Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001). The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity is a collection of essays by Ray Bradbury and published in 1990. The unifying theme is Bradbury's love for writing.
Essays included are: The Joy of Writing (1973) Run Fast, Stand Still, Or, The Thing At the Top of the Stairs, Or, New Ghosts From Old Minds (1986) How To Keep and Feed a Muse (1961) Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle (1980) Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451 (1982) Just This Side of Byzantium: Dandelion Wine (1974) The Long Road to Mars (1990) On The Shoulders of Giants (1980) The Secret Mind (1965) Shooting Haiku in a Barrel (1982) Zen in the Art of Writing (1973) ...On Creativity (No Date Given)
This book attempts to give creative ideas and inspiration to writers.
WHOOP! POW! Ray Bradbury's book on writing is BAMMO! The man's enthusiasm leaps off the page, and if nothing else, that exuberance will carry you with a full head of steam straight from this book and into your own book. Reading Zen in the Art of Writing is like having the best kind of encouraging friend pat you on the back while shouting "YOU CAN DO IT!!!"
Although some of his ideas and style is dated, there's still a great deal to be absorbed herein, after all, he is one of the best American writers of the past century.
Keep at it and write with the electricity that runs through you, that seems to be the words of wisdom Bradbury wants you to take away from Zen in the Art of Writing, a title that made me a reluctant reader. The application of zen, or maybe I mean its popularized conception, to the mechanics of writing had me worrying that it would be too much about spiritualism (I know, I know...) or that the approach to the craft would be meditative in technique. The only thing Bradbury wants you, the writer to meditate about is how best to get off your ass, stay off your ass, and keep on writing. Now stop reading reviews and get to it!
Read this if you're a huge Bradbury fan and want to read more about him and the famous things he wrote. It's not great if you're looking for practical information for aspiring writers or advanced tools for writers who want to improve their craft. I'm a Bradbury fan, so I liked the book. But overall, it felt pretty out of touch for aspiring writers today. I guess it's valuable as a statement of how things used to be in the writers market?
In terms of writing advice, it kind of boils down to "be imaginative as you can and work super hard!"
It's not bad or anything, but if you're specifically looking for a helpful or just inspiring book about writing, you can pretty easily do better than this.
Edit: I've been thinking about this book again, and I got one specific tool out of it that I think is worth sharing.
There's a chapter where Bradbury states that for a long time he'd start a short story on Monday, keep working on it all week, and then send it out on Saturday. That's a very fast timeframe for most of us, but Bradbury was a legendarily fast writer. The tool I got: a short story can be written in a small set duration of time, and that you can send it out and move right on. You can treat short stories like a work week: start on Monday, end on on Saturday. I know it it sounds a little basic, as tools go, but I found it really grounding. Sometimes writing can feel endless, especially when working on a novel. But this book reminds us that we can always set aside a week (or two, or three, or whatever we need) to write a full short story to completion. Thanks, Bradbury.
There are a lot of reviews written about this short but excellent book written in the tradition of Stephen King's "On Writing", or the other way around, given that Bradbury wrote his tome first. Yet there is an energy in this book that is infectious and it points the finger to us as writers to say - "get serious about this art or get out." His prescriptions for writing are no less demanding: 1) Write one short story a week for 5 years. Perhaps after this rigour, some good stuff might come out (Bradbury wrote one short story a week for 10 years before writing "The Lake"). Quantity leads to quality. 2)Engage in word association games to provide plots 3) Let events simmer for years - 20 to 30 years is okay - before writing about them 4) Draw from childhood where most of the skeletons in the closet lie.
And yet there were lines of inspiration that I have memorized for use when I am at my lowest: "We(writers) are trying to release the truth in all of us" "Slanting for the commercial or literary markets are unhappy ways for writers to live in the world" On writing - "you grow ravenous", "you run fevers". "You must stay drunk on writing so reality does not destroy you"
He also lived at a time when he could sell his prodigious output to pulp magazines, even as an emerging writer at the age of 24, for $20-40 per story, way back in 1944 - enough to make a living off his work. I've seen going rates for stories these days as low as $10.00; sometimes reward is just the honour of being published - inflation seems to have gone in reverse in the publishing business, at least, where writer compensation is concerned.
This is certainly an inspiring book for today's aspiring writer to keep by his side as a testament to a great author who was totally dedicated to his craft and who consequently reaped the rewards of that total immersion.
I LOVE Ray Branduty. His style. His insight. His vision. His everything. Probably it all was summed up nicely by himself in his ZEN of Writing. This volume is full of zen, hands down. Lots of incredible insight. Lots of wonderful essays on how Ray Bradbury became the visionary we've all come to know and respect and love and look up to. Hands down one of the finest books on writing ever. Worthy of 500 stars and more. A lot MORE! (I've no idea how come I've read this one just now and not ages before. A treasure I stumbled upon at random.) A fav for years to come. Respect. And Zen.
Q: Since then, I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room. (c) Q: "What's that dinosaur doing lying here on the beach?" I said. My wife, very wisely, had no answer. (c) Q: First I rummaged my mind for words that could describe my personal nightmares, fears of night and time from my childhood, and shaped stories from these. (c) Q: I was amused and somewhat astonished at a critic a few years back who wrote an article analyzing Dandelion Wine plus the more realistic works of Sinclair Lewis, wondering how I could have been born and raised in Waukegan, which I renamed Green Town for my novel, and not noticed how ugly the harbor was and how depressing the coal docks and railyards down below the town. But, of course, I had noticed them and, genetic enchanter that I was, was fascinated by their beauty. Trains and boxcars and the smell of coal and fire are not ugly to children. Ugliness is a concept that we happen on later and become self-conscious about. Counting boxcars is a prime activity of boys. Their elders fret and fume and jeer at the train that holds them up, but boys happily count and cry the names of the cars as they pass from far places. And again, that supposedly ugly railyard was where carnivals and circuses arrived with elephants who washed the brick pavements with mighty steaming acid waters at five in the dark morning. (c) Q: In other words, if your boy is a poet, horse manure can only mean flowers to him; which is, of course, what horse manure has always been about. (c) Q: Literary history is filled with writers who, rightly or wrongly, felt they could tidy up, improve upon, or revolutionize a given field. So, many of us plunge forward where angels leave no dustprint. (c) Q: But the subliminal eye is shrewd. (c)
Short version: This is the best writing book I have ever read. Long version: This isn't going to be a very eloquent review. Good books on writing are difficult to find. For several of my classes, professors have assigned books about writing techniques, and all of them have been terrible. Some of them have graphs, others have ways of mapping out character development, but generally these books try to break writing down to its skeletal form and make a biology lesson of it. It ends up being overly technical and discouraging for new writers. Bradbury's book, on the other hand, deals more with how your imagination can work for you. He starts off Zen by stating that you only need two things in writing: "zest and gusto." According to him, once you lose your zest for writing, your stories will fall apart. He insists on writing what you're passionate about, and suggests ways of keeping your passion going. This may seem like common sense, but it's the most helpful advice I've ever received from a How-To writing book.
(One piece of advice he offers is to put your nightmares in your stories. He says that if you're writing suspense, what scares you will scare your readers. He gives examples of how he drew on his fears and translated them into his novels. I tried it, and it definitely worked for me.)
鈥淭here is only one type of story in the world. Your story.鈥�
There is a wonderful scene early on in Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, which I am reading at the moment, where Atticus is reading 鈥楾he Martian Chronicles鈥� by Ray Bradbury. His father takes a rather dim view of such 鈥渕ostly white-authored genres鈥�, pointing out that Edgar Rice Burroughs鈥� John Carter, for example, was 鈥淎 Confederate officer鈥� (Gasp!)
鈥淚 do love them,鈥� George agreed. 鈥淏ut stories are like people, Atticus. Loving them doesn鈥檛 make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though.鈥�
This exchange reminded me of another book I finished recently, 鈥楢stounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction鈥� by Alec Nevala-Lee, which is a depressing forensic account of the misogyny, racism and other prejudicial behaviour associated with Campbell as editor and his coterie of writers.
Interestingly, Bradbury was way too esoteric a writer for the pages of Astounding, so Campbell passed on the opportunity of publishing one of the most influential writers in any genre, period. A fascinating tidbit I learnt from 鈥榋en in the Art of Writing鈥� is that one of the first reviews of 鈥楾he Martian Chronicles鈥� was by none other than Christopher Isherwood, who recognised it immediately as a future classic.
What I loved about this book is that it is far more than a 鈥榟ow to鈥� writing guide. Actually, its advice in that regard is rather esoteric, with Bradbury (unhelpfully) pointing to his habit of writing one story a week for a decade! Quantity will eventually deliver quantity, he espouses (calculating that he wrote about a million words before producing his first halfway decent story, 鈥楾he Lake鈥�, which appeared in 1944 in Weird Tales.)
No, the true value of this collection of essays, culled from Bradbury鈥檚 extensive career 鈥� covering his novels and play and screenplay writing, and a generous dash of his poetry 鈥� is that it is a window giving a bright view onto my own personal Golden Age of SF. And as Bradbury says, quite prophetically:
While our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalise us amidst it all.
I have to start with a confession: this is my first book by Bradbury. It could seem strange to begin with this essay/memoir, but I wanted to see what he had to say about the writing process. Now, I want to read his novels even more, because he talks about creativity the same way I do. He seems touched by the same things I am.
My 3* rating may be difficult to understand. In fact, I had to skim through some less interesting parts... but there were also some treasures among those essays, so it was totally worth it! I discovered a very interesting person behind the words I read. And I'm sad knowing he passed away almost ten years ago... I feel like I just found someone I could have been friend with, but we're living in two different eras. I'm sure Bradbury could have turn this idea into a short story in a couple of hours!
Nothing particularly new is told but Ray writes with such a passion and gusto that the book becomes a joy to read. References to stories and novels that I have not read abound and hence it was difficult to follow the train of thought. The poems at the end were a real bonus.
A short, (obviously) gorgeously written little collection of essays on the topic of writing.
If you are looking for a practical guide, this is not the book for you: I think that in collecting those little snippets, Mr. Bradbury was looking for to inspire and encourage rather than to actually give a master class on writing. In fact, it seems evident to me reading it that his own process was so spontaneous that he could not have given much practical advice had he been pressed to.
Mostly, these essays are made to assure people interested in writing that they should write about what they feel passionate about, keep exploring the stuff that excites them as it will create a subconscious mulch from which ideas will eventually grow, and that genre literature is just as important as so-called literary fiction.
I underlined many eloquent and inspiring passages that I will probably need to re-read a few times in my attempts at finally squeezing a story out of my brain; but it gets 3 stars because as lovely as it is to read, I really wished Mr. Bradbury has written advice that was a bit less lyrical and a bit more practical for aspiring writers of speculative fiction.
Oh, also, there's nothing in here about Zen in the Buddhism sense of the word ;-)
I believe one thing holds it all together. Everything I鈥檝e ever done was done with excitement, because I wanted to do it, because I loved doing it. The greatest man in the world for me, one day, was Lon Chaney, was Orson Welles in 鈥楥itizen Kane鈥�, was Laurence Olivier in 鈥楻ichard III鈥�. The men change, but one thing remains always the same: the fever, the ardor, the delight.
This is probably the one thing that I envy the most about Bradbury: his talent to express his enthusiasm with words, his unapologetic pride in being a dreamer, his faith that we can learn from the past and that we can use literature and poetry not as a means to escape from reality, but as a tool to make our dreams come true. My rating for this collection of autobiographical essays that cover decades of lectures and interviews and book launchings has more to do with my fanboy credentials than with any perceived value to students of creative writing, but I am myself feeling unapologetic about singing Bradbury鈥檚 praise.
About the time I finished highschool, forced to confront the fact that I had no idea what I want to do with my life, I toyed with the idea of becoming a writer. I was a voracious consumer of books and cinema, absorbing all these fictional worlds, and thought that if they can do it, maybe so could I. One of the very first essays in this Bradbury collection explains why my plans never got off the ground: Bradbury can later talk at length about his enchanted childhood memories or about his own passion for reading and watching movies or about ways to lure and capture the elusive muse of artistic inspiration, but the true secret of his success is discipline and hard work. For more than fifty years, he got up every morning and wrote one thousand or two thousand words. Later in the day, he came back and rewrote everything several times, until he was satisfied with the phrasing and the structure. He did this all on his own, year after year, with little commercial or publishing success. But it was the thing that he loved most in the world, and he kept at it until he became better, until the distance between an idea and its expression on paper was erased. For all his long career, Bradbury ignored both critics and praise, struggling to remain true to his inner vision, to his balancing act between childhood innocence and bleak visions of the future, to his faith that we as humans are not victims of predestination but we have the power to shape our own destinies.
鈥淚 have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.鈥�
[a rendition of 鈥業 Did It My Way鈥� is appropriate here]
Biographical details and the way they are reflected in the opus of the author are all fascinating in themselves, but the real focus of the exercise is creativity, that most elusive of the arrows in a writer鈥檚 arsenal, and this is where the term 鈥榋EN鈥� from the title of the collection comes into play. You, me, and anybody on this planet could and should be a writer, should be able to express his or her personality in words, give back a little of the treasure chest of experience and emotions gathered over a lifetime.
鈥淚f it seems I've come the long way around, perhaps I have. But I wanted to show what we all have in us, that it has always been there, and so few of us bother to notice. When people ask me where I get my ideas, I laugh. How strange -- we're so busy looking out, to find ways and means, we forget to look in.鈥�
What the orientals have to teach us is that contemplation is just as important as action. Action in writer鈥檚 terms means getting up each morning and putting down your ideas, your dreams and nightmares on paper. Contemplation is looking at the meaning of what you are doing, gazing at your own experience and trying to make sense of it in the larger social and emotional context. 鈥榋en鈥� is that special ingredient that Westerners seem to ignore or gloss over and it means inner peace and beauty, patience and generosity, the place where ideas trump action and plot.
鈥淧lot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.鈥�
or, in another place,
鈥淚 thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.鈥�
Just be yourself, be honest and diligent and the muse will come to you when least expected, just like a stray cat that will run away if you try to force it, yet will come back in curious earnest if you turn your back to it and engage in something interesting. Everything and anything could be a source of inspiration, from the works of other authors and poets, to the most mundane of household items. Your task is to entice the muse with everything that surrounds you, trash and treasure alike. Your task is to care deeply about the world you live in, to be curious and engaged in life, to understand your past and your future and your role in it by constantly questioning established thinking and ready-made answers.
鈥淥urs is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.鈥�
Authors are part of the world and not some detached, esoteric minds dwelling in ivory towers. Some of the harshest words in the essays are reserved for high-brow authors who cater to elitist literary magazines and despise low-brow popular entertainment for the masses. I don鈥檛 want to spend too much time refuting their existential angst, probably because I had enjoyed some of their output. Much more fascinating in this collection for me is the way Ray Bradbury鈥檚 career, starting in the early fifties and going on into the nineties, is a mirror of the public鈥檚 initial disdain of speculative fiction as pure escapism and low-brow literature, not worthy of academic consideration, transformed through the talent of Golden Age authors into the most pure and honest expression of our modern age woes and aspirations.
Librarians were stunned to find that science-fiction books were not only being borrowed in the tens of thousands, but stolen and never returned! 鈥淲hat鈥檚 in these books that makes them as irresistible as Cracker Jack?鈥�
For Ray Bradbury the answer to this dilemma is in the issues these authors tackled in their high adventure yarns, going back to the fundamental myths and legends of our racial memory, such as Joseph Campbell or Mircea Eliade were teaching about in university courses.
The children sensed, if they could not speak, that the entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science-fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival. You can鈥檛 have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions.
For Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Vonnegut Jr and the others, speculative fiction was never about entertainment or escapism 鈥� it was about our common future and the way only by imagining it today we can bring it about tomorrow.
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And his advice for prospective writers: be true to yourself, work hard every day to bring your dream to life, don鈥檛 sweat it if the going gets rough and at all times, keep a good hold on your sense of wonder : it鈥檚 your most precious asset.
We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
- - - -
鈥淕o, children. Run and read. Read and run. Show and tell.鈥�
Another update 5/19/20: Bradbury suggests reading poetry every day. Even if you don't get it, try. I don't get it. Still trying. Every day. Reading Whitman.
Update 5/16/20: The best advice comes back to me when I need it, although I can't recall when I want it, such as writing a review (get my lazy bones in a notepad while I read).
Two things have come back to me: 1. Bradbury gives the stages in beginning: Work-Relaxation-No Thinking. This applies to writing, but applies to everything requiring effort. The advice has helped me with a new job.
2. Movies. Bradbury watched movies. He recommended watching good and bad, learning from both, and creating cinematic replication through poetic expression. -------------------
Inspiration.
Catch Bradbury's love and passion to write. Learn to step out of your car after work and resist an urge to sprint upstairs to grab your laptop, or your pen and paper. It starts there.
Why do I read? Love, passion. Why do I write? How can I know if I don't practice writing?
Something in me, like Kafka trapped in my soul, since as a child I walked into the elementary library and felt the way I imagine Moses felt when a burning bush spoke to him in a dry wilderness of failure.
I haven't practiced in years. Only old prose poetry once in awhile. So why write? The desire remains, like fragrance and smeared lipstick fading from my neck.
An answer. I have found a world to play in. I learn. I create. I build. I fall in love. I learn passion. I learn the classic, sacred cliche: fire.
Bradbury explains where to go in my present experience. I recommend this to any and all writers on every level.
Ray Bradbury, a titan author of American science fiction, shares remembrances and anecdotes from his lifetime. Within the essays, Bradbury shares both his passion for writing and the methods with which he accomplished it.
"And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. ... Secondly, writing is survival." pg 12, ebook
From his childhood days in Waukegan, Illinois, to penning screen plays in Ireland, Bradbury mined his life experiences with his subconscious mind and unearthed, so to speak, the stories that he wrote.
"And when a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry." pg 32, ebook
Bradbury also highlights the importance of writing at least a little bit every day. Through his habit of writing an essay a week, Bradbury cranked out hundreds during his lifetime. Though he admits not all of them were brilliant, each one brought something to his experience, whether that was honing his craft or creating avenues towards other brighter stories.
Recommended for aspiring authors or any reader who is a fan of Bradbury. This book shines a spotlight on both the man and his creations.
鈥漈he history of each story, then, should read almost like a weather report 鈥� hot today, cool tomorrow. This afternoon burn down the house, tomorrow pour cold, critical water upon the simmering coals. Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow, but today, explode! fly apart! disintegrate! The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture, so why not enjoy the first draft.鈥�
Nearly every writer who talks about her craft mentions that dreaded question 鈥� 鈥渨here do you get your ideas?鈥� Every would be writer passionately demands the answer to this banal inquiry, and every writer dreads its posing. Everyone, that is, except Ray Bradbury. In this book鈥檚 second essay Bradbury goes into great detail about where his ideas come from, and reveals the exercise he employed for mining those ideas from his fertile imagination, and offers it up for his readers use.
This collection of essays, written at disparate times throughout Bradbury鈥檚 career (1961-1990) is more a memoir of his craft than anything approaching a 鈥渉ow to鈥� manual. Rather than giving technical tips, Bradbury explores why he writes 鈥� its thrills and joys 鈥� writing because it is what his heart compels him do. He shares anecdotes of how he came to write various of his famous works. And he reveals how he found his success by channeling the playful and curious child within him, suggesting that others follow that lead.
鈥滻 don鈥檛 know if I believe in previous lives. I鈥檓 not sure I can live forever. But that young boy believed in both, and I have let him have his head. He has written my stories and books for me鈥 have trusted his passions, his fears, and his joys. He has, as a result, rarely failed me.鈥�
These essays of Bradbury living his craft possess all the charm of his stories. Whether you are a writer seeking inspiration or a reader just looking for that Bradbury magic, this book fits the bill.
"It is a great age to live in, and if need be, die in and for, any magician worth his salt would tell you the same - 1961"
If you are a Bradbury fan, This is a book you will like. Perhaps this book was written for aspiring writers, maybe they can extract what they want to learn from a master storyteller! It is written in the form of short essays on various themes. But for me, as a reader, this book was no less than a wonderful dive into the mind of a creative genius. I have loved the author's short stories, and this month I also read his , So curious enough to know what he will say, I got into it.
The book was good enough to keep my interest in it as a general reader, He talked about how the idea of a story hit his mind and how he got rejected by a publisher and then turned around his stories to get it published with even bigger names. If you have read by King, I would compare the first 100 pages of King's book were written on the same line this book is written. Not only about the craft of writing but also about the process, personal stories, and intuitive decision-making by the author.
Do I want to try to write like Ray Bradbury? No, I don't think so. But I once sat in that middle school English class listening to a cassette tape with the gravelly-voice narration of The Veldt and thought the shudder in my spine was some holy spirit saying I had found the apex of the literary arts. And anyway I'm desperate and will take advice anywhere.
Here's a list of his most compelling pointers: 1) Write every day. 2) Make a list of nouns that get at you in some way. These will be the centers of the stories you write (Bradbury's own lists include "THE MEADOW. THE TOY CHEST. THE MONSTER. TYRANNOSAURUS REX. THE TOWN CLOCK. THE OLD MAN. THE OLD WOMAN. THE TELEPHONE. THE SIDEWALKS. THE COFFIN. THE ELECTRIC CHAIR. THE MAGICIAN." And of course: "THE THING AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS.") 3) Experience whatever you can. You're feeding your subconscious, which is your muse. 4) Read poetry every day. 5) Make your readers use all of their senses (which will make the most far-fetched stuff believable) 6) Write FAST. Bradbury's own schedule at some point was: write a 1st draft of a story on Monday, 2nd draft on Tuesday, 3rd on Wednesday, etc., and mail it off at noon on Saturday. Bradbury wrote the first draft of on a library typewriter that cost 10 cents every 30 minutes. He would feed it a dime and race to spit out as much as possible with the clock ticking. 7) Don't be embarrassed. Or anyway act in spite of your embarrassment. You won't write and maybe you'll do away with yourself if you try to hide the shameful bits that make you feel alive. For Bradbury this is the thrill of the circus and interstellar space and dinosaurs. Snobbery will destroy you. This also means writing without concern for the market or literary praise.
Most of this advice is given in the first three essays. The remaining made me begin despairing: did the time spent building Disney's gee-whiz World of the Future addle Bradbury's dystopianism, torque him into someone a little too nauseatingly happy? Give me Bradbury the crank over Bradbury the booster any day. It doesn't seem very motivating to write if you think that the best that could happen is you'll make it big and begin to believe, dewy-eyed, in Disney and America and progress.
`Mentir dulcemente y probar que la mentira es verdad... Todo, al fin y al cabo, es una promesa. Lo que parece una mentira es una ruinosa necesidad que desea nacer... 麓
`Y, cuando se les entibian las almas, todos eran poetas.麓
`As铆 es la vida que he tenido. Borracho y a cargo de una bicicleta, como una vez dijo un informe policial irland茅s. Borracho de vida, y sin conocer el rumbo siguiente. Pero antes del amanecer uno ya est谩 en marcha. 驴Y el viaje? Exactamente la mitad terror, la mitad j煤bilo.麓
Una recopilaci贸n de varios art铆culos que escribi贸 Bradbury en varias revistas a trav茅s de los a帽os, enfocado a su estilo de trabajo narrativo. Es sorprendente, c贸mo incluso en esos art铆culos no se desprende de su faceta m谩s po茅tica. Nos habla de su estilo de trabajo, de su evoluci贸n a trav茅s del tiempo como escritor, desconoc铆a por completo la faceta de dramaturgo del autor, me ha sorprendido descubrirlo en este conjunto de art铆culos. En cuanto al contenido de esta recopilaci贸n no tiene m谩s misterio que el del trabajo en s铆. Me explico, en mi faceta personal tengo dos amigos que s铆 han tenido cierto 茅xito escribiendo, yo tengo tambi茅n la afici贸n de escribir y muchas veces entre cervezas nos ponemos a hablar sobre el tema de escribir, en resumen, siempre decimos que la creatividad tiene un 90% de trabajo y un 10% de imaginaci贸n. A trav茅s del error y de la pr谩ctica vamos consiguiendo cosas que ni nos imaginamos. Y todo escritor que se precie dice lo mismo, la base es el trabajo constante de lo que est茅 haciendo, independientemente de si es escribir, pintar, ilustrar o crear una campa帽a publicitaria. Dicho esto, en el final de esta recopilaci贸n nos deleita con algunos de los poemas que escribi贸, otra faceta que desconoc铆a por completo de Bradbury y que me sorprendi贸 gratamente. He preferido acompa帽ar la rese帽a de la anterior reflexi贸n porque el autor, por s铆 mismo describe todo lo que pretend铆a escribir con la maestr铆a suficiente como para no tener nada que decir sobre su obra. Incluso para Borges, Bradbbury fue uno de los mejores escritores del siglo pasado, dejo por aqu铆 una se帽alizaci贸n que hace al autor con respecto al trabajo creativo y un fragmento de uno de los poemas que se encuentran al final del libro.
`Fracasar es rendirse. Pero uno est谩 en medio de un proceso m贸vil. Entonces no hay nada que fracase. Todo contin煤a. Se ha hecho el trabajo. Si est谩 bien, uno aprende. Si est谩 mal, aprende todav铆a m谩s. El 煤nico fracaso es detenerse. No trabajar es apagarse, endurecerse, ponerse nervioso; no trabajar da帽a el proceso creativo.麓
Y el fragmento de uno de los poemas del final:
Fuera con eso. El ma帽ana estar谩 vac铆o si nadie lo azuza hacia la vida Con una movediza mirada. Que el cuerpo gu铆e a la mente y la sangre sea lazarillo. Y t煤 entr茅nate y ensaya para encontrar el universo del centro de tu alma sabiendo que hacer y estar en movimiento 鈥� Hacer es ser鈥� da siempre resultado.
Y dejo por aqu铆 un fragmento de lo que escribi贸 Borges en la primera edici贸n de Cr贸nicas Marcianas a modo de introducci贸n:
驴C贸mo pueden tocarme estas fantas铆as; y de una manera tan 铆ntima? Toda literatura (me atrevo a contestar) es simb贸lica; hay unas pocas experiencias fundamentales y es indiferente que un escritor, para transmitirlas, recurra a lo 鈥渇ant谩stico鈥� o a lo 鈥渞eal鈥�, a Macbeth o a Raskolnikov, a la invasi贸n de B茅lgica en agosto de 1914 o a una invasi贸n de Marte. 驴Qu茅 importa la novela, o la noveler铆a de la ciencia ficci贸n? En este libro de apariencia fantasmag贸rica, Bradbury ha puesto sus largos domingos vac铆os, su tedio americano, su soledad, como los puso Sinclair Lewis en Main Street. Acaso 鈥淟a tercera expedici贸n鈥� es la historia m谩s alarmante de este volumen. Su horror (sospecho) es metaf铆sico; la incertidumbre sobre la identidad de los hu茅spedes del capit谩n John Black insin煤a inc贸modamente que tampoco sabemos qui茅nes somos ni c贸mo es, para Dios, nuestra cara. Quiero asimismo destacar el episodio titulado 鈥淓l marciano鈥�, que encierra una pat茅tica variaci贸n del mito de Proteo.
Hacia 1909 le铆, con fascinada angustia, en el crep煤sculo de una casa grande que ya no existe, Los primeros hombres en la Luna, de Wells. Por virtud de estas Cr贸nicas, de concepci贸n y ejecuci贸n muy diversa, me ha sido dado revivir, en los 煤ltimos d铆as del oto帽o de 1954, aquellos deleitables terrores.