Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Finished: 04/18/11, after Midnight during a Full Moon

A poetic wander through childhood and imagination; where we see youth and how it need not end in us adults as the world is as magical as it ever was. It is merely we who have changed. Douglas Spaulding and his younger brother Tom are the chief characters, in a small town in Illinois, while many others make appearances, tell their stories, falling less from reality and more from what must be the dream the Surrealists once attempted to grasp and generally failed. It is more a collection of many short stories than a bona fide novel, but none could argue rightly it is anything less than any great novel. Often it seems an adult was writing this, who was fortunate enough to see the world as do children. No, it is not written down to an audience, not a real children’s book either. It stands on all it’s binding without unnecessary whimsy or silliness as strong as any of the solid trees it mentions as well as a haunting realization of a single summer in 1928 when changes were afoot and not very welcome.

At times the writing was too beautiful, causing me to slow, losing the rhythm of a sentence or a paragraph as I paused to savor, to RELISH, and to marvel. Held up to the light, one might cry “poppycock” and turn back to certainty of IPods, Blackberries, Net Books, video games, and the immediacy of texting. “Balderdash” is my response to them and what they know as now. This will someday be someone’s 1928.

I felt the brilliance of Dandelion Wine, beside the shear beauty of the details, was how easily it conjured up the good and joyful in my own childhood. I rejoiced to know I was like young David in many ways. And even if our scenarios did not match, there was enough truth in them to permit me the superb gift of letting go of all this adulthood and falling back to a place where I was smaller than the grown-ups and my grandparents were still alive. Where time was countless and magic was felt in any thought; where love was certain and imagination was all a boy ever needed; and where the little details in a setting were magnificent and unblemished being overlooked because one had grown used to them.

This is one of the great stories. Something everyone should have to read in school or want to read after, because it unleashes the human spirit and allows us once more to believe in the sheer wonder life still holds for us all if only we would let go of the daily grind and really open our hearts. Each day has so much more than can be contained in a single bottle of Dandelion Wine.