit short of the masterpiece that is Dandelion Wine, i loved being back in greentown, a place so full of love and nostalgia that it is brimming from every porch step.

“life should be touched, not strangled. you've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.”

"look, life gives us everything. then it takes it away. youth, love, happiness, friends. darkness gets it all in the end. your looks, your youth. pass it on. give it away. it's lent to us for only a while. use it, then let go without crying.”

"’who are you?’ he whispered.
you'll find out.
‘where did you come from?’
a billion years past. a billion years yet to come.
‘that's no answer.’
it's the only one.”

Brb crying to the thought of my gone childhood that’s never coming back. I never said goodbye :(

No matter how much you loved Dandelion Wine, or how much you love Bradbury, don't read this. Really.

Farewell Summer is the third book of Bradbury’s Green Town Trilogy. It was part of the original manuscript of his classic Dandelion Wine (Green Town #1), but his editor suggested that it appear some time in the future as a stand-alone volume. Fifty-five years after Dandelion Wine was published, this super-polished version finally appeared in bookstores to complete the trilogy.

From the first paragraph, the reader is whisked back to Douglas Spaulding and the Green Town of Bradbury’s youth, the real Waukegan, Illinois, complete with the infamous and mysterious Green Town Ravine.

“Dandelion Wine” was composed of a series of vignettes, short stories of events, that characterized a Summer for Douglas Spaulding and his crew of near-puberty boys. In contrast, Farewell Summer is a long story of the end of that Summer, the last Summer they would spend as “boys,” per se, and their fight to stay boys that will never turn into the rickety, decrepit old bachelors they see around them. The boys see these geezers as the enemy, trying to drag the boys into becoming men, then old men – a genuine conspiracy where misery loves company. They must vanquish the old men and their evil plot, then finish off the town clock that is part of that plot to make time pass on and on. The clock, and time, must be stopped! Will they win the battles?

While a sequel to “Dandelion Wine,” the book lacks some of the sparkle and wide-eyed innocence that made “Wine” into an indelible classic. Still, it is Bradbury delightfully writing about the wonderful boyhood days, real and imagined, that he spent in that ravine with those pals and those golden days that will never be recaptured except in memory. And now in print for all to enjoy.

The childhood house still exists at 11 South St. James Street, and not far away is Ray Bradbury Park at 41 North Park Street complete with the ravine, now sadly gentrified with a stone stairway down to the very small creek called the Waukegan River, but still there, miraculously preserved by an appreciative hometown. For those who love these books, a pilgrimage is still possible!!

So, you're saying that there's A SEQUEL TO DANDELION WINE??? THAT I STILL HAVEN'T READ??

A nice concept and some beautiful descriptive writing in here centered around growing older and accepting the idea of death at a young age but overall the story was repetitive and uninteresting after a while. Hope the next one picks it up!

The afterword for the book is by Ray Bradbury himself and I was surprised to learn that this was originally half of what became Dandelion Wine. Together they made up a longer book but his publisher at the time wished to split it into something shorter so it was edited and published as Dandelion Wine. Fifty Five years later in 2006 the second half was published and I'm happy to say it's just as good as the first.

The book follows the same teenage boy as before, Doug Spaulding, a year later during the end of summer once more. He's now more aware of mortality, his own included, and has concluded to fight back against it. He finds you can't always fight against everything; for example your first kiss.

When I finished high school, Ray Bradbury was easily my favorite author. I had read Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles, at least--and I still consider the first of those (which I reread recently) one of the most important books of the century, and have specific memories of some of the stories in the last (which I have not read since). Then in college I discovered C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams, and in the years which followed my wife introduced me to Agatha Christie, and Bradbury slipped down the list a bit--but was still someone whose writing I admired and enjoyed.

I have never read Dandelion Wine, and know nothing about it. That perhaps matters, because this is, apparently, its sequel, published fifty years later.

The book is surreal. It is so surreal, in fact, that in the second chapter when the viewpoint character is dreaming it is simply not clear that this is not the book's reality until the boy awakens. There remains a quality about the book that makes it difficult to be quite certain what exactly is happening or, more usually, why. At one point the boy shoots an old man with a cap gun, and the old many dies, and someone blames the fact that he could not get to his metronome fast enough to stabilize his heart rate.

The core characters seem to be pre-adolescent boys who during one seemingly unending summer come to believe that someone, or something, is trying to force them to grow up, and they are not going to take it and are going to fight back. They go to war against the forces they recognize. They steal the chessmen from the local park chessboard, on the belief that some sort of voodoo-like power is involved and the old men playing chess are controlling their destinies; they have to return these, because they made no effort to do it surreptitiously. They break into the town hall and into the clock tower to attempt to stop the clock using firecrackers, so they can stop the inexorable advance of minutes and hours and days. They fight the aging men of the school board.

One of these aging men attempts to fight back. Exactly what he does is sometimes unclear and confused, but he sets up a display of pre-born children (the boys are clueless as to what it is or what it means) and holds a birthday party for one of the girls in their age group to which the boys are invited. Here somehow the boys score a point when their leader decides to deliver a slice of the cake to the old man himself.

In some Peanuts cartoon somewhere Linus, sitting amidst the ruins of a washed-away sand castle in the rain, says, "There's a lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I don't know what it is." I have much the same feeling about this book. We are given to think that everyone in the story learned something, but I don't recall what they learned. In the end, it seems to have been more interesting for the mood and the use of language than for what was told. I have already forgotten much of it.

I think Bradbury has written better, but then maybe this just did not click for me.

In some ways, it feels strange to review this separately from Dandelion Wine, as the two of them were written as one whole novel, before the publishers insisted on them being split in two. Despite being released half a century later, you do very much feel that you are reading an extension of the first novel. It has that same style, the outlandishly ornate prose, the slightly otherworldly dialogue and the hint of the fantasy nestled amongst the ordinary lives of the town residents. The novel concerns the war between young and the old people, a quest to stop time and prevent aging, and Douglas Spalding discovering romance. It is, as you would expect, a joy to read, Bradbury's rich, idiosyncratic descriptions having almost no equal. The novel moves on at a pace, with really brief chapters that sometimes have a bit to much of the abstract about them, not least towards the end when Tom is lying in bed, and a strange voice begins to talk to him. Perhaps Bradbury overdoes the symbolism a bit there. Saying that, there are some clear, but clever metaphors present here, although the creatures in the tent are certainly open to interpretation.
The book successfully captures the sense of being thirteen, the feeling of sadness at leaving behind your childhood and fear of the strange, complicated world that awaits you. Chapter 32 is particularly poignant, when Tom explains the sadness at an ice cream having to come to an end, wishing for a picture show that will go on forever. Doug reassures him, saying "Just remember, darn it, there's ten thousand matinees waiting on up ahead," perfectly encapsulating the end of the summer and indeed the end of childhood.
Farewell Summer is an incredibly short read; I finished it in about three sittings, but it is an absolute delight to be back in Green Town, Illinois again, even for a little while. On its own, it doesn't quite match up, but when viewed as one with Dandelion Wine, it is no exaggeration to say that Bradbury has created one of the important literary works of the last century.

This is the weirdest little Bradbury book I've read yet.

It's a sequel to Dandelion Wine, which I am reading now. But it could be totally read on its own.

The chapters are very brief, and the overall story is almost dreamlike. It's a treatise on the war between youth and aging, featuring some actual elderly humans as the embodiment of aging. I loved the beginning, and was engaged in the way the language and images flowed throughout the story, but the ending was ... not what I wanted to read. It's not a twist. It's just ... No Thank You. It soured the whole story, and I wonder if that's why when he originally had this entire novella tacked on to the end of Dandelion Wine, his publisher said "Umm, Ray, you're great and all but this is ... too long, sure. Let's just say too long. Just cut this whole last section."

I do stil recommend it to anyone looking for a weird little coming of age story, but, like, definitely skip the final chapter. Just ... trust me ... I understand that it encapsulates the whole theme of the two books, but it's totally unnecessady and undoes the interesting conclusion of the penultimate chapter.

Има и такива дни, които сякаш си поемат дъх, задържат го и цялата земя замира в очакване. Някои лета не искат да свършат.
А покрай пътя избуяват цветя и щом ги докоснеш, поръсват облачета от ръждивокафяв прашец. Навсякъде изглежда, че е минал съвсем овехтял пътуващ цирк и с всяко завъртане на колелата е оставял следа от прастаро желязо. Прашецът се е разстлал под дървета, по речни брегове, има го и при релсите, по които някога минаваше локомотив. Тъй изронените цветчета и релсите се преобразяваха заедно в изронения ръб на есента.
— Погледни, Дъг — каза дядото, докато пътуваха от фермата към града. Зад тях в пикапа „Кисъл Кар“ бяха наредени шест големи тикви от бостана. — Виждаш ли тези цветя?
— Да, сър.
— „Сбогом, лято“, Дъг. Така се казват. Усещаш ли във въздуха? Август се е върнал. Сбогом, лято…
— Ама че тъжно име — промълви Дъг.

Библиотеката на дядото беше приятно тъмно кътче, сякаш иззидано от книги, затова тук можеше да се случи какво ли не… и се случваше. Достатъчно беше да издърпаш книга от рафта, да я разгърнеш — и изведнъж мракът вече не тъмнееше толкова.
Тъкмо тук дядото посядаше ту с една книга в скута, ту с друга, подпрял очилата със златни рамки на носа си, и посрещаше с „добре дошъл“ гости, които уж наминаваха за малко, но оставаха за час.
Дори бабата поспираше в библиотеката, когато я налегнеше умората — досущ застаряващо животно, което търси мястото за водопой, за да се освежи. А дядото винаги беше тук, предлагаше чаши от вкусния чист вир на Уолдън или пък се провикваше надолу в дълбокия кладенец на Шекспир и слушаше доволен ехото.

Трябва да се научиш как да не се вкопчваш, преди да се научиш как да придобиваш. Животът трябва да бъде докосван, а не удушаван. Трябва да се отпуснеш, понякога да оставяш нещата да се случват, а друг път да се движиш заедно с тях. Също като с лодките. Поддържаш мотора включен, за да я насочваш по течението. И когато чуеш шума на водопада все по-близо, разтребваш в лодката, слагаш си най-хубавата шапка и вратовръзка и си пушиш пурата чак до мига, когато пропадаш. И това е истинска победа. Не се опитвай да спориш с бездната.

Виж какво, животът ни дава всичко. После ни го отнема. Младост, любов, щастие, приятели. Накрая мракът поглъща всичко. Не ни стигна разум да разберем, че можеш да го завещаеш — живота де — на други. И външността си, и младостта си. Да го предадеш нататък. Да го подариш. Да го използваш и да се примириш без сълзи. Твърде чудато щафетно бягане и само Бог знае докъде ще стигне то. Само че в последната си обиколка по пистата откриваш, че никой не те чака да поеме щафетата. Няма на кого да предадеш палката. Участието ти в бягането е било безсмислено. Провалил си отбора.

Най-лошото е никога да не пораснеш. Виждам го навсякъде около себе си. Виждам деца във всяка къща. Погледни натам — ето я къщата на Лионора, горката жена. А тук живеят онези двете стари моми с тяхната Зелена машина. Деца, деца без обич. Погледни и натам. Към дерето. Там беше Самотника. Ама че живот, ама че дете в мъжко тяло. В това е разковничето. Можеш да превърнеш всекиго от тях в Самотник с повечк�� време и търпение. Ти приложи погрешна стратегия. Не принуждавай хората да пораснат. Глези ги като бебета. Научи ги да разчовъркват недоволството си и да отглеждат личните си отровни градинки. Мънички лехи на омразата и предразсъдъците. Ако си искал да са нещастни, би било много по-добре да им кажеш: „Бунтувайте се, аз съм с вас, нападайте! Невежество, на твоя страна съм! Долу тия прости свине!“

Из „Сбогом, лято“ – Рей Бредбъри
Превод: Владимир Зарков
ИК „Бард“ 2008