Scan barcode
A review by joshknape
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
3.0
Dandelion Wine is a collection of related vignettes that support and periodically return to one plot thread, or a short novel interrupted by many related vignettes. The entire book, including the vignettes but especially the main plot thread of twelve-year-old Douglas Spalding's coming of age in Green Town (based on Waukegan, Illinois) in summer 1925, is strikingly melancholy.
I can make a strong case that the book is actually a poem or series of poems sung to the memory of childhood.
About the writing style: there may be better examples I haven't read, but among writers I've read, Ray Bradbury uses the technique of writing through word association most extensively; and although Dandelion Wine is only the third Bradbury work I've read, it is the best example of Bradbury's word association technique.
I'm not sure why I really took notice only on the second reading, but I've probably never read a book so saturated in sensual description. If you want to learn how to write description that poetically appeals to the senses, consider Dandelion Wine required reading.
Stylistically, I call Ray Bradbury a free spirit: at least in Dandelion Wine, he plays with words more freely than any writer I've examined other than Shakespeare.
I can make a strong case that the book is actually a poem or series of poems sung to the memory of childhood.
About the writing style: there may be better examples I haven't read, but among writers I've read, Ray Bradbury uses the technique of writing through word association most extensively; and although Dandelion Wine is only the third Bradbury work I've read, it is the best example of Bradbury's word association technique.
I'm not sure why I really took notice only on the second reading, but I've probably never read a book so saturated in sensual description. If you want to learn how to write description that poetically appeals to the senses, consider Dandelion Wine required reading.
Stylistically, I call Ray Bradbury a free spirit: at least in Dandelion Wine, he plays with words more freely than any writer I've examined other than Shakespeare.