We've all been human for some amount of time and we enjoy stories about our condition. The authors considered the best are the ones that depict our humanity most accurately; and the best can uncannily understand and describe what we secretly (or openly) feel, desire or fear. They make us reflect on what it means to be human.
Novelists can do this on a large scale, while short stories offer a peek at a certain moment in a life that offer a full portrait of life. It can be a difficult thing to master. Ray Bradbury has been doing it for a number of decades now. A recent collection of his short stories, We'll Always Have Paris, contains examples of just how powerful short stories can be.
Bradbury is, of course, well known for his Martian Chronicles and the classic Fahrenheit 451. He's written hundreds of other stories, too, in the sci-fi genre and has done work in cinema and TV. While I've probably seen some of his visual work, I have never read any of Bradbury's works until now. I've considered reading Fahrenheit 451 a number of times but never got around to it. I was impressed with the short stories in We'll Always Have Paris, though, so perhaps it's time to visit his other work.
With a title like that it's a sure bet that the stories will be nostalgic and somewhat maudlin. Bradbury conveys those feelings and more — regret, temptation, loss, ecstasy — with masterful ease. His prose was the pinnacle of brevity, creating — in the bare minimum of words or sentences — tangible settings, authentic characters. I connect Bradbury with science-fiction and was expecting that out of these stories, but they weren't necessarily sci-fi. There was one that was out and out sci-fi, "Fly Away Home." It points out the difficulty of leaving home; in this case home being Earth and Mars again being the destination. People need familiarity, and they find a way to bring Earth to Mars.
Article comments
1 - Mark Schannon
Bradbury's amazing. Try "Something Wicked This Way Comes," for a chilling novel that Stephen King must have read as a child. There's a monster paper back with about 100 of his stories he selected. Some are wonderful, some are dated, but it's a great read.
He also published two books of very short stories--some 1 and 2 pages long that I remember as being great but can't find anywhere.
You're off on a great journey! Enjoy.
In Jameson Veritas
2 - Gray Hunter
Many thanks Mark. The stories in this collection are pretty short, too, like the one you mentioned.