The Illustrated Man | |||||
Ray Bradbury | |||||
Narrated by Paul Michael Garcia, unabridged | |||||
Blackstone Audio, 9.3 hours | |||||
A review by Ivy Reisner
This is a good collection to use in examining other themes Bradbury revisits throughout his career. The threat
of technology dehumanizing us is evident in "The Veldt" and "Marionettes, Inc." There is the fear of nuclear
war in "The Highway," "The Other Foot," "The Fox and the Forest" and only mildly disguised
in "The Last Night of the World." Censorship drives "The Exiles" and is alluded to in "The Concrete Mixer."
The collection contains the following 18 stories:
"Kaleidoscope": One of his best-known stories, also considered one of his most disturbing, this story starts
the moment after a spaceship explodes. The surviving astronauts fall endlessly through space and the whole
story is what they say in their final moments.
"The Other Foot": Bradbury couldn't sell this story back when he wrote it. It was too far ahead of its time,
though now it sounds dated. African Americans, sick of all the nonsense happening to them on Earth, go off
and settle Mars. When the Caucasians finally show up, after having spent the last twenty years blowing
themselves and Earth apart, the settlers prepare to reverse the whole game, setting up segregated sections
in the back of the bus and the last rows of the theater. Then the ship from Earth lands, and the first
astronaut steps out, and I will not spoil the ending.
"The Highway": A simple, cozy tale about a nuclear holocaust as told by a Mexican farmer.
"The Man": Astronauts land on a faraway world to find they were one day late meeting Jesus (who is never named in the story).
"The Long Rain": Astronauts crash on Venus and must travel to a sun dome to come in out of the non-stop
rain. Venus, in all of Bradbury's stories, is a place of near-constant rain. He visits it in a powerful,
heart-wrenching story, "All Summer in a Day." In "The Long Rain" the pounding, ceaseless rain hour after
hour and day after day slowly drives the astronauts insane.
"The Rocket Man": A husband and father works as an astronaut. When he's in space for three months at a shot,
he wants nothing more than to go home. When he's at home for three days at a shot, he wants nothing more than
to return to space. He decides he's going to take one last job, then retire. Meanwhile his wife tells her
son that she's always been afraid of him dying. She says if he crashed on Venus, then she would never be
able to face seeing that planet again, and if he crashed on Mars, then she would be devastated when the red
planet rose in the night sky. What happens is far worse than she could have ever imagined.
"The Last Night of the World": This is another oddly cozy story. Everyone knows the world will end one
particular night, so they have dinner, read the newspaper, brush their teeth, put the kids to bed, and go
to sleep. It takes someone of Bradbury's skill to pull this kind of story off, but he does it well.
"The Exiles": Stories of fantasy and the supernatural have been banned on Earth, so the authors (mostly risen
from the dead) and their characters have gathered to survive on Mars. Charles Dickens is amongst them,
but doesn't think he really belongs. Poe is their leader and when they learn that an attack is coming
from Earth, they prepare to fight back.
"No Particular Night or Morning": There is an astronaut who doesn't believe in anything he can't immediately
hold or see; he lacks object permanence in an almost infant-like way. He's in space, so as much as he remembers
Earth, he doesn't believe Earth exists. He can't touch the stars, so he doesn't believe they exist. His
madness slowly progresses throughout the story. This demonstrates Bradbury's uncanny ability for
understatement better than any of his other works.
"The Fox and the Forest" A couple flee a war-torn Earth to find refuge in the past.
"The Visitor": The sick are shuttled off to Mars, where they can contaminate no one. A young telepath
arrives who can mentally transport the infected to any time or place and free them from their
suffering. When they learn of his powers, they get greedy and begin to fight over him.
"The Concrete Mixer": Mars invades Earth. Rather than fight back, Earth takes this as a great opportunity
to sell entertainment products to a new market.
"Marionettes, Inc": In a time when robots, or marionettes, can simulate and even replace a man, two men
decide to replace themselves and run away from their wives for a little while. One may or may not (the
ending is intentionally vague) find himself forcibly and permanently replaced by his doppelganger; the
other finds his wife has already pulled the same trick. The company, Marionettes, Inc., appears
in "Punishment Without Crime" in the collection Long After Midnight. Marionettes, Inc. is also the
title of a different story collection by Ray Bradbury.
"The City": A living, breathing city waits for centuries for humanity, its sworn enemy, to come again,
so it can exact revenge. This is powerful in the anthropomorphizing of the mechanics of the city, its
breathing, its balancing. It's a lyrical tale made powerful by Bradbury's use of language.
"Zero Hour": A bunch of kids play at invasion, until the adults realize, it's no game.
"The Rocket": A poor junkman can afford to send one, and only one, of his family to space. He tries having
them draw straws, but knowing the future resentment they'll face, none of them wants to be the one singled
out. So he takes an old, junky rocket and makes a mocked up trip past the moon, to Mars, and home again
to fool the children into thinking they really went to space all together.
"The Illustrated Man": A carnival man, who has gained too much weight to work the carnival anymore, goes
to a dust witch to become, not just tattooed, but illustrated. This almost seems like the same dust
witch who is in Something Wicked This Way Comes, even to the image of being sewn up by a
darning needle dragonfly. She covers him with glorious images that seem to come alive, but there are
two special images, to be unveiled a week apart, when they are ready, one on his chest and one on his
back. These images will show the future, and will be formed as a mixture of her ink and his
sweat. The first image is of his killing his wife. The second... well, listen to the story.
Some editions of The Illustrated Man include "The Fire Balloons" in their collection, but Blackstone
Audio kept it with The Martian Chronicles, which is where it truly belongs.
The narrator was almost invisible in this performance, letting the beauty and power of the stories come
through. When he voices characters it's subtle, just enough to help the reader keep track of where the
narrative ends and the dialogue begins. He does a superb job of stepping out of the way of the
story. These stories move easily between the warm, sweet bedtime story, to the haunting tales that
will live with you forever. Listen to them, enjoy them, and you will never forget them.
Ivy Reisner is a writer, an obsessive knitter, and a podcaster. Find her at IvyReisner.com. |
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