Ray Bradbury Dies at Ninety-One

Hello Beardies,

Although I am sure most of you may have already heard--myself only hearing of it around 8:00PM today through an email from Elizabeth--but we have experienced another loss in the literary world.

Ray Bradbury, in 1966, with a picture that was part of a school project
to illustrate characters in one of his dramas.

Ray Bradbury--one of speculative fiction's finest and author of titles such as his dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, and fantasy/horror novel, Something Wicked this Way Comes--died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of ninety-one.   Read More >>>

I admittedly have only read one Ray Bradbury title: Dandelion Wine. The language was sweet, melodic, mysterious, and I fell in love with the author, never realizing until later on in life that the story was autobiographical.

As my own age creeps toward the higher numbers in life, it saddens me to witness the passing of so many greats... yet, at the same time, witnessing the literary birth of so many others makes me wonder what blogger of the future will be posting on the passing of today's great achievers.

In all honesty, however, artists are immortal.  Though we lose the corporeal vessel which once housed them, their souls live on in the words upon the pages, the notes of a sonata or symphony, or the oil upon the canvas.  And with that thought, I leave you a few of Ray's own words of immortality.

“It was the face of spring, it was the face of summer, it was the warmness of clover breath. Pomegranate glowed in her lips, and the noon sky in her eyes. To touch her face was that always new experience of opening your window one December morning, early, and putting out your hand to the first white cool powdering of snow that had come, silently, with no announcement, in the night. And all of this, this breath-warmness and plum-tenderness was held forever in one miracle of photographic is chemistry which no clock winds could blow upon to change one hour or one second; this fine first cool white snow would never melt, but live a thousand summers.”  --Dandelion Wine

 Magical, isn't it?


May You Rest In Peace, Mr. Bradbury...
...as your words never will...

*** Dandelion Wine (1957), by Ray Bradbury, is published and copyright by Doubleday.  It is available in stores, online, or in your local library.