Yesterday morning, I woke up to the news that Ray Bradbury had died.
Since then tributes have flowed in, from President Obama to Margaret Atwood, Stephen Spielberg to Mia Farrow and Neil Gaiman. The range of tributes and people making them reflects Ray Bradbury’s contribution to literature and the world of ideas: Fahrenheit 451 is arguably his most well known work in this respect.
But I, like many others, have my own small, personal tribute to make, one that relates to my first encounter, in my mid-teens, with Ray Bradbury—in my case through a battered, secondhand copy, not of Fahrenheit 451 (although I read that in due course) but of a collection of short stories titled The Golden Apples of the Sun. I can’t recall now how it came into my hands, whether I picked it up myself on spec, or whether someone gave it to me. I do remember that it came to me unrecommended though, but that I was favourably influenced by the title and the jacket (featured), while having no idea who Ray Bradbury was.
I recall, too, that reading it ‘blew my mind.’
I don’t think there was one story in there that I did not get something out of, sometimes in terms of language and character, but mostly in terms of ideas. Every story encapsulated an idea that fascinated, or intrigued, or made me think: “Yes, yes, wow!” They made me want to write similar stories—tales that sparked a sense of wonder and imagination and resonated with readers so that they, too, thought: “Ah, yes.”
I lost that original battered, shabby collection somewhere on my travels, but never my recollection of the stories. So when I found another copy a few years back I snapped it up instantly. I have other works by Ray Bradbury, most in better condition and more elegantly presented, but this small, well-worn volume of The Golden Apples of the Sun will always be the one I prize the most—because it was one of the defining works that cemented my love of science ficton.
A small tribute perhaps, but reflecting a profound influence for me as an individual. And to be honest, I cannot think of any writer currently who is putting out anything encompassing the same depth and breadth of ideas—and so feel doubly diminished by his passing.
Here in NZ it may be something of a truism, when someone well known dies, to say:
“E hinganga o te Totara haemata o te waotapunui a Tane: A mighty tree has fallen in the forest of Tane.”
But in this case, I think that it is really true.
