Fiction Review: The Illustrated Man

At the end of January, I decided to read another book in the busy TBR library and got off to a great start with Back to the Classics Challenge 2022 , which I did not do very well last year ! I got Ray Bradbury 's The Illustrated Man , the book my husband gave me for my birthday last year. Ray and I will be back. When I was a teenager, I read all the books on my public library shelf! That was a long time ago, so over the past few years I've discovered why I love his books so much (check out my 2018 review of The Martian Chronicles ). This collection of stand-alone stories does not disappoint; He is attractive, intelligent and wise.

The man depicted in the title appears in the foreground and is the rest of the group. He was a tall, tattooed man who lived in the night. Each one tells a story with sound and animation, like a little movie playing on its cover. An enlightened man travels through the Wisconsin countryside and meets other men along the way. The two decide to camp together all night, and the other guys stay awake all night and watch in amazement as the tattooed man tells his story. These are the rest of the stories in this book, each truly unique. They are all science fiction, but, as Bradbury always does, most of them have to do with human nature. Many of them occur in the future, in outer space and / or on other planets. In The Other Foot , a community of blacks live peacefully on Mars when a missile arrives, destroying their peaceful community. Like many of Bradbury's stories, the tour here is witty and full of irony. The Long Rain contains a military group on Earth that finds it extremely difficult to adapt to life on Venus. In The Rocket Man , a typical Earthling family struggles with their father's time-consuming astronaut work while struggling to adjust to a normal life while at home for vacation. Earth missionaries will discover new life forms on Mars in The Fire Balloons (commonly if you read The Martian Chronicles ) that oppose attempts to introduce Christianity and perhaps teach priests something. The Last Night of the World presents a very simple concept that will have terrible consequences that will blow your mind. My favorite story is The Exiles , which is so witty that describing it will spoil the fun of surprises, but it has an important message.

These are just a few quick examples of the eighteen stories in this collection, but each one is fictional, mischievous and thoughtful. This book was published in 1948 and it is surprising to find that most of these stories were written in the 1940s (and possibly earlier) because their imaginative meanings are still relevant today. Although much of the science fiction literature of the day seems outdated today (e.g., the use of instant messaging at home with "IM" here in the story!), Bradbury wrote about racism, classicism, how people treat others, censorship, danger, and so on. . More today in a viable and relevant way. It may be disappointing not to move forward as the human race, but Bradbury enjoyed each of these stories so much that we happily discovered the truth hidden in the conversation and then followed his example. I really enjoyed each of these thought-provoking stories and look forward to the next episode on Bradbury's back cover.

281 pages, Simon & Schuster

Tantour's voice

This book is a challenge to read :

TBR Mountain Challenge

Back to the Classics Challenge 2022 - Collection of short stories

I'm taking part in the 2022 Alphabet Soup Challenge

Diversity Challenge

The World Book Challenge Journey - Are Mars and Venus Worth It?

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Listen to a sample audiobook here and / or download it from Audible. The example shows an introduction by Ray Bradbury (not included in my print edition) that explains why and how he wrote some of these interesting stories.

 

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