Happy Early (Literary) Father's Day, Mr. Bradbury
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| via Here and Now |
"And when I die, will this dream truly be
Entrained with Shaw and Chesterton and me?
O, glorious Lord, please make it so
that down along eternity we'll row
Atilted headlong, nattering the way
All mouth, no sleep, and endless be our day:
The Chesterton Night Tour, the Shaw Express,
A picknicking of brains in London dress
As one by one we cleave the railroad steams
To circumnavigate my noon and midnight dreams.
First Shaw arrives and hands me biscuit tin
"Grab on, dear child," he cries. "Get in, get in!"
- The R.B., G.K.C., and G.B.S. Forever Orient Express
The poem actually goes on for six pages; Twain and Poe and Kipling and Melville and Oscar Wilde all make appearances as well. It's lovely and hopeful. Ever since I read it, I've wanted a version of this (below) to carry with me always, just as reminder of journeys to come. What a thrilling ride he is on!
I consider Ray Bradbury a literary father, like G.K. Chesterton. He taught me about life, about writing, about imagination and hope. After Fahrenheit 451, my favorite Bradbury is Something Wicked This Way Comes. The story of Will and his father is a poignant one. This is one of my favorite scenes. It's long, but worth it.
"Dad? Am I a good person?""I think so. I know so, yes.""Will- will that help when things get really rough?""It'll help.""Will it save me if I need saving? I mean, if I'm around bad people and there's no one else good around for miles, what then?""I'll help.""That's not good enough, Dad!""Good is no guarantee for your body. It's mainly for peace of mind--""--But sometimes, Dad, aren't you so scared that even--""--the mind isn't peaceful?" His father nodded, his face uneasy."Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?""To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself--""And, adding it all up...?""The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.""Then, Dad," asked Will, "why aren't you happy?""The front lawn at... let's see... one-thirty in the morning... is no place to start a philosophical...""I just want to know is all."There was a long moment of silence. Dad sighed.Dad took his arm, walked him over and sat him down on the porch steps, relit his pipe. Puffing, he said, "All right. Your mother's asleep. She doesn't know we're out here with our tomcat talk. We can go on. Now, look, since when did you think being good meant being happy.""Since always.""Since now learn otherwise. Sometimes the man who looks happiest in town, with the biggest smile, is the one carrying the biggest load of sin. There are smiles and smiles; learn to tell the dark variety from the light. The seal-barker, the laugh-shouter, half the time he's covering up. He's had his fun and he's guilty. And men do love sin, Will, oh how they love it, never doubt, in all shapes, sizes, color, and smells. Times come when troughs, not tables, suit our appetites. Hear a man too loudly praising others, and look to wonder if he didn't just get up from the sty. On the other hand, that unhappy, pale, put-upon man walking by, who looks all guilt and sin, why often that's your good man with a capital G, Will. For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it and sometimes break in two. [. . .] So, minute by minute, hour by hour, a lifetime, it never ends, never stops, you got the choice this second, now this next, and the next after that, be good, be bad, that's what the clock ticks, that's what it says in the ticks.
The scene comes to end with Will saying he wished his father was happy and asking him what doesn't make him sad and his father answers: Death. "Death makes everything else sad. But death itself only scares. It there wasn't death, all the other things wouldn't get tainted."
I mourn for what the world has lost in the passing of such a wonderful mind and passionate spirit, but I am thankful for all he gave. I saw him once and once only, hunched in a wheelchair, on his way to a signing, a body ravaged by age but a mind so alive with the spark of imagination! And he saw me. How ignorantly romantic of me to imagine that a glance could communicate, with such fervor and confidence, a sense of approval. For one moment, all of my feeble efforts to write and dream and toil at my computer were, quite simply, enough. Of course, it was just a look, but that is the power of Ray Bradbury. I cried. Apparently, I am very emotional.
Thank you, Ray Bradbury. You have saved me in so many, many ways.
"And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on."
- Fahrenheit 451
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