Bradbury is unquestionably a master. Flat-out, case closed. I think when the man finally passes, the literary community will take a second look at his works; what you’ll see then is a renewed respect; he will be rightfully elevated to the pantheon of great writers of the 20th Century, regardless of genre.
Bradbury has a sense for humanity few other writers possess, able to deliver complex and layered emotion and relationships with very few words. His style sings. In most of his work, the cadence and rhythm of his words is more akin to poetry than to prose. Read the dialogue in the short stories in One More For The Road, for instance, and you’ll see it’s not natural dialogue, but it rings with a good deal of spirit, saying quite a lot with very little. It flows off the page in a very natural way despite being far removed from how people actually talk. And throughout his stories, he touches on the human condition with elegance and simplicity. I’m sometimes astonished at what he is capable of.
My favorite work is his non-genre Dandelion Wine. No need to repeat what others have said here; it’s all true. I suppose the best praise I can offer this novel is that it makes me painfully, painfully nostalgic for a time and place I never experienced. How Bradbury managed that trick, I’ll never know. (Despite being known as a genre writer, in general his best works are often his non-genre works, or those with just a hint of something beyond the norm.)
The Martian Chronicles is equally brilliant. More a collection of stories than a single novel, and more a fantasy than science fiction – the “science” in the book isn’t very scientific at all – it is, like Bradbury’s best works, a series of stories about the human condition. The human experience. How we see and experience and change and react to the world around us. This is one of those handful of books that I revisit every few years.
