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A review by forgottensecret
Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
2.0
'Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together. Now, it’s your turn. Jump!'
Ray Bradbury should have a lot to say about writing. After all, 'The New York Times' credits him as firming up the genre of science fiction to a broader literary audience. His style is original and his imagination uncorked. But in 'Zen in the Art of Writing', he chooses style over content. Yes, it's fun to follow the imaginative bounces of Bradbury's writing, but it sacrifices coherently illustrating what he means. I've never more wanted the relative plainness of Stephen King and his much better 'On Writing'.
His two main ideas that led to many of his stories were word association and the use of the Subconscious. We can engage in simple exercises, selecting nouns and crafting a story out of that word. For nourishing the Subconscious, we should read forms like poetry because it often has a compact strike on each of the senses.
I would recommend this only to those interested in reading a flushed biography of Bradbury and an understanding of how he wrote his best known works like 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'The Martian Chronicles'. Much like E.M. Forster's disappointing 'Aspects of the Novel', there are much better books on writing.
Ray Bradbury should have a lot to say about writing. After all, 'The New York Times' credits him as firming up the genre of science fiction to a broader literary audience. His style is original and his imagination uncorked. But in 'Zen in the Art of Writing', he chooses style over content. Yes, it's fun to follow the imaginative bounces of Bradbury's writing, but it sacrifices coherently illustrating what he means. I've never more wanted the relative plainness of Stephen King and his much better 'On Writing'.
His two main ideas that led to many of his stories were word association and the use of the Subconscious. We can engage in simple exercises, selecting nouns and crafting a story out of that word. For nourishing the Subconscious, we should read forms like poetry because it often has a compact strike on each of the senses.
I would recommend this only to those interested in reading a flushed biography of Bradbury and an understanding of how he wrote his best known works like 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'The Martian Chronicles'. Much like E.M. Forster's disappointing 'Aspects of the Novel', there are much better books on writing.