After reading the short-story, "Homecoming," I was so happy to hear that Ray Bradbury had focused an entire novel on my favorite vampire-like family. Not vampire in the Twilight sense, but in the macrbre, rococo style as he puts it, where immortal destiny relies on a thin thread of human belief and fear. The problem is for everyone in the family, who lives at this house, who lives in the dark, the shadows, the wind, the un-dead, most mortal people believe in nothing. If everyone stop believing then they never were. But an obvious fear does exist when Cecy, the sleeping sister who travels in and out of creatures and human minds alike, lets on to the town sheriff that strange people live up in the house on the hill. She warns her cousins and family that live in the house to run and flee, spread out as warned by Great Great Grandma Nef, the Egyptian Mummy. In the end, everyone disappears into the night while the house burns down. Timothy, the child, the only mortal, take Nef to the museum for safe keeping. As for everyone else, we hope that they do a bit of scaring.

There are so many great characters in the story, but it's hard to say who the story is focused around. My guesses are Timothy since when end and begin on him, but the family as the whole is the protagonist. I would of liked more closure at the end, but like with most of his books, they are usually a compilation of short stories that don't neccessary adhere to the rules of a normal novel. But it was a great Halloween read! Which is what I think he intended it to be.

Here as we near Halloween, I must recommend this wonderful masterpiece to everyone. I would read it to children and yet know adults would also be enamored.

Related short stories about the 'Eternal Family'. They have lived for centuries in a big old house in Illinois, coming and going at different times, where preparations are being made for a homecoming.
Wonderfully written as only Ray Bradbury can, these stories introduce us to the members of the family, shapeshifters, telepaths, somnambulists, vampires and A Thousand Times Great Grandmére, who has been around since ancient Egypt. Originally conceived as a joint venture between Bradbury and illustrator Charles Addams, the book was put on hold for many years after Addams'death, but finally finished by Bradbury and published with many of Addams original drawings.
Highly recommended.

Delightful and Addams Family/Haunted Mansion-esque.

From the dust Returned
Bradbury tiene una forma de contar las cosas que te pone en el ambiente rápido, acogedora y elegante.
Una casa, llena de “seres paranormales” y un niño humano normal, tenemos a “Mil veces tatraratarara abuela” una momia. A Cecy un especie de espíritu que posee a las personas, al Tio que puede volar, a primos vampiros, hombreslobos y otros. Pequeñas historias y momentos, y aun así logra algo que es fantástico y con momentos tiernos, y frases geniales.
Y una crisis, riesgo por la falta de creencia, riesgo por que alguien puede creer y querer destruirles.
4.5 stars

Spectacular. This is, hands down, the BEST Halloween-ish ghost story I've EVER read. Neil Gaiman, take notes.

I read an interview with Ray Bradbury not so long ago, where he was talking about re-reading one of his own, older books (Dandelion Wine, I think), and he said he realized that he was never going to write anything that good again - he was amazed that he had written it. It was one of the saddest things from an author that I've heard... Unfortunately, reading this more recent book (2001), I see what he means. The book is not without its charms - but parts of it were initially written in the 1940's, others at other times, and it has a cobbled-together sort of feeling. In the past Bradbury has masterfully put together short stories to create a novel (The Martian Chronicles, for example, one of my favorite books), but this book just didn't convince me. Which is too bad, because I really like the theme - a mystical, Addams-family type group of weird characters with strange and occult talents, living semi-secretly among us regular humans... The note by Bradbury is interesting, talking about how he and Addams developed these similar ideas separately, but had talked about doing an illustrated book together - the project never came to fruition, but one of Addams' pictures is the cover art for this book. I wish they had done it, when they first talked about it.

This is such a strange book that it is tempting to explain why at length. I dislike the book so much that it would be a disservice to me if I did. Briefly: Bradbury seems confused about his characters. Early in his afterward, the best part of the book, he indicates that they MIGHT be vampires. Later he speaks of the stories as ghost stories: ghosts that sometimes live within the living and sometimes not. Because the author is not fixed on who these people are, neither am I, and this diminishes my involvement with them.

It is really a collection of short stories about the Elliott family, the characters not quite described above. Many of the stories lack plots. They are more incidents from the lives of these “people.” I did not find many of the incidents involving, though some spoke to me more than others. There is certainly nothing like a direction for these stories to go, but there is something like a conclusion at the end. I found this interesting, but not credible.

Bradbury does have a consistent and unusual tone in this book, which is something of an achievement, but I find Bradbury’s “mature” style wholly immature. It is thick with metaphor and simile, but I do not find those to be interesting, let alone compelling or revealing. True, a tongue and a worm share a basic shape, but calling a tongue a worm does not reveal worm like qualities in all tongues or in this particular tongue, for they share no qualities other than the slight resemblance. This is metaphor for metaphor’s sake, and that is bad writing.

I find it sad that Bradbury’s best work was in the fifties and sixties. I know that Bradbury has fervent fans. I do not know why.

Це збірка оповідань, об'єднаних сюжетом та персонажами. Історія й справді трохи нагадує "Сімейку Адамсів", але це й не дивно, бо Бредбері був добре знайомий та навіть співпрацював із автором "Сімейки .."
Мені було дуже приємно та цікаво читати ці оповідання, особливо осінніми вечорами. Кожне з них як казка, але до того ж трохи містичне та навіть ��ілософське. Рада, що ця книга потрапила мені до рук, вона напевно потрапить в топ прочитаних мною цьогоріч історій.

Бредбъри е прекрасен и безкрайно поетичен писател, надарен с огромни въображение. "От прахта родени" засяга всеобхватната и вечна тема за живота и смъртта, но представена по толкова красив, тъжен уникален начин, че е абсолютно удоволствие да се чете. Тук автори като Кинг, Дан Симънс и други по-съвременни се вижда колко са взаимствали (като цяло от Бредбъри си се взаимства по много), а в тази книга го има и онова усещане за семейство Адамс (Бредбъри и самия Адамс са имали идеи за съвместни проекти, които за жалост не са се осъществили). Чудесна книга с привкус на пустинни дюни, египетски папируси, много мъдрост, красота и лекота.

Have you ever watched the TV programme "The Addams Family"? A strange way to start a book review, perhaps, but bear with me and all will become clear.

Charles Addams was an American cartoonist and comic strip artist known for his black humour and macabre characters. His work regularly appeared in The New Yorker, where according to a biographer, he was "drawing with a happy vengeance". Ray Bradbury is a master story-teller, a science-fiction writer whose works are without fail extraordinary flights of the imagination. They met in 1946, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In his twenties Ray Bradbury wrote a short story entitled "Homecoming". It was to be the first in a series of tales chronicling a family named the Elliotts. But this was no ordinary family. Yes, they were loyal and loving, with great hearts and compassion, as families should be. But they were a strange outlandish family, comprised of ghosts and unnamed supernatural creatures, who all lived in Illinois, in the Mid-Western United States.

Charles Addams painted a two-page spread to illustrate "Homecoming", which was published in the October 1946 issue of "Mademoiselle" magazine. Although "Homecoming" had been rejected several times, this time the editors enthusiastically decided to change the magazine to fit the story, and based the whole issue around it. The pair, Bradbury and Addams, became friends and planned to collaborate on a book of the Elliott Family's complete history with Bradbury writing and Addams providing the illustrations, but it never materialized.

From then on, their two paths diverged. In an interview, Bradbury stated that Addams,

"went his way and created the Addams Family and I went my own way and created my family in this book."

"The Addams Family" became a huge success, both on television and films, and in cartoon and book form. However, it is a very different beast from Bradbury's. Addams heightened the humour and populist treatment; Bradbury's stories about the Elliott family kept the wry macabre humour, but were by turns lyrical, wistful, poignant, and chilling.

"From the Dust Returned" then, is Bradbury's created novel from 2001, about the immortal family. The author developed six of his short stories written over a fifty-five year period. All of the stories had appeared in magazines, and some also in previous anthologies, so the reader may well have a feeling of deja-vu whilst reading this novel. If anything this adds to the dreamlike feel characteristic of all Bradbury's writing.

The cover illustration to the book is the original one by Charles Addams, created to accompany the first story. Sadly Addams never saw this novel; he died in 1988. Interspersed in the text are small line drawings of spiders, cats, tombs, skeletons and suchlike, to enhance the mood. The previously published six stories are interwoven with newer chapters and lyrical prose passages, connecting to make a unique atmospheric patchwork of a most peculiar clan.

"They hollowed, they lingered, they roared down and wafted up... the shapeless and invisible winds... carrying the semblance of their old weather with them. And if they had names at all it was monsoon or sirocco or santana... hurricanes flung hopeless... or flurried south with freezing breaths to meet the breaths of fire that moved intemperately across the Gulf."

Bradbury says that his initial inspiration for the Elliott family dates back to his childhood, and the Halloweens he spent at his grandmother's house. This resulted in the first short story, "Homecoming." He then published five further stories about the Elliotts.

They have lived for centuries in a house of legend and mystery. Nobody except the family know where it is, and they preserve its secret location ferociously. Rarely encountered in daylight hours, the family's children are strange and wild; all supernatural creatures of the night save one - Timothy - the human foundling son they feel sorry for and adopt. He is considered to be abnormal by them as his face reflects in a mirror; a perfect example of Bradbury's trademark ghoulish wit. Ironically it is Timothy who is the poignant character in this weird tale, for it is he who carries the burden of time on his shoulders. The family are right; he is strange. He is unique. For unlike them, one day he must age and die.

This series of interconnected stories, uses a device Bradbury has used before, notably in "The Illustrated Man". In this case the linking character is A Thousand Times Great Grandmère, the family matriarch. She is the mother of Nefertiti, and she and Grandfather have survived since before the Sphinx in Egypt. She speaks pronouncements; lyrical passages from deep within her mummified wrappings. She speaks about the old ones, and of millennia gone by,

"a captive of time, her eyes slits of deep blue lapis lazuli behind thread-sewn lids, a glitter of remembrance as her mouth, with a shriveled tongue wormed in it, whistled and sighed and whispered to recall every hour of every lost night four thousand years back"

The main character is Cecy, "the one who dreams," a young girl yearning for love who can experience the world only through the travels of her mind as she flies high in the consciousness of bird, or bat... or human. There is Uncle Einar, a fun-loving, proud-winged vampire who loses his ability to fly. There is Tom, a farm boy whom Cecy "meets" and falls in love with one night during one of her spirit-borne journeys.

Throughout the stories, there is growing tension as the house is being got ready for the gala homecoming that will gather together the farflung branches of the family, whether shapeshifter, telepath, somnambulist or vampire. But in the midst of eager anticipation, there is a sense of doom. For the world is changing. And it is Timothy who must find a way to resolve it. The ending... well it is unexpected. Afterwards the reader has a great sense of loss, but also a sense of inevitability.

This novel shows Ray Bradbury's powerful vision and imagination, with just one single human representative of the Elliott family. It is very different in feel to the Addams family of the television series, or indeed, the cartoons. But then from the initial conception has developed something touching, wistful and strange, at times reading like liquid poetry.

A critic once stated, "Ray Bradbury is Edgar Allan Poe for optimists." A good description of this book, perhaps? Here's a taste,

"And what are you, or we, or us? Can it be named?...Are we kin to Autumn rains? Do we rise in mists from wetland moors? Do twilight fogs seem similar? Do we prowl or run or lope? Are we shadows on a ruined wall?...Do we hover or fly or writhe...? Are we footsteps heard to waken us and bump our skulls on nailed-shut lids? Are we batwing heartbeats held in claw or hand or teeth?...Do we abide in walls as mortuary beetles telling time?...Do we sleep by day and swarm-glide the splendid night? When Autumn leaves shower bullions are we that Midas stuff, a leaf-fall that sounds the air in crisp syllables? What, what, oh what are we?"

"I'm finished!" und wütend.

Es ist eines der schlecht geschriebensten und langweiligsten Bücher, die ich je gelesen habe (davon gibt es 2 in meinem Leben). Ich habe es nur fertig gelesen, weil es so wenig Seiten hat.


n  Das Positive zu erst:n
Bradbury hat einen durchaus poetischen Schreibstil und das Buch riecht (neu gekauft!) nach feuchtem Keller.
Wie passend.

n  Was mir nicht gefallen hat:n
Er hat drei (extrem) lange Sätze drin. Ein Satz mit 14 Zeilen, ein Satz mit 19 Zeilen und ein Satz mit 32(!)! Es macht noch nicht einmal Sinn, diese Sätze so unnötig lang zu formulieren. Da hat ihn wohl nur sein Ego geritten #UndEsKommtDochAufDieLängeAn

Cecy ist ein wirklich mieses Arschloch.

Wie die Frau im Zug beschrieben wird:
"betagte Frau, deren Busen einer Festung glich", "unter deren gleichmütiger Stirn [wtf soll das sein?!] eine Güte in den Augen leuchtete, die im Laufe der Jahre nachgelassen hatte", "Sie hatte eine schwarze Arzttasche an der Seite und ein Thermometer in der Brusttasche, die einem Mann angemessener gewesen wäre, stecken."
Es stellt sich später raus, dass sie Krankenschwester ist.

"Der erste Herzschlag des Gepensts [irgendein knochiger Untoter] im Orientexpress seit mehr als einer Stunde."
Weil sie ihm "Ein Weihnachtslied in Prosa" (in Wahrheit "Die Weihnachtsgeschichte") auszugsweise vorliest. Und warum hat ein "Gespenst" einen Herzschlag?!
Warum?!

Es ist keine Geschichte, die sich um das alltägliche Leben vom Timothy in der "Addams Family" dreht. Es hat rein gar nichts mit der besagten, wundervollen Serie zu tun, außer, dass seine Familie ebenfalls aus Untoten (welcher Art auch immer) besteht.

Das Gepenst schrumpft bis auf seine "Röntgenknochen" zusammen? Weil Atheisten an seiner Abteiltür vorbeilaufen?

Warum sind von 5 Dutzend Untote vor dem Haus und kurze Zeit später zum "Archivieren" nur noch 21 übrig? Die müssen doch alle da bleiben weil es doch urplötzlich überall auf der Welt keinen Platz mehr für sie gibt!?

Warum hat das Haus 30 Zimmer und bietet 3 Dutzen Gästen platz. Aber wenn diese Abreisen und 3 noch nicht gehen wollen, gibt es plötzlich akuten Platzmangel und sie müssen in der (leicht brennbaren!) Scheune schlafen?!

Ektoplasmasommerfäden? Als Rückzugsort für WEN vom Herbstvolk [die Untoten]!?
Was zum Teufel sollen bitte Ektoplasmasommerfäden sein?!

Um wen gehts hier eigentlich? Cecy oder Timothy?

Erst rennt Cecy weg und eine Seite später liegt sie wieder gechillt im Haus und pennt?!

Was Stephen King an manchen Stellen sehr gerne übertreibt, macht Bradbury wesentlich zu wenig. Er nimmt den Leser nicht mit in seine Welt und erzählt selbst aktuelle Ereignisse nur abgehackt und mit absurden Zeitsprüngen. Die Qualität der Gespräche wird auch echt nicht besser, Lebendige und Untote reden in gleichen angehackten Halbsätzen. Sehr selten kommen vernünftige Sätze aus ihrem Mund. Es gibt keine Charakterentwicklung, niemand der Protagonisten wird einem irgenwie näher gebracht und man weiß auch nich wie diese Untoten aussehen und um welche Form es sich handelt! (mit Außnahme des Rostigen Scharnierquitschens, dem Vampir, dem Unsichtbaren und dem Kerl mit Flügeln).
Das ist das einzige Gruselige hier.

Fazit:
Warum habe ich diese Scheiße überhaupt gelesen?