Nov 23 2008
Reading Ray Bradbury
I’ve been struggling through Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, and I’m not sure I’m going to make it all the way through. I bought it on the recommendation of several NaNo forum posters, thinking that it would be a good addition to my small collection of books about writing. It sat next to Stephen King’s On Writing for quite a while, and for some reason I was reluctant to dip into it. A few weeks ago, I read On Writing again, for the third time, and thought it might be a good idea to follow up with Bradbury. If nothing else, the contrast would be interesting.
I’ll just be polite and say that now I know why there’s only a single Bradbury book in my extensive collection of science fiction. After reading a few chapters of Zen, I took that book, Fahrenheit 451, down to refresh my memory. It had been years, so I had forgotten everything about it but the basic plot.
Have my tastes changed so drastically over the years or is Bradbury just over-rated? He’s one of the masters of story-telling, but the writing style is so overblown and overripe that it distracts from the story rather than enhances it. There’s also a sentimentality about his writing that I realize now has always annoyed me. Maybe I just shouldn’t have let him follow Stephen King. The contrast is more than interesting; it’s just too much, and not to Bradbury’s advantage.
4 Responses to “Reading Ray Bradbury”
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I read Stephen King’s “On Writing,” too. Even though I don’t read many of his novels these days, it was one of those books you can’t put down. I haven’t read Ray Bradbury, and from your observations, I don’t think I’ll bother!
www.writingforyourlife.today.com
I wouldn’t judge a writer by such flimsy evidence as one person’s opinion. Bradbury is as much a fantasy writer as science fiction, and he isn’t necessarily for all tastes. My tastes have changed a lot over the years, and I prefer more hard-edged writing now, but Bradbury is a darned good story teller.
I may write a more thorough comparison of the two writers.
If I didn’t agree, I’d pay no attention to you. I don’t even write fiction, but what other writers say about it is sometimes useful, and even inspiring. I don’t particularly care for the kind of fiction that King usually writes, but he’s a compelling story teller (aside from some really, really bad books), and wonderful at characterization. The contrast between King and Bradbury is fascinating to me, especially the psychology of their approaches to writing. I never read how-to books quite the way they’re intended. I might like your friend.