Did not understand any of this book and why it was written.

It seems odd to read something called Farewell Summer when it's not even September yet, but I reasoned that Bradbury most likely meant "summer" as in "summer vacation". Turns out he meant the actual season, so it was a bit of an untimely read in that regard - the leaves certainly aren't even close to changing color yet, nor do we have jack-o-lanterns out. But "the end of summer vacation" is as good or better a metaphor for the end of childhood as falling leaves and pumpkins are, so it didn't feel THAT off base even if the scenery isn't right.

Ray Bradbury's a very nostalgic author - which I hope surprises no one. But where his Dandelion Wine is an ode to childhood, Farewell Summer reads more like a dirge to the end of childhood. The whole thing made me think of Billy Collins' On Turning Ten.


Ten would have seemed more appropriate to the kids' emotional maturity levels, by the way, but then Bradbury couldn't have used the hoary demarcation of sexual maturity to delineate adulthood. But was the conversations with  the old man talking to his dick and passing on his sexual capabilities to Doug really necessary? That was rather ludicrous.

Blurb from Dandelion wine.

A moving recollection of a magical small-town summer…
I loved that book and gave it 5* however I didn't write a review.
Farewell summer is a follow on from that book Bradbury says in the closing of it that it is an extension of the original book, written over 55 years ago but the publishers felt that it was too long and suggested he keep it for a 'future year'. Over 50 years later his wonderful part 2 had evolved and become richer (his words) with the further ideas and beautiful metaphors that we have here today.

Reading a book by Ray Bradbury is always a joy but I knew from the start that this was going to be extra special.
I was smiling and laughing throughout at the antics of 13 year old Doug and his friends in their war with the elderly people in their town.

A visit to a sweet shop had me drooling over the descriptions of the "sweet poisons hid in luscious traps".

"In bright bouquets the candies lay, caramels to glue the teeth, liquorice to blacken the heart, chewy wax bottles filled with sickening mint and strawberry sap, Tootsie rolls to hold like cigars, red tipped chalk mint cigarettes for chill mornings when your breath smoked on the air".

This book is about boys trying to cling to the last days of summer, being young. And the elderly people " with the touch of winter in their hair" having forgotten, remembering what it's like to want summer to last forever.

Special thanks to my Goodreads friend Dean for recommending this one to me. Dean it was just beautiful. :))

5 shining *

Una guerra descarnada y a la vez tierna de lo que implica crecer. Llena de nostalgia, la convierten en una historia entrañable.

Книгата се чете на един дъх. От начало почва малко мудничко, но на края става много интересна :)

Разочароваща след Вино от глухарчета.

This is a sequel to Dandelion Wine. In an afterword, Bradbury says that originally Dandelion Wine was longer but the material that went beyond the end of the book as printed was cut in response to his editor. He carried on working on the novel...for fifty years! Is it worth the wait? Oh yes...yes it most definitely is. Tree-men-dous. (Not bush-woman-doesn't.)

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN CURTAILED IN PROTEST AT GOODREADS' CENSORSHIP POLICY

See the complete review here:

http://arbieroo.booklikes.com/post/33...

This is apparently the conclusion to the original manuscript of "Dandelion Wine", which was rejected by the publisher. I am glad to have read it shortly after having read the published version of Dandelion Wine and do agree with the publisher that this was not the best way to end that rather good (episodic) novel. It does however stand well enough alone and am certain that fans of the original book must have been simply over the moon to have this see the light of day.

3,5 … +0.5 за ерекцію

There’s just something about Bradbury’s writing that always makes me want to cry.

This sequel to Dandelion Wine was published 55 years later. Bradbury says, in an afterword, that it was part of the original manuscript, but his publisher thought it made the book too long and persuaded him to hold on to it "for some future year when you feel it is ready to be published." Bradbury adds that he let it "evolve" until "it was correct to be sent out into the world. " And the ripening shows. While Farewell Summer retains the poetic language, sly wit and vivid descriptions of Dandelion Wine, it's a different book—much leaner and much more poignant. It's the difference between a young writer reflecting on youth and a much older writer reflecting on youth, old age and yes, what comes next.

"There are those days which seem a taking in of breath which, held, suspends the whole earth in its waiting. Some summers refuse to end."

When I saw that Ray Bradbury had a new novel out, I could barely wait to get it from the library. Here it was at last, the sequel to One of my all time favorite novels, Dandelion Wine. And for me, it came at a time when I was thinking about Bradbury anyway. Ten years ago this June my college roommate and I flew off to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. She had business being there, since she is a journalist. I had no business being there since I am just a reader. I went to hear William Styron, Sol Stein, Fannie Flagg, Jonathan Winters, Charles Schulz, and Ray Bradbury - plus hundreds of would-be novelists, children’s authors, feature writers, and screenplay writers. I can’t believe it was 1997, a lifetime ago, it seems. Time flies.

Anyway, after I heard Bradbury, a heavy man with white hair, thick glasses, and a wicked grin, talk about his experiences growing up in the Midwest, his reading, his writing, and his recent projects, I got in the line of people who wanted him to sign their books. I brought along my high school paperback copy of Dandelion Wine, a book that is saturated with youth, love of life, and a real appreciation of new tennis shoes. I wanted a new hardcover edition, but couldn’t find one, so I made do with the yellowing paperback. In his speech Bradbury said that as a writer he wasn’t always sure that what he wrote meant anything to other people, that writing could be lonely. He said that if you love and author’s work you should tell him. So, when I got to the head of the long line, I shoved my copy of Dandelion Wine toward him, and said, “Ray, I just love you.” I think I mumbled something about using a cutting from the book in a high school oral interpretation contest, or something equally idiotic, and he just looked at me. Finally he said, “What are you doing later?”

I never spoke to Ray Bradbury again, although I sent him a birthday card that year when he was well into his seventies, and expanded on my reasons for loving his writing - his sense of exhuberance, his ability to see and express the light and darkness in the human soul, his Midwestern sensibility, his use of words that are nothing short of poetry. To my surprise he wrote back a hand-typed letter, with a signed photo of him posing as Ahab (he wrote the screenplay for Moby Dick back in the 1950’s). So now ten years later, I was thinking of the man who wrote Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man and Zen and the Art of Writing.

I’m not sure what I was expecting. I know that it is sometimes dangerous to revisit book I loved as a younger person; life changes our tastes and interests, and our memories betray us. I suppose I thought that this book would pick up when the previous one left off. In a way it does, the time (the 1920’s) and the place (Greentown) and the main characters (Douglas, Tom, Grandfather) are the same. The poetic language is still there, but the tone here is darker, the characters more haunted by fears and doubts. The themes are classic, love and death.

Much has been made in other reviews of the way the book is structured in three parts: Almost Antietam, Shiloh and Beyond, and Appomatox. It is, of course, the Civil War, only in this case the war is between the old fogies and the young whippersnappers. What we Babyboomers might have called The Generation Gap. Douglas and his young side against Calvin Quartermain and the graying forces of the status quo. The young boys don’t want to grow up, and the old boys don’t want to die. There are skirmishes (the boys swipe the old coots’ chesspices) and battles (the boys try to stop time by stopping the municipal clock), but in the end: I’d better not say.

I think this book will appeal much more to people closer to Quartermain’s age than to those more like adolescent Douglas. The language is too metaphoric, the action too relaxed to grab younger readers. The notion that one must grow up, that time cannot be stopped and that death must be accepted is one that isn’t going to appeal to a lot of teenagers. The scenes of embryos in jars, and of blooming (and waning) sexuality may be disturbing as well. But for those of us who are marching steadily in our tennis shoes toward retirement and beyond, the book gives us much to consider about life.

Thanks Ray, I still love you.