An interesting, sentimental addenda to the classic Dandelion Wine. Full of the poetic writing that makes DW such a great book, this is a slight but fitting end to the Green Town trilogy.

If you were to read this book on the face of it, only on the narrative and the language, you would have a beautifully written book where not much happens. There is a rivalry between Doug and Mr. Quartermain that is on the surface very childish.

However, the real work of this book is done with its theme. I've seen some reviews of this book that were disappointed it wasn't more in the style of Dandelion Wine. I think it is a mistake to think of Farewell Summer as a direct sequel to Dandelion Wine. It is, of course, a sequel, but it is a sequel in the way that ray Bradbury in his late 80's was a sequel Ray Bradbury in his early 30's. Dandelion Wine was a book about summer, a time that belongs to children. Ray Bradbury, at that stage in his life was refusing to grow up, holding on to the childish sense of wonder that he wrote with for his entire life. It is Bradbury following Mr. Electrico's command to live forever, and feeling he might find a way to do just that.

Farewell Summer is the mortality of an 80 year old man who has done his best to make that summer last forever, but knows that autumn is coming. It is full of symbols of life, beginnings and ends, time, and seasons passing. Some of the symbols are blunt. Others are barely brushstrokes.

This book is very short. The 204 pages are more like 100. They are practically double-spaced and the font is large. But there is a lot that goes on between the covers, and while the story doesn't tell us much that happened to Doug that summer, it tells a lot about what happened with Bradbury's views over the course of his life.

I should have known I'd get emotional reading this since Dandelion Wine grabbed me. How do you describe the indescribable? Mr. Bradbury knew the essence of growing old and the richness that comes with aging. It is a bit of a War to try and stem the flow of our years and Farewell Summer is a testament to the battles involved. This book helps us understand and to a degree accept the indisputable fact that we will grow old but maybe that's not so bad after all.

"Laikrodis! Tai jis darko ir griauna gyvenimus, verčia žmones iš lovos, veja juos į mokyklas ir į kapus!"

This is a short book about time passing away from youth. I just couldn't connect to it.

As summer begins to fade into fall, Doug Spalding and his group of kids wage war on the old, leading men of the town, led by Calvin Quartermain. Though the writing was typical Bradbury (excellent), the plot and the main sequence of events felt way too contrived, and the symbolism was too on the nose (kids destroying the courthouse clock tower to try to stop time itself, destroying chess pieces to keep the old men from controlling their lives, etc.). The young vs. old conflict throughout, and its resolution, was never realistic enough to make the characters more than mouthpieces for Bradbury’s thoughts. Plus, the bizarre concluding scene was a major failure.

Страхотна книга! Наистина страхотна!
Много хора я подценяват или оценяват като разочароваща спрямо "Вино от глухарчета", но лично за мен продължението по нищо не отстъпва на първата книга! Книгата е с по-фокусирана и обособенна история и сюжет за разлика от "Вино от глухарчета". В този роман открих много целомъдрие, романтика, приключения и типичните за Бредбъри сентеции за живота - как бива да се живее и как трябва да поглъщаме с наслада всеки един миг, всеки момент от него. Любим цитат:

"Трябва да се научиш как да не се вкопчваш, преди да се научиш как да придобиваш. Животът трябва да бъде докосван, а не удушаван."

"Сбогом, лято" - 5 от 5 звезди! Силно препоръчвам!

sarebbero 3,5*.
Molto carino questo libricino, questa favola veloce sul crescere, invecchiare e, in definitiva, vivere. L'antico scontro "vecchi vs giovani" qui assume i caratteri di una vera e propria guerra, che poi si tramuta in una guerra contro il Tempo, che poi si tramuta in una pace scanzonata. Douglas è un bel protagonista, in contrapposizione a Quartermain che è meno "vecchio"di quel che sembra.
Consigliato!

[Update]: After reading another Bradbury novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I felt was a lot better written than Farewell Summer, and which I gave four-and-a-half stars, I can't justify giving Farewell Summer four stars, as that would only mean a 0.5 star difference from Something Wicked This Way Comes, which was easily a full star better than Farewell Summer, so I'm reducing my rating from four stars to three-and-a-half stars. Review for Farewell Summer follows:

Seems I'm no sooner jumpin' in the lake at the start of vacation than I'm creepin' out the far side, on the way back to school. Boy, no wonder I feel bad."

"It's all how you look at it," said Doug. "My gosh, think of all the things you haven't even started yet. There's a million ice cream cones up ahead and ten billion apple pies and hundreds of summer vacations. Billions of things waitin' to be bit or swallowed or jumped in."

"Just once, though," said Tom, "I'd like one thing. An ice cream cone so big you could just keep eatin' and there isn't any end and you just go on bein' happy with it forever."

Farewell Summer is the last novel published in Ray Bradbury's lifetime, and is a fitting, though at times uneven, end to a fantastic literary career. It tells the story of a seemingly neverending summer and takes place in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois in October, 1929. It is a direct sequel to Bradbury's masterpiece novel Dandelion Wine, which was published forty nine years previous.

The book tells the story of a "war" between the young children and elderly residents of the town, with thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding acting as "general" for the youth army, which consists of him, his younger brother Tom, and six or so other kids from the town. Together, they wage war on the elderly residents, which are led by Calvin C. Quartermain.

The war doesn't involve actual violence, instead consisting of misguided acts of youth rebellion and vandalism, and frustration on the part of Quartermain. I thought it brilliantly captured the adventurous spirit of what it's like to be a kid having fun. After all, who didn't play an imaginative game of war, or spies, or James Bond, or something as a kid, with either neighbours, friends, or maybe even family members being the unwitting victims of a stray Nerf gun dart, or the blast of water from a Super Soaker? I know I did, and I thought Bradbury captured that child-like spirit wonderfully in this book.

I also really enjoyed seeing these characters again, as several of them are also in Dandelion Wine. It was particularly smile-inducing to encounter Grandpa Spaulding again; he is a really great character. Besides the decent characters, the book also explores many themes in a seamless but powerful fashion: the loss of youth and growing up, the shortness and preciousness of life, rebellion against authority, love, and many others.

Some passages resonated heavily with me, and I was shocked to read reflections in here that I've secretly carried around my entire life. One example is how, when at the beginning of a long break like summer or Christmas vacation, you consciously think, in that moment, at the very beginning, how it's almost like the break is already over...because life is so short, and the good times go by in a flash and are over before you know it, and then are just memories.

I've read very few perfect books, and so, understandably, this is not one of them. I found the war to be a bit one-sided and thus a little pointless? It was mostly the kids going on the offensive, with absolutely no response by Quartermain other than his being upset and bitching about it to his friend and close confidant, the hilariously-named Mr. Bleak. This leads to another point, which is that the elderly army really is only composed of Quartermain and Bleak, against a youth army of about eight. That always seemed noticeably one-sided to me throughout the book; I wished there was more involvement on the elderly side of the fight.

The other thing I didn't like was...

Oh. My. God. The ending. THE ENDING. I mean, what the HELL was that?! The ending of this book is of a completely different tone than the entire rest of the book, to the point where I harbour doubts Bradbury even wrote it. It's absolutely demented, and is by far the strangest ending I have ever read in any book, ever. I won't spoil anything, but I'll tell you that it's sexual in nature, and has to be read to be believed.

Overall, those who are expecting another Dandelion Wine will likely be disappointed by this sequel; though set in the same town, with many of the same characters, and with a decent amount (though not nearly as much) of the same nostalgic atmosphere and imagery that Bradbury is uniquely able to create, it's a noticeable step down in nostalgia and quality from its predecessor. It reads like "Dandelion Wine Lite", and has a bonkers ending that feels like it came out of a Pynchon novel. That being said, it's also touching, poignant, and at times magical. And it has a great Afterword from Bradbury that, given this was the last book published in his lifetime, feels like a farewell from one of the greatest authors to ever live. For me, at least, it was worth reading, and other than the ending I really enjoyed this final nostalgic journey through the eternal youth of Bradbury's Green Town, Illinois.

3.5 stars

Recommended.

Ray Bradbury is to American literature as Credence Clearwater Revival is to classic rock, a producer of compact, meaningful, entertaining genre ambiguous work that speaks with a masterful voice.

Farewell Summer is the sequel to Dandelion Wine, published 50 years after the first work. In an afterward, Bradbury stated that the bulk of what would become Farewell Summer was created at the same time as the classic Dandelion Wine but the publishers thought the original work too long and convinced the author to put off the second half until later. No doubt none of the publishers would have guessed the half a century lapse, and Bradbury hints that he edited it off and on over the years until it was as ripe as an autumn apple.

Farewell Summer is the coming of age story of Douglas Spaulding, introduced to readers in Dandelion Wine. As most of his work, it is beautifully written, poignant and nostalgic yet with a depth and life of its own. Definitely for the Bradbury fan, a reader unfamiliar with his works would be better to begin with some short stories or Fahrenheit 451, but this is a good read.

Having read Dandelion Wine with immense pleasure, I immediately launched into that book's sequel. I wasn't expecting the sequel to be as good, and it isn't; and I even feared it might be bad, which it also isn't. Farewell Summer is a good book, but not a great book like its predecessor.

I regard Bradbury's later work as weaker than his earlier, and the prose in Farewell Summer certainly isn't up to the high standards of Dandelion Wine, yet I am a little confused about this. For even though Farewell Summer was published late in his career, the origin of the book is much older. Dandelion Wine and Farewell Summer were originally part of one long novel called The Blue Remembered Hills that never saw publication in that form. Bradbury's publishers suggested that he split the manuscript into two sections, and they published the first section as Dandelion Wine. So Bradbury was sitting on Farewell Summer for fifty or more years? Somehow it doesn't feel like it.

I suspect that the core of Farewell Summer is half a century old, yes, but that Bradbury has added, adjusted, cut, and done various other things to the raw manuscript to turn it into the version we see today. It is a short novel, it reads a little too easily; but its main thrust, which is about a war between the young and old people of Green Town is quite inspired, and good fun. I don't regret reading this novel, though it is a much lesser beast that its predecessor.

The end chapters are extremely weird, and I don't know if Bradbury understood quite how weird they are. Two characters, the leader of the old men and the leader of the young boys, both have conversations with their erections at night, while lying in their own beds.

That is strange enough but what makes it truly bizarre is the implication that it is the same erection shared between the two individuals, or rather that the erection possessed by the old man leaves him forever and is then reborn in the body of the boy. I am not sure if this conceit is brilliant or distasteful, or both. I felt awkward reading it, and yet in many ways it serves a powerful symbolic function, concerned as it is with the passing of the old, the rise of the new, the endless relay race through the generations that is life itself. Nonetheless it caught me by surprise and I still feel bemused.

Farewell Summer and Remembering

Learning from our elders. I’m saddened by the thought that our children and grandchildren won’t have the same experience: getting to know and learn from the old people in the neighborhood, exploring where we live and who we share the block around us with. I learned about life and death from the old people who lived close to my house. It was an invaluable experience, one I will be forever grateful for. Enjoy Farewell Summer—it is a masterpiece, as are all of Bradbury’s works.