My boyhood heroes are dropping like flies lately, and now the creepy little carnival outside of town has pulled up its tents and disappeared. To me, RB had a range and a sense of sentimentality far beyond the other ‘genre fiction’ authors of my misspent youth. “Sci Fi” was the natural pigeon-hole for imaginative writing, but just like Stephen King, most of his tales leaked beyond the conventions and imprimateurs of his ‘assigned genre’ (what was ‘The Illustrated Man’ doing in ‘SF’ at the bookstores?—the same thing that, say, ‘Rita Hayward and Shawshank Redemption’ or ‘The Tommyknockers’ were doing in ‘Horror’: superseding (thus transcending) their respective genres….my *mom* got ‘Farenheit 451’ (as well as ‘Stand by Me’), and was amazed that she’d been entertained—and made to think—by purveyors of the pulp genres. Of course she’d ‘waited for the movie’, and probably would’ve watched something else had she known who the authors were, and exercised her prejudices accordingly.
In Bradbury, I read about outer space….and about magic, and growing old, and exercising one’s humanity.
Peace out, Ray; I wish you’d been my dad…..
