This is Bradbury's followup to n  Dandelion Winen which I read several years ago and enjoyed a lot. This was a really quick read that I was able to finish in one sitting and it too was an enjoyable romp into Bradbury's insights into age, time, life, and death. The title "Farewell Summer", seems to be a metaphor for the approaching end of life and moving into middle and old age. The story revolves around 13-year old, Douglas Spaulding who with his friends are seeking ways youth can be preserved. To do this, they wage a "war" against the elder people in the town, primarily against Mr. Quartermain, who is on the school board and who Doug and his friends blame for shorter vacations and longer school hours. The boys come up with several ways they think can stop the elders from controlling them including fasting, stealing their chess pieces that they think are used to control each boy's actions, stopping the clock in the town hall, etc. But in the end, they find that it is better to learn from the elders and appreciate all they have been through. This is especially true for Doug's grandfather who lives across the road and gives him good advice to cope with life. Overall, the story is very nostalgic and in many ways reminded me of my youth growing up in the 1950's.

In the Afterword to the novel, Bradbury says that this was begun about 55 years earlier and was originally intended to be part of Dandelion Wine but the publishers felt it would make Wine too long. He also tells of how he always liked to talk to older people and how much he learned from them including his grandparents. As always, Bradbury's masterful writing makes this another in his long list of stories and novels that will be considered classics for years to come.

Not until you have read these 3 books of Green Town; Illinois have you REALLY experienced the magic of Ray Bradbury!!

With this being the final book in the Green Town trilogy that started with 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' continued on with 'Dandelion Wine' and ends with 'Farewell Summer' this book was not as good as the other 2. BUT when a tale that was written in the 1950's can introduce a 14 year old boy to 'the best friend you will have for the rest of your life!' being his penis......will I never look at another coming of Age novel either horror or literature classic as this one was. Douglas Spaulding is now 14 and Summer is ending; he learns what it is like to get kissed by his little friend who just happens to be a girl for the first time, and he learns that ghosts really do exist, or do they? He also learns what it means to say 'Goodbye'. This was an endearing and beautiful read, and i actually chuckled when Douglas meets the best friend he will ever have for the rest of his life! Great novel.....just pick it up and read it; or listen to it as I did.

4

This work is a sequel to Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, but it can stand very much on its own as I enjoyed this novel without reading that earlier work.

At first, I wasn't so interested in the book's subject matter, largely a mock war between the young (Doug, Tom, and his cohorts) and the old of the town (Calvin C. Quartermain). Cute, but not my reading forte. But as I continued, I warmed up to the book. I realized that Bradbury is interested in ideas about aging, mortality, coming of age (Doug) and the passing of age (Mr. Quartermain), incipient sexuality, and of course much more. Like other Bradbury novels, it evoked in me feelings of wonder at life and the movement of our lives from one season to another.

Muchísimo menos potente que "El vino del estío", obviamente, pero con su punto de ternura y maravilla.

Eso sí, el tramo final, en el que se representa de manera simbólica cierta "sucesión", es una de los pasajes más crispantes que he leído en el último tiempo, por lo ridículo. Me dio risa, claro, pero me dije internamente: "plw, tío Brabdury, por quéeeee" XD

[дні, здавалося, наповнив подих, який потамувала вся земля, завмерши в очікуванні. Буває, що літо відмовляється закінчуватись]

Продовження «Кульбабового вина» - як післясмак того самого вина - трохи п‘янке, трохи терпкувате, але п‘ється (читається) дуже легко, огортаючи все тіло ледь відчутною теплотою та викликаючи ледь помітну усмішку кутиками губ...

Воно того варте!

The secret of life explained (or perhaps not really explained) by Ray Bradbury. It's an odd book, even for Bradbury, but gorgeously written, of course, so I'll not complain. It's a coming of age story for Doug from Dandelion Wine, and while it is the sequel to that book, I think it would be easy enough to follow without having read it first. It's definitely more connected than Dandelion Wine, and still mostly keeps the same feel, though instead of the endless summer of the first book, this is more of a summer about to end. No, as other reviewers have said, it is not as good as Dandelion Wine, but it is fun to revisit Doug and Greentown. Four stars if not for Bradbury's delicious writing style.

Sequel to Dandelion Wine. Perhaps not as good as the original, but still a worthwhile read (especially if you love Bradbury’s writing).

I first read the "prequel" back in High School, some 45+ years ago. In going through this sequel, written some 40+ years after "Dandelion Wine", it brought back some of the magic of that book, and some pleasant memories from that time frame. I don't believe I've re-read "Wine" since high school, but I don't remember. This book was good at stimulating some of those forgotten memories, and forging ahead just a few months later at the end of the Summer.
My rating is about 3.5 stars, or even 3.75. A good read, even if not a "page turner", or a "can't put it down" type.

"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...."

From the first line to the last Bradbury always manages to sweep you in and hold you tightly in his poetic storytelling. This is a beautifully told tale of how both young and old are at odds with time. How we all have to go to war with the truth of our mortality and it's never too late to embrace life and start living it to the fullest. I may be biased because Dandelion Wine is one of my all time favorites and I love these characters, but this is a book I would recommend to everyone.

This is the last novel Ray Bradbury wrote in his lifetime, and a sequel to Dandelion Wine, which was published 49 (!) years earlier.

n  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.

So along the road those flowers spread that, when touched, give down a shower of autumn rust. By every path it looks as if a ruined circus had passed and loosed a trail of ancient iron at every turning of a wheel. The rust was laid out everywhere, strewn under trees and by riverbanks and near the tracks themselves where once a locomotive had gone but went no more. So flowered flakes and railroad track together turned to moulderings upon the rim of autumn.

"Look, Doug," said Grandpa, driving into town from the farm. Behind them in the Kissel Kar were six large pumpkins picked fresh from the patch. "See those flowers?"

"Yes, sir."

"Farewell summer, Doug. That's the name of those flowers. Feel the air? August come back. Farewell summer."

"Boy," said Doug, "that's a sad name."n

I love Ray Bradbury. I love his way with words, and the nostalgic feeling he gives me—I often associate music with seasons, but not books, and definitely not authors—Ray is the exception. His books are everything I connect with those lush late summer days as summer changes into autumn, well into those deceivingly warm October days and Halloween time. I've found that I seem to always grab a Bradbury book around that time of year.

Dandelion Wine is hailed as a masterpiece. I started Farewell Summer thinking it would be a natural extension of it, which in a way, it was, although this is an actual (very short) novel, as opposed to the prequel, which was interconnected, autobiographical short-stories, a format that's usually not really for me and marred my enjoyment of Dandelion Wine a little, so I appreciated the fact that this was one narrative.

Literally, it's about the young waging a war against the old (and vice-versa). Figuratively, it's about changing seasons, changing bodies and minds, growing old, and losing one's childhood innocence.

All well and good, but towards the end it lost me—it's quite clearly a book about boys and men, written by an old man in the winter of his life. I get what he was trying to do when they (yes, literally) talk to their rousing/dying penises, but that was the probably most ridiculously heavy-handed metaphor I've ever come across in a book that was really good up to that point. I'm also not down with the fact that the girl who kisses Doug in front of the haunted house was nothing more than a symbol, snatching away his innocence and childhood, and awakening his manhood.

The gorgeous writing salvages the storyline, so let's make it an average three.

Billed as a sequel to Bradbury's wonderful "Dandelion Wine," "Farewell Summer" was actually written several decades later.

While it had many of the same characters -- boys on the cusp of becoming teenagers -- it did not, for me at least, have the same zing or freshness as "Dandelion Wine." I also that one of its central motifs -- a largely symbolic "war" between the young boys and a coterie of old men -- to ring false. It seemed a tad forced.

Yes, I could understand how boys, in beginning to understand the nature of "time" and what it meant for all of them as well as for those who were older, might conjure up the rather fantastic notion of stopping the great central square town clock in order to "halt" its onward motion, allowing them to stay young and fresh forever...if I gave really free range to my imagination.

But the idea that the old men would concur that it was the boys who were the problem, even their "enemy," just didn't seem acceptable.

There IS a vast gulf between the old -- I am 77, so I understand this -- and the young (remember when you were young and thought how terribly ancient 40 or 50 was?), but resentment, rivalry? Gee, I've never experienced that, either as a boy or now as an elder. In fact, I have never been so conscious of hoping that the young will have a better world than we now know, free of the hatred and divisiveness so many politicians and media figures roll in every day. I support vigorous efforts to reduce our global warming habits for that very reason: so that the young, and all of our fellow creatures, have a future in which pleasant living is possible.

Of course, Bradbury is weaving a fable that includes the young coming to understand that they, too, will die and the old who yearn for the vigor -- and above all, remaining time -- that they had when they were young.

That said, I found it a pleasant book, not least because towards its end a more realistic conversation begins between young and old.

If you are going to read just one of Bradbury's many lovely books, read "Dandelion Wine" before this one.

Lo primero que se debe decir es que la prosa de Bradbury, luminosa y magistral, está presente en este libro, tanto como en Dandelion Wine, al igual que sus temas de interés tan característicos: el amor a la vida, el asombro, el misterio de la muerte, las cosas —dulces y amargas— que nos van trayendo la edad, el paso del tiempo y las estaciones.
Pero la historia y los protagonistas se alejan mucho de su predecesora, hasta el punto de que más que secuela podría considerarse un nuevo comienzo. Dandelion Wine es el final de algo, de esa época dulce y asombrosa que esa es la infancia, mientras que Farewell Summer enfrenta a sus personajes principales —al joven y al anciano— a nuevas etapas y nuevas formas de mirar la vida. Creo que las sensaciones de nostalgia por ese mundo que empieza a despedirse ante los ojos del protagonista y el lector están demasiado bien logradas en Dandelion Wine, mientras que Farewell Summer pone el foco en la aceptación del hecho de que la vida es un constante seguir adelante, por mucho que nos guste lo que estamos viviendo ahora.
Por una cuestión de gustos personales, me quedo con Dandelion Wine. Ese seguirá siendo mi libro favorito, el que me propondré leer al menos una vez al año. Farewell Summer, concebido originalmente como parte de Dandelion Wine pero que terminó siendo una secuela aparecida cincuenta años después, se disfruta mucho y no daña a su predecesora. Lo que sí me alegra es que los editores hayan sugerido cortar el primero exactamente donde lo hicieron.