A Medicine For Melancholy and Other Stories
by Ray Bradbury
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Sinister mushrooms growing in a dank cellar. A family's first glimpse at Martians. A wonderful white vanilla ice-cream summer suit that changes everyone who wears it. All those images and many more are inside this book, a new trade edition of 31 of Bradbury's most arresting tales-timeless short fiction that ranges from the farthest reaches of space to the innermost stirrings of the heart.Tags
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***NO SPOILERS***
Note: This review is for the short story “All Summer in a Day,” which was the title I originally shelved; someone changed the book page to A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories.
“All Summer in a Day”: the four-page short story with a greater lasting impression than many short stories five times as long. Bradbury envisioned a continuously dreary, rainy Venus populated by humans who have moved there from Earth. Every seven years, for a single hour on a single day, Venus’s rain stops, and the sun shines as brilliantly as on the hottest summer day. The setting for this monumental event is a classroom of ecstatic, eager third-graders who have always lived on Venus, except for one, who moved to Venus at age show more four and is able to remember a life without endless rain.
Despite minimal dialogue, the story’s pace hums along; however, more dialogue would have helped greatly with characterization, which is cardboard. The main character is timid, the rest of the children a group of envious bullies, and that's that; nevertheless, somehow there’s still something very human about it all. For sure, this is emotional, and the ending pulled on my heart strings. It seems clear, though, that Bradbury was enthralled by his premise, so that was what got priority, and really, the premise is so good that I can't ding him for the flat characterization.
Furthermore, Bradbury’s prose is outstanding: original and simply beautiful. It’s never weighed-down with pretentiousness or ambiguity but clean and straightforward:
End Note: Readers looking for this story in print form can find it in this anthology: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6661321-the-very-best-of-fantasy-science-fic...
End Note 2: A t.v. short based on the story came out in 1982: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195517/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 show less
Note: This review is for the short story “All Summer in a Day,” which was the title I originally shelved; someone changed the book page to A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories.
“All Summer in a Day”: the four-page short story with a greater lasting impression than many short stories five times as long. Bradbury envisioned a continuously dreary, rainy Venus populated by humans who have moved there from Earth. Every seven years, for a single hour on a single day, Venus’s rain stops, and the sun shines as brilliantly as on the hottest summer day. The setting for this monumental event is a classroom of ecstatic, eager third-graders who have always lived on Venus, except for one, who moved to Venus at age show more four and is able to remember a life without endless rain.
Despite minimal dialogue, the story’s pace hums along; however, more dialogue would have helped greatly with characterization, which is cardboard. The main character is timid, the rest of the children a group of envious bullies, and that's that; nevertheless, somehow there’s still something very human about it all. For sure, this is emotional, and the ending pulled on my heart strings. It seems clear, though, that Bradbury was enthralled by his premise, so that was what got priority, and really, the premise is so good that I can't ding him for the flat characterization.
Furthermore, Bradbury’s prose is outstanding: original and simply beautiful. It’s never weighed-down with pretentiousness or ambiguity but clean and straightforward:
Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn’t rain and rain and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with. She knew that they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands. But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forest, and their dreams were gone.“All Summer in a Day” is a short story that will appeal to many, including children as young as the story’s characters. It isn’t obscure like some (usually older) science fiction; it’s to-the-point, creative, and emotional. Bradbury could even have taken this captivating premise further and into much more complex territory, but this could be a case of “less is more.”
End Note: Readers looking for this story in print form can find it in this anthology: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6661321-the-very-best-of-fantasy-science-fic...
End Note 2: A t.v. short based on the story came out in 1982: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195517/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 show less
I reckon I'm not very smart. Some of Bradbury's stories just leave me scratching my head and wondering what the heck they mean. His Martian stories, on the other hand, are old favorites that I can reread annually. So I can give more than half the stories in this collection 5 stars, but the remaining I find so baffling that I would only give them 2 stars. That's why it took me a month to read this - every time I came across a baffler, I would put it up - kind of like Joey hiding Little Women in the freezer.
This story was in my third grade reading comprehension textbook. We never read it. Instead we read a trite, poorly written story about a boy who doesn't recycle.
Luckily, I had already fallen into the habit of taking home my reading comp textbook and going through it for fun. Since then, I've read numerous stories and books by Ray Bradbury, but this one remains my favorite. It is Ray Bradbury at his finest: a heartbreaking, beautiful story of humans at their best and worst, all set on the rainy plains of Venus.
Go read the story. It's short, and no review of mine can do it justice. Suffice to say, ten years after I first read it, it still breaks my heart every time.
Luckily, I had already fallen into the habit of taking home my reading comp textbook and going through it for fun. Since then, I've read numerous stories and books by Ray Bradbury, but this one remains my favorite. It is Ray Bradbury at his finest: a heartbreaking, beautiful story of humans at their best and worst, all set on the rainy plains of Venus.
Go read the story. It's short, and no review of mine can do it justice. Suffice to say, ten years after I first read it, it still breaks my heart every time.
While there are some great stories in here, the preponderance of them is too much of Ray Bradbury's worst tendencies--thin characters, wasted non-drama, a romanticism with space and rockets that feels plain gooey. Combine the best of this book with the best of "R is for Rocket" and you have one tight collection of short stories.
I think one reason Bradbury really grabbed me when I was young was that he often wrote about kids. Horrible, selfish, vicious little kids.
Merged review:
I loves me some Bradbury. He is a master of mood.
Merged review:
I loves me some Bradbury. He is a master of mood.
A kind and sensitive story of childhood cruelty towards someone different where the location on the Planet Venus is relevant only to create the context for the cruelty. Published in 1954 in 'The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'
Just a glimpse into this beautiful world of Venus, where children are still bullies unfortunately. Sad and beautiful, simultaneously. Take 15 minutes out of your day to read this GEM!
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Author Information
Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920. At the age of fifteen, he started submitting short stories to national magazines. During his lifetime, he wrote more than 600 stories, poems, essays, plays, films, television plays, radio, music, and comic books. His books include The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, The show more Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Bradbury Speaks. He won numerous awards for his works including a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1977, the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation. He wrote the screen play for John Huston's classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted 65 of his stories for television's The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. The film The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit was written by Ray Bradbury and was based on his story The Magic White Suit. He was the idea consultant and wrote the basic scenario for the United States pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair, as well as being an imagineer for Walt Disney Enterprises, where he designed the Spaceship Earth exhibition at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center. He died after a long illness on June 5, 2012 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- A Medicine For Melancholy and Other Stories
- Original title
- Classic Stories 2: From A Medicine for Melancholy and S Is for Space
- Alternate titles
- A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories
- Original publication date
- 1990
- Original language
- English
- Disambiguation notice
- Classic Stories 2, as reprinted as A medicine for Melancholy and other stories 0380730863. This differs considerably from the earlier collection A Medicine for Melancholy (1960)
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- Popularity
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- Reviews
- 12
- Rating
- (3.93)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 4
