Thoroughly delightful. I loved it. What a summer! (Green Town, Illinois, 1928) It reads like a series of standalone short stories, skilfully threaded together to make a novel, spun around pre-teen Doug and his younger brother Tom. The writing is eye-wateringly good and I can’t stop smiling!

This is my first Bradbury.
It's a shortish novel that consists of short (some just 1-2 pages) anecdotes that unfold around Douglas Spaulding, 12 years old, in the summer of 1928, in his town of Green Town, Illinois. (His birthday is in August, so he is 13 at the end of the novel, but somehow, the birthday is only mentioned briefly. Which I sort of liked.)

Crossing the lawn that morning, Douglas Spaulding broke a spider web with his face. A single invisible line on the air touched his brow and snapped without a sound. So, with the subtlest of incidents, he knew that this day was going to be different.

The hybrid structure was difficult to get used to. With short stories, we expect clever idea unfolding in a unique, usually intense, voice. Because there is not much middle in short stories, the ending is critical. The stories in this book, however, don't work that way because they are part of the overall novel. (With a few exceptions such as the story about William Forrester and Helen Loomis, which does have a somewhat neat ending.)

I guess the book can be read as a fictionalized memoir. As such, it’s special--it catches the feelings of Midwestern small town in the old days.

Or maybe this is indeed a novel. A plotless novel about life, growing up, with a sense of eventual death. It even touches the issue of reincarnation, which must have been a heresy in the US when this book was first published.

A long time back, she thought, I dreamed a dream, and was enjoying it so much when someone wakened me, and that was the day when I was born.
(Great-grandma, as she was dying.)

P.S. as of May 2016: I just bumped up the rating because, after all, Bradbury writes well.
And, I found a recipe for dandelion wine.

5/5
Odė vasarai. Kai ledai ima tirpti rankose ir palieka lipnius pirštus, kai užsidedi mylimiausius sportinius batelius ir pasileidi bėgti, kai neskaičiuoji laiko, nors iš tiesų jauti, kaip su kiekviena diena šis stebuklingas etapas eina į pabaigą. Kai žmonės įsimyli, kai turi progos daugiau pabendrauti su kaimynais, kai patiri netektį, net jei manei, kad vasara – tai tik meilė ir šiluma. Kai pasijauti gyvas.

Kūrinys, visiškai nukėlęs į ankstyvą paauglystę ir padėjęs su šypsena prisiminti daug šviesių akimirkų ir tuo pat metu, visiškai netikėtai, leidęs atrasti jautrių bei skaudžių pasakojimų. Nesitikėjau, kad „Pienių vynas“ mane nustebins savo melancholiškumu – taip, vasara čia tvanki ir kaitri, tačiau šalia to jaučiamas klampumas, ilgesys, nevengiama kalbėti apie mirtį, išsiskyrimą ir kitas kiekvieno mūsų gyvenimą sudarančias dėlionės detales, be kurių neapsieinama. Jaunatviškumą, energiją ir gyvybę keičia susitaikymas su pabaiga, nelaiminga meilė, išgąstis, ir per daugybę atskirų, bet persipynusių istorijų šiame romane spėji patirti visą karuselę emocijų. Kai kur knyga vaikiškai ir be galo žaviai naivi ir to naivumo norisi pasisemti bei turėti sau, kad nušviestų kasdienybę. Kartais kūrinys netikėtai rimtas ir spaudžiantis širdį. Bet jis visada išlieka savas ir neabejotinai magiškas.

Džiaugiuosi, kad turėjau progą pabėgti nuo niūrių rudens dienų į pienių vyno pritvinkusį, saulės kaitinamą ir juoko bei ašarų pripildytą gyvenimą. Jaučiu, kad skaitysiu dar ne kartą, kai kasdienybė reikalaus būtent tokio pabėgimo. Ir kai norėsiu sau priminti, kad esu gyva.

I listened to this one on audio book and thought it would lose something in the spoken word, but it did not. Bradbury weaves multiple shorts into a masterpiece of summertime nostalgia - Beautifuly written and engaging. Classic.

"El vino de diente de león. Las palabras sabían a verano. El vino era verano cerrado y taponado.
Ten el estío en la mano, sírvete un poco de estío, un vasito nada más, por supuesto un sorbito para niños; cambia la estación en tu venas llevándote el vaso a los labios y empinando el estío."

En este libro de Ray Bradbury no viajamos al futuro, sino al pasado, cuando éramos niños. Como una remembranza de sus años juveniles Ray Bradbury nos cuenta la vida de uno niño llamado Douglas Spaulding y la de su hermano menor Tom, así también como la de su familia que incluye a sus padre, abuelo, tías y amigos.
Da la sensación que Bradbury quiso escribir su propio Tom Sawyer y lo logra a base de pasajes verdaderamente frescos y poéticos.
Está contenida en esta historia toda esa magia que percibimos de niños cuando, al igual que Douglas, nos damos cuenta de que estamos vivos y de que tenemos un tiempo inconmensurablemente eterno por delante. Todo es nuevo, todo está por descubrirse.
Con una narrativa placentera y bella, Bradbury nos mete dentro de la piel de estos dos chicos durante el verano de 1928 en el ficticio pueblo de Green Town en Illinois y logra por momentos que podamos retrotraernos hacia la época de nuestra propia infancia, a recordar aquellos años gloriosos que como adultos sabemos que jamás volverán pero que siempre atesoramos en el corazón.
Por otro lado, es también una manera de decirnos que conservemos en el corazón a ese niño que alguna vez fuimos y que de alguna manera nos veamos reflejados en nuestros propios hijos e hijas.

My favorite Bradbury and one of my top 5 fave books of all time. So beloved in our family excerpts were read at my Mom’s funeral. A beautiful coming of age story evocative of the author’s own in a sleepy 1928 Illinois town. Captures an America long gone, life lived at “pause” when families gathered on the porch after supper for storytelling. Gorgeous vignettes tie together the summer 12-year-old Douglas “gets” for the first time that he is ALIVE! — and conversely that death lurks for those he loves. I especially adore the stories of Colonel Freeleigh, he of the bad heart forbidden to call Mexico City which he so loved, and the impossible romance between young reporter Bill Forrester and ancient Helen Loomis, who sweeps him ‘cross the world with her entrancing stories of exotic travel. A book to be savored and reread and kept on one’s shelf of literary treasures.

Every time I start a book by Ray Bradbury, I groan and fume, then get bored and irritable. His sentences are so bad. I want to get out my red pen and act like a high school teacher. The characters are drawn in such an odd way that as a reader I get self conscious. I don't care about these everyday people, but then they start voicing those slightly skewed Bradbury thoughts and I recognize those ideas as ones I've had myself.

Eventually I arrive in the world he has created, whether it is Mars or the Midwest. I can see, hear, smell and taste it. In Dandelion Wine, it is the summer world of a small Midwestern town; the summer as seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding.

As he gets his new summer sneakers and races around town, down into the ravine, across new-mown lawns, with his brother and his friends, he sees the young, the old, the eccentric, the sorrowful. He begins to get the whole picture of life because he is on the cusp between child and young adult. He is not entirely happy about it all.

By the end I am left with recovered thoughts and pictures from my twelfth summer. I feel that tarnished innocence, that mixed feeling about adults, that urge to grow up stalled by the wish the remain a child.

Truly, I am not sure how he does it.

This is a book about war, the war with Time (mind the capital T!). But we are well braced, we have dandelion wine, which captured the sun of every day of summer. We have a time machine: Colonel Freeleigh with who we travel time back to the Indian Wars and even the Civil War. We have Helen Loomis, who travelled the world in her youth ALONE and now reimages her travels for a man 60 years her younger, who fell in love with an old photography of her. And we have the memory of Ray Bradbury who takes as back to the mind of a 12-year-old Doug who sees the magic in our plain world. It is in this summer of 1928 that he understands that he is alive and wants to feel all there is to feel. I found out I was alive. Boy did I hop around. And then, last week in the movies, I found out I’d have to die someday. He understands that life is about RITES AND CEREMONIES and about DISCOVERIES AND REVELATIONS. But time strikes back, and older people realize No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. … Be what you are, bury what you are not.

So far, I have known Bradbury only for his phantastic and SF stories. This is about the real past of the author. Green Town in fact is Waukegan, a small city in northern Illinois. Nothings special, but Bradbury inhabits this place with extraordinary people, mysterious killers, a dreaded ravine, a happiness machine, and a witch. So, the change was not so big after all.

Ray Bradbury's Childhood Home


I deeply enjoyed reading this book and underlined many sentences. I want to share one more, uttered by old Colonel Freeleigh when speaking about the Civil War. I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a wining thing. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms.

In this book we follow a twelve year old boy, Doug, through his summer vacation. You follow not only his thoughts, deeds and contemplations, but also those of his younger brother, Tom, who is ten, and of his friends and other characters in the fictive Green Town. The book is semi-autobiographical, based on the author's own childhood summers in Waukegan, Illinois. I thought I would get summers and childhood reminiscences in a small Midwestern town. The year is 1928. Kick-the-can, new sneakers, warm summer nights on porches, lightning bugs and most importantly NO SCHOOL. I thought this would be fun. I got the games, the sneakers and the bugs, but……

Some classify this as science fiction. Others see it simply as containing a large portion of magical realism. Doug has a vivid imagination. Here is where the magical realism comes in, and with this I have no problem. On the other hand, the adults’ behavior is just too ridiculous for words. Their antics stretch the believable, and each event delivers a pithy moral. There is a "happiness machine" that burns up, and thereafter we are given a sentimental lesson about what is real happiness. Which of course I do agree with, but it is so simplistic, so obvious. The machine, that is the invention of one of the adult town denizens, not one of the kids!

I had a much easier time with Doug's grappling with typical coming of age issues - death, happiness, the value of learning. It was amusing to observe his interactions with his brother and what his brother says. The two are very different! Again, the town’s adults’ behavior gets in the way. Quarrels, gossip and yes even a silly murder is thrown in. That we are delivered different “events”, different things that happened that summer of 1928, makes the reading disjointed. By focusing on so many different characters you get little depth in any character portrayal.

All too often what is said and what happens are not believable. Continually, I would remark, "One wouldn't do that or say that!" An example is when Aunt Rose is sent packing. That would not happen. She would be told to get out of Grandma's kitchen, but not to leave.

Occasionally the feel of summer is well described, but so much more could have been done to conjure the feel of summer. No marbles. No swimming.

So much more could have been done with Doug's grappling with the idea of his own death.. At his age kids do all of a sudden realize "they-will-die". It is quite a shock. I remember going through this myself, but as it is described here it is shallow. Again no depth.

The narration of the audiobook by Paul Michael Garcia is fine. I just wish he had paused a bit between the different chapters. This is necessary since each chapter is like a different story and they are not numbered. You need a pause, though it is only a minor problem.

I love the idea of dandelion wine being the repository of all that is summer, but this book, in my view, doesn't capture that. Good idea, poorly executed.

I guess i had high expectations for this one.. but something couldn’t land for me.. maybe because i read it in the wrong season and wasn’t really in the mood for it.. I don’t know.. all i know is that Bradbury is giving nostalgia and summer realness and absolutely adored all that but I couldn’t keep a focal point in the narrative and that really put me out of the great environment that i was exploring before i got distracted from something else. Maybe i will appreciate it more in a few years.

This hits me right in my childhood. It evokes emotions and wonder of boyhood summers. I loved it

Sparkling and witty, a remarkable read.