I would like to read them and get to know them. I would very much prefer translation and renditions as close as possible to the originals as you can get into English. Thank you 🙏
I kept my eyes on the ground. I had to. I could hardly see the dog’s prints in the snow and it took all my focus to keep myself on the right trail. My eyes were so set on the ground I did not notice the strange grove ahead nor did I notice the recession of brambles and dying seedlings. And I did not notice the layer of snow thinning as I trudged along.
No, I did not notice until I saw the first specks of black rich soil laid bare and the small tufts of grass. The greenest grass I had ever seen. So green it lingered behind lidded eyes.
I stopped, confused. And I noticed I was not cold at all anymore.
I looked up.
I looked in wonder upon a springtime landscape of beauty. Beech trees with white bark like polished steel. Maple and oak rose tall and lean–their panoply of green coated their limbs and bathed the entirety with a soft emerald sheen. The grass, ever more the greener.
I breathed in the paradisiacal air. It was a medicinal tea–the warmth and sweetness soothed my throat and the blades assaulting my lungs all but disappeared.
The pleasant citrus dew of lily of the valley wafted around me. The vanilla hint of woodruff, basking in sunlight spears, powdered the warming air. There were more scents of flowers. Some I could discern like the hyacinth of mezereon and the fruitiness of cowslip and chamomile. Others were new to me–the flowers themselves were of a kind I had yet to behold until then.
I had the idea of maybe posting short stories and maybe poetry, along with short reviews of books I read, on substack for fun and writing practice. I know my chances are pretty low statistically either way, but could this potentially hurt my chances of getting traditionally published one day? Or is it completely safe to do?
>>It was cold.
My breath misted. Weaving through the dense thicket of sleeping trees and barren brambles labored my breathing. The thick snow reached up to mid-calf, crunching like broken glass beneath my boot. I had to lift my legs high each time to escape it. I was sure I looked like a stilted stringed puppet–the kind travelling entertainers would use to tell their tales at village faires.
I missed those faires. Back when father was alive and food was not so hard to come by.
It was cold and my lungs burned as if ice made little blades that cut at me from within. On occasion, I would cough up phlegm and a prevailing fear, no matter how unreasonable, was that it would be blood instead.
I could not stop myself from cursing and cursing. Over and over again I would curse. I would curse at the cold and chill that ate through to my bones. I would curse the frozen land that refused to bear food and the snow that covered it. I cursed the animals for their winter slumber and the birds for their migrations. I cursed my stomach for it never ceased its growls. I cursed my mother and sisters because they cried for food–cried for me to enter the forest again and again for food that was not here. And I cursed my father for a death outside his control. I cursed him for leaving me as the sole man of the family.
Worst of all I cursed myself for cursing all these things and more.<<
I would especially appreciate your thoughts on my prose. I struggle a lot with purple prose and inactive voice
I give it 2.75/5. To be honest, the book was a bit of a slog. Perhaps it was because of the translation. And from outside sources I realize that it's meant to be a profound critique of hyper rationalism or something. Which I can appreciate, but I honestly can't say that it was very well conveyed, which again may be a fault of my own intellectual limitations.
In a way I can appreciate it as a play off of Odysseus. Faber has all these strange events from fate on his way, eventually, back home to Hanna. I think that's certainly interesting and was handled well. I do dislike the Oedipus aspect of this, or rather the Electra aspect. I thought it was unnecessary and many of it made me uncomfortable, though I imagine that was partially the intent.
I was a fan of the climax, I think the death of Elsbeth or Sabeth was perfectly abrupt and cuts deep. That said, the resolution in my opinion was disjointed and seemingly random. While I can appreciate it as a means of symbolizing or representing a dying man's psychology as he struggles through existential crises and guilt, I have trouble finding it particularly enjoyable to read. At least in this novel.
So, my final thoughts are that the novel wasn't bad, but wasn't great. It has important themes and there are literary aspects I enjoy or respect, but I found much of it difficult to get through.
First, I would like to get my thoughts on his writing and the plot out of the way first. The prose of Ray Bradbury in this book is amazing. I would akin it to a scifi version of Tolkien. Not necessarily to say they are essentially the same or their styles are similar, but in comparison to the seemingly poetic nature of Bradbury's prose. The manner in which he was able to invoke emotion, detail scenery, and interwoven metaphors was master class in my opinion. Though I think where Tolkien's prose in the Lord of the Rings for example is a more drawn out, allowing for greater settling of events and environments in the mind, Bradbury's prose in this book is the perfect representation of the mind in existential crisis. Much of it is happening fast and hectically. Even the philosophical and literary discussions of Montag, Faber, and Beatty feel almost like action scenes. All of this culminates into a fast paced, yet introspective read where readers are almost slapped in the face by events and ideas. Almost as if you are meant to see and hear, and then take time to think deeply of what you observed afterwards. And I think that lends itself well to part of the themes of this story.
Speaking of themes, one theme I wanted to touch on because I think it is more potent than ever, is Bradbury's warning against consumerism. Of engaging in desertion of reality rather than a little bit of escapism (to paraphrase a youtuber I enjoy) and using our time to consume forms of entertainment that rarely lets us actually ponder and grow. Mildred and her friends would consume their programs with little thought. The programs they enjoy are personalized to a degree, but they are shallow. They consume and consume as they live their lives in their parlors for some semblance of joy without deeper meaning. Mildred thinks of these parasocial characters as family but would be hard pressed to truly describe the plot.
And I cannot help but see the resemblance to our modern times. Adults and children spend so much time on social media "doom scrolling" as we have aptly called it by our society. The watch algorithmically suggested content involving people they often don't know yet know far greater than the real people they spend their lives with. This content so many of us enjoy often has little to no plot if its fictional. No lessons to learn. And no deeper thoughts to ponder. They provide little more than dopamine hits and easy, yet unfulfilling human connections. There is a reason Mildred and her friends could not handle a few lines of poetry. And there is a reason Mildred (spoiler of an event that happens very early in the book) ||tries to kill herself||. Despite the dopamine. Despite the smiles and the laughs. No one could be truly happy living as she did.
One other thing I wanted to touch on was in relation to a quote by the character Faber. It has a word in it that I don't know is allowed here so I will have it spoiled.
"The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones >!rape!<her and leave her for the flies."
I resonate with this quote. A complaint I have with so much modern media, especially film, is the desire to write stories which are very cynical in their view of human nature and which desire, unnecessarily, the urge to show aspects of life which are unnecessary. And I feel this quote extrapolates that in a way I still can't lol.
Lastly, I want to praise Bradbury for his depiction of a dystopian world. So many dystopian books I have read are where the dystopia is done to us. The normal people are the victims of a totalitarian state or something of the like. And while a totalitarian state is very present in the story, it was not the cause of the dystopia in this setting. It was the outcome of a fatal sickness I believe we are suffering today in our world. In the modern world we have the greatest access to knowledge and to stories. And we have the greatest access and ease to create our own. And yet less and less people around the west at least are reading. Literacy rates are going down. And we as a society grow and grow in our consumerist mentality towards entertainment and even education. And it will likely only be made worse with AI making things intellectually easier for us. And the less we use our intellect, the more it atrophies and the more we become apathetic to the world. Stories in all forms have been, since the creation of language, the main modus operandi for mankind to educate and expand the understanding, morality, and compassion of ourselves and children. So while yes, a totalitarian state is a legitimate threat to fear and work against, we must gird our loins against self imposed chains of complacency. For a population that is complacent is a population which is easily subjugated.
Sorry for the rant and text wall. It likely makes little sense lol