This is my favorite novel. I haven't written a review for it yet because I feel too much pressure to capture in words how I feel about this magical book. So for now let's just say I'll expand this short review at a later date. If I don't say that now, I might never write the review.

So why is this my favorite book?

Here are just a few reasons:

1. It captures the complex and wonderful relationship a child can have with his grandparents. My own grandma and grandpa helped raise me and are still two of the most important people in my life. They're both eighty-eight and both in good health. No words can describe how special a grandparent can be. No words can describe my grandma and grandpa, and I suspect some of you feel similarly about yours. The grandparents in Dandelion Wine are the perfect blend of warmth, intelligence, experience, and deep love. For that alone, I love the book.

2. The novel is amazingly diverse. There are funny vignettes (the stuff with the artificial turf is both hilarious and passionate), heartbreaking moments, scenes of sheer terror, and relationships so realistic that we find ourselves experiencing the characters' emotions as powerfully as though they are our own.

3. Speaking of heartfelt...have you ever had a friend move away? Or moved away from a friend? No writer has more astutely captured that helpless, hollowed-out, heartrending moment of goodbye. When Douglas must say farewell to a friend, I feel every ounce of his sorrow.

4. The book contains the most unlikely and perhaps most beautiful romance in literature. If I told you about it, you'd think me a weirdo. So read the book and learn about a youngish reporter and his relationship with an "older" woman. Their scenes will very likely transport you, move you, and make you choke up--all within about fifteen incredible pages.

So if you've never read Dandelion Wine, I hope you do soon. Simply put, it's love on paper. I love Bradbury and am deeply thankful he left us this and other gifts.

Haven't tasted anything as good as this season's dandelion wine. It is rich, effervescent: it transports you like some Madeline to a time when it was bottled: its sunshine color will redden your cheeks and make you remember...

This coming of age idyll is absolute perfection. This, because idylls are fictional: the remembered anecdotes of childhood is where darkness creeps, and where nature has plans that are cyclical and macabre. Of this Bradbury writes in astonishing prose, of the undertow, of "that crouching malignancy down below." (45) That the child realizes his mortality, this slice of personal history we all may share, this is what's at stake in "Dandelion Wine" (I avidly question why the book hasn't been received as a genuine All American Novel, as it is wicked, like "Winesburg, Ohio," & has more (complex) lessons than any Atticus Finch could possibly pass on to his students). The childhood lessons border on the metaphysical--again, I am sure Bradbury has arrived at the root of the root of... It shows us this part of himself that shows us part of ourselves.

The novel is very unpredictable, life-as-lived. What image from the writer's early biography will we be standing before in awe next? Even the fantastic dialogue displays tremendous themes, battling it out with everyday minutia. Youth and age are in silent revolt: as is technology and daily life, as is life and death. In this ebb-and-flow-created "harmony", the master brings out the shady outlines of death; almost a century old, the novel is nothing if not modern, futuristic even, in so many regards...

You know the popular adage: It takes a Whitman to make us value/pay close attention the little natural details of life; it takes a Bradbury to make us question such unholy a communion with the grass under our feet...

"Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer, and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them."

n  n

¡apparently my 1,000th rating! I should be stoked at the milestone I guess, but I was really digging how that 999 looked under my avatar. maybe I should go back and un-rate something and then just keep doing that as needed.

"Dandelion Wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered…"

As I turned the first page, I found myself in an Illinois berg by the name of Green Town. The year was 1928; a summer packed with possibilities had just begun for Douglas Spaulding and his pals.

"Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite."

I delighted in Bradbury’s cinematic imagery as I met the town’s inhabitants one by one and discovered what lay behind their closed doors.

"Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer."

This read like a string of short stories with Doug Spalding as the hub that tied them all together; each person he encountered took center stage and shared their part of the story.

"Gardening is the handiest excuse for being a philosopher. Nobody guesses, nobody accuses, nobody knows, but there you are, Plato in the peonies, Socrates force-growing his own hemlock. A man toting a sack of blood manure across his lawn is kin to Atlas letting the world spin easy on his shoulder."

When my journey began, I imagined a coming-of-age tale. And it was to a small extent, but more than that, it was an exploration of love, loss, aging, and a realization that where we are is precisely where we are meant to be.

"No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now."

Bradbury’s poetic prose flowed like a lazy river, expertly carrying me through this enchanting novel. If you haven’t read Dandelion Wine, I highly recommend that you spend some time in small-town Illinois.

Sure, it's overly sentimental and largely ignores the social problems of the time depicted, but when you're 12 years old in small-town America, there are no social problems. There are only problems regarding the new pair of tennis shoes you want, the creepy guy who hangs out in the ravine, the desire to live forever, to be young forever, to build the perfect happiness machine. Besides, Bradbury's writing is so rich it practically drips, much like biting into a perfectly ripe peach in August.

Review originally posted on A Skeptical Reader.

n  Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I'm one of them.n

In a serendipitous moment, I discovered this quote on my friend Sookie’s favorited quotes page and instantly began craving the book. I was left pondering over these words for days and weeks afterward, just knowing I would love this. And when I finally got my copy in mail, I devoured the whole novel and was still left wanting more.

Dandelion Wine is a fictionalized story of Ray Bradbury’s own childhood growing up in Waukegan, Illinois in 1920s. We follow Douglas, a young boy, growing up in Green Town, IL and the novel centers around the events of a summer in his childhood.

This is a breathtakingly poignant, melancholic novel. The phrase ‘all the feels’ may be a bit clichéd but it has never suited a reading experience this perfectly. Dandelion Wine took me on a journey into my own consciousness and I experienced emotions ranging from sadness to frustration to pure joy. Throughout the course of the novel I kept flashing back to my own childhood and I saw that part of my life in a way I had never done so before.

While this is an emotional read, it’s not one where I found myself deeply attached to a lot of characters. Perhaps it’s because I simply wasn’t paying attention but for me the joy of the novel within it’s themes. It explores memory, adulthood, growing up, and the process of aging in the most deceptively simple but profoundly ways.

The novel also excels incredibly well at maintaining the balance of the real and the surreal. If you ever want to experience the perfection fusion of magic into the heart of realism, this is the place to start.

I cannot recommend this book enough. I love it, I adore it, I want the whole world to read it.

Is it possible to catch magic in a bottle? Sunshine or the stars in the sky like captured fireflies? Maybe not, but Bradbury certainly captured a boys summer in a bottle and it was sweet as Dandelion Wine.

There is something about Bradbury's style that makes me reminisce about my boyhood like no other writer has. Similar to what he did with Something Wicked this way Comes and The Halloween Tree, Bradbury pulls me into his story with his poetic, symbolically descriptive style in a way that does what true readers of fiction literature love; he transforms me from my world of reality into his story, and being a man, these stories are something to treasure because it is easy with age to forget your childhood, but when I am captured and taken up into these stories, I am reminded what it's like to be a boy again. I remember the adventures, running through fields, leaping fences and climbing trees. I remember the feeling of rolling in the grass and swimming through murky ponds. I can actually smell the aromas of the darkened movie theater, the county fair, and grandmas cobblers baking in the oven.

This story was a breath of fresh air, a sip from the fountain of youth, and it brought back some memories about life and loss that touched me in a way that I can only give this my highest rating. I admit, Dandelion Wine is not an epic, not an action packed adventure or thriller to tantalize a readers fancy. But what it accomplished in the heart of this reader makes it deserving of the best I can offer.

Damn it! I just knew I would love this book. That’s what I get for thinking.
And almost everyone loves it. Oh well!

Mel

Обожавам Рей Бредбъри... Неговият поетичен изказ и пленителната атмосфера в книгите му всеки път успяват страшно силно да ме развълнуват! Изключително любими са ми мрачните му „хелоуински“ истории („Дървото на Вси светии“, „Нещо зло се задава“ и други), много харесвам култовата антиутопия „451 градуса по Фаренхайт“, както и отделни негови разкази... Обаче „Вино от глухарчета“ си остава най-специалната, за мен, творба на великия Бредбъри, носеща ми чиста читателска радост!





„Вземи лятото в ръка, налей си лято в чашата, в мъничка чашка, разбира се, в най-мъничката детска чашка; смени сезона в своята кръв, като повдигнеш чашата до устните и в тях излееш лято.“


„— Това, че мисля за него, че го забелязвам, то е новото. Човек прави разни неща и не обръща внимание. А сетне внезапно, оглеждаш се и изведнъж осъзнаваш какво правиш, и всъщност тогава е първият път, когато истински го правиш.“


„— Ще видиш, това ще е напълно безполезно — продължил беше мистър Бентли, отпивайки от чая си. — Колкото и да упорстваш да останеш онова, което си била, ти можеш да си единствено това, каквото си сега, на това място. Времето хипнотизира. Когато си деветгодишен, струва ти се, че винаги си бил на девет и всякога ще бъдеш. Когато си на трийсет, струва ти се, че всякога си бил закрепен на този светъл ръб на средната възраст. А станеш ли на седемдесет, винаги и завинаги си на седемдесет. Човек живее в настоящето, той е впримчен в своето младо „днес“ или в старото си „днеска“, но друго „днеска“ на този свят не съществува.“





Впечатленията ми от други творби на Рей Бредбъри :


„451 градуса по Фаренхайт“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Нещо зло се задава“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„От прахта родени“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Марсиански хроники“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Париж завинаги“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Гръмна гръм“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Убиецо, върни се!“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Дървото на Вси Светии“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


„Зелени сенки, бял кит“:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

A mis libros favoritos DE CABEZA.
Un libro que reflexiona sobre tantos temas bajo esa capa de verano, calor y la cotidianidad rota por una magia extraña que irrumpe en la vida de unos vecinos...
Es de esos libros para leer poco a poco, te obliga a parar y detenerte en cada historia de ese pueblecillo, con cada personaje y reflexión, habla de la vida y de la muerte, de la locura en la que vivimos, obsesionados por aprovechar el tiempo perdiéndonos lo importante de lo que nos rodea, corriendo de un lado a otro sin pararnos ni un segundo simplemente a pensar.
Hay aquí una historia de amor imaginada preciosa, un anciano que ve la vida a través del teléfono, una máquina de felicidad que trae la infelicidad...
No puedo explicar lo que he disfrutado y aprendido con él, me parece una de esas lecturas especialmente importantes hoy, imbuidos como estamos por la tecnología, por el "hacerlo todo y hacerlo ya", sin dejar paso ni a un minuto de pensamiento... en este momento en que los libros se consumen (y publican) como la comida basura, esta historia te obliga a detenerte y valorar todo lo que se nos escapa sin darnos cuenta.

If a day ever comes when the patisseries of the world draw back their prized pastries and sweets, and replace them with old and new copies of Dandelion Wine, I would be the first one, surely, to grab hold of the person next to me and aver in my most jubilant voice that Yes, I did see it coming. Nobody else but me in the whole wide world.

Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding snaps his finger before a slowly waking Green Town, and thus begins the summer of 1928. A summer of surprises, of mysteries, of adventures, of love, and of death. A summer not to be forgotten, but to be relished. A summer to be bottled and put away, safe.

Oft, reclining on the bed, after several bouts of breathing in the fragrance from the heart of the book and wool-gathering, I would pull out the bookmark and open the page on which I fell asleep the previous night, and I would wait. The voice inside me would then begin to read a word, and another, then another, popping the beautiful sentences one after the other into my mouth, sucking them like fruit drops*. And I, finding myself with a familiar feeling, would nestle against the fluffy and delicate new found presence under my head, a presence of something incorporeal, a presence summoned by the sheer exquisiteness of the prose, a presence that wraps itself around you, a presence that dabs your eyes with colours of different but vivid hues, so that the next time your eyes dart away from the page, you find the world a tad changed, it’s secrets more limpid and more familiar.

With such prose, one needn't rest one’s head on pillows but the sentences, and then dream, and dream, and dream, with open eyes.

Dandelion Wine is a celebration of life and death, old and young, dark and light, joy and terror… Bradbury’s love of life, of small joys, of the life of everyday, gambols about the pages and leaps out and grabs hold of you, never to let you go. If Zen in the Art of Writing was a kick in the pants for this reader and sent him rushing to the blank page, Dandelion Wine is a pertinent reminder to find one’s own magic, to salvage those contours and colours of this intractable thing called life, the contours and colours which the clock winds can whiffle down the rugged hills into darkness anytime. A reminder to bottle them, to put them away safely. And then one day, when you feel like it, you can climb down the stairs and walk into the dark cellar, and dip a finger into the bottle, and taste them once again.

----

A gentle turn of the last page, and then blankness, expected but still surprising, announcing the surcease, the cessation of the note, the echoes of its crescendo ricocheting the walls of the ears still, the blankness playing the final tune, a tune so faint you could mistake it for a whisper, a tune that tugs the heart as you close the page and say your silent goodbyes to the people of Green Town.

But of course, all it would take is one more flourish and snap of the hands, and the summer of 1928 and Green Town would come alive once again, and with it you, Mr Bradbury, the boy who “finally fell out of trees when he was twelve and went and found a toy-dial typewriter and wrote his first ‘novel’”.

Thank you for “falling out”; for emancipating a smile I was oblivious of but had inside me all along; for sprinkling my insides with scintillas of sweet and shimmering snow that tickled and awakened the magic I thought I had lost with words; for all the secrets I felt but cannot name…for all of that, and much more.



----

* Inspired by a quote from Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal