Dandelion Wine by Ray BradburyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
The word nostalgia is often used to put a disparaging end to something that won’t be forgotten.
After Terry Hertzler died, Patrick Heffernan and I were clearing out a storage locker full of Terry’s books. Terry loved a lot of literature, but especially loved speculative fiction, so he’d spent a lot of good time at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, talking with Patrick.
I didn’t know Patrick well, but Terry always spoke fondly of his knowledge of books; so when in the sad silence of all Terry’s books, Patrick turned and handed me Dandelion Wine and said, “Here, read this,” it was the kindest thing anyone ever did for me during our mourning.
In Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury ends The Summer of 1928 by letting it pass from memory into dream.
It's a book for mourning. The two chapters with Mr. Jonas are stellar, divine. Then there is the revival by imagination, the holy fictional breath. After a chapter about a great grandmother lying down to die, Bradbury follows with a chapter of Douglas contemplating his own mortality (while I think Terry contemplating death at 19). The book becomes about the reader. Everyone will sing a song of enough death, of enough life, but the music will move to a new movement. The conductor has provided an arrangement. I sing my part, bow, move into the wings, listen for a while there, then listen for a while outside.
Dandelion Wine is poetic novel with its POV shifts within and across chapters. Even if it isn’t fair to Bradbury's narrative, it encourages comparisons outside the text. Miss Loomis asks William Forrester, “Between ourselves, we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying how do you like my mask, my act, my certainty?” (142). My favorite passage, perhaps the one that makes me think of Terry Hertzler is the chapter Douglas on playing statues with his best friend John Huff who’s moving away (111). Terry moved away. I remember watching Mystic River with him in Clairemont, how the story hit us. We didn’t always agree, but that one resonated with us. The details of history split us.
As for technique, Dandelion Wine is solid but not rigid. In one particularly well-structured chapter, (view spoiler)(96). Col. Freeleigh’s time machine transports reliably but not necessarily accurately (87).
So now that a year has passed, I’m beginning a new phase of mourning: reading Bradbury as a way of being near Terry. I remember we’d gone to hear Billy Collins read at the Downtown Library in L.A. “Did you know Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in the basement?” Terry asked. I didn’t. We were in a shrine of the closest thing to Terry’s religion.
During our time, Terry and I had made multiple road trips from San Diego to LA or San Francisco for books. Terry loved them, but he especially loved books signed by authors. He had no doubt books were an intimate touch that only became deeper if you got to hear the author’s voice in person and get the signature proving the book wasn’t some mass-produced bauble but bound thing with evidence of a human touch. If you didn’t believe that, a forensic expert could lift a fingerprint from beside the signature.
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