Long After Midnight

I'm thoroughly enjoying these short stories. They're the perfect length, each about 10 to 15 pages, just enough to build up the story and knock it over with a classic Bradbury twist. My favorite stories for far are "The Burning Man", which asks the reader to reexamine his or her own prejudices in the setting of a typical lone road hitchhiker horror story, and "The Perfect Murder" which shows that time is the ultimate judge and jury. I plan to finish reading the remaining stories and mail the book on Saturday.

A fabulous celebration of imagination, shady spots of the soul, and writing itself. Bradbury's confidence is intoxicating - how he pulls of his trapeze act of shouting the story as if in a fit and yet staying superbly readable, I'll never know.

Don't expect sci-fi or fantasy; it's anything but.

The subtitle of this collection is "22 hauntings and celebrations." I suppose it is, but not much to celebrate. I would say it is about wishes also. Getting what you wished for isn't always good we are reminded (but sometimes it is.) These 22 stories were written between 1946 and 1976. The collection was first published in 1976 and 11 of the stories were published between 1971 and 1976. With only 2 stories from the early 60's and the rest from 1946-1954, there is a real time split in the collection between early stuff and contemporary (at publication). The stories are a broad mix of a lot of mainstream fiction, some zany stuff, horror/supernatural, science-fiction and surreal/fantasy. The zany stuff was entertaining at times, the show more angst-ridden modern material was really tiresome and it didn't seem like Bradbury.

Like many writers, Bradbury had a period early in his career where he produced a lot of really good work. Later Bradbury almost always suffers in comparison to his early great works. The later material in here, with a few exceptions seems much weaker, certainly different. Some of the early material isn't his best work either. Nevertheless of the 22 stories here perhaps 5 or so are very good stories (and come from across the years), and even the majority of lesser stories are OK, which leaves this reader with a mostly satisfied feeling at the end, but wishing it was better.

So, there is good and bad Bradbury in here, but mostly unmemorable. There were two "Green Town" stories that I had just read in "Summer Morning, Summer Night" as well as other Green Town stories including an early one from 1946, "One Timeless Spring" that I had not read before and that handles young Doug's first kiss pretty well, although I thought the first part of the story rather awful/weak. There is also an absolutely crazy Adolph Hitler story in here. My favorite stories or ones that I thought notable, included: "The Burning Man" (1976) which managed to create a pretty spooky bit of horror in a few pages without anything horrible actually happening on the page. "Long After Midnight" (1963) in some ways is the best story in the collection; it sure hits hard. "The October Game" (1948), a genuine horror story that I've read before. I must also give a nod to "The Better Part of Wisdom" (1976) for a sensitive, progressive handling of a homosexual relationship. I don't think it a great story, but a noteworthy one. There is also a story here, "The Messiah" (1973), which to me is a good add-on to "The Martian Chronicles" and I liked it. show less

I don’t like short story anthologies. Oh, I read them from time to time, I just almost always end up disappointed. Kind of like every time Christmas rolls around and you see those chocolate medley gift boxes and think to yourself, “I should try one of those. Maybe it won’t taste like burnt hair this time.”

There are multiple reasons for my dislike of short story compilations, not the least of which is the structure of the stories themselves. See the handy-dandy diagram!

I imagine most of you have seen something like this before. It’s called Freytag’s triangle, and it illustrates the elements of plot as they happen in most stories. There’s the exposition (characters are introduced, the plot gets rolling, etc.), rising action show more (things start to heat up), climax (the action/conflict is brought to a boil), denouement (the temperature is cranked down), and the final resolution. It’s worked this way since the days of classical Greek drama, though more attention was given to the denouement in those days, with the climax generally occurring in the middle of the play. The classical Freytag’s Triangle doesn’t look like a pyramid built by a bunch of drunk Egyptians.

What you see in the chart above is a more accurate representation of modern fiction, but it still serves as a great illustration of why short stories pose such an aggravation for me. In the “rising action” portion of the plot line, the pace of the narrative slowly picks up, as does the pace at which the audience reads (because they get excited about what’ll happen next). I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but my reading speed is greatly dependent upon this buildup. I read slower as I’m getting into the book and pick up steam as the action escalates. But imagine doing that over and over again inside of a 300 page book and you’ll start to understand my frustration. Oh, and then there’s the fact that most of the time in short stories, that triangle of Freytag’s is really just a huge honkin’ cliff. Climax, bam, done, and we start over again. So that constant speeding up and slowing down really cramps my style and makes it seem like it’s taking forever to get through the book. Mostly because it is.

And then there are other complications. Take, for instance, one of my recent reads, Ray Bradbury’s Long After Midnight. As is with most anthologies, not all short stories included in the collection are created equally. Some of them are mind-bogglingly good. Some of them make your eyes cross with the sheer pointlessness of them. You would think that, being such a world-renowned writer, even Ray Bradbury’s worst stories should still be tolerable. And you would be wrong. What I found out after the fact is that Long After Midnight was the literary equivalent of a “New Jersey Turnpike.” Don’t know what that is? It’s number 4 on this list of the 17 worst shots ever created. Read, laugh, and be disgusted.

Anyhow, the creation of Long After Midnight went down something like this: by 1976 Bradbury had 16 short story anthologies to his credit, but in the publication of those works there were a few stories that got left out of the mix. Either they didn’t fit with the overall milieu of the collection or there wasn’t enough room for another story or they just weren’t good enough. Take your pick. Some enterprising publishing exec (or, who knows, maybe even Bradbury himself) decided that all these derelicts needed to have a home of their own, so they mopped them up with the proverbial bar rag and squeezed them into a shot glass, slapped the label Long After Midnight onto the side, and sent it out to the masses for public consumption. Therefore, none of the stories make sense with one other.

Given the cover of the book, I was also expecting a sci-fi anthology. I mean, look at it! Who wouldn’t be expecting a heady rush of mind-expanding sci-fi goodness if they saw that cover? But in reality, only a third of the stories included were even tangentially related to science fiction. Far more prevalent were the tales of young love and friendship and old love and family—you know, uninteresting crap. I’m kidding, of course. Those are all worthwhile subjects for fiction; it’s just that the reversal of expectations was extremely off-putting. It’s kind of like putting a video in the VCR that you thought was Saving Private Ryan and finding out someone had taped it over with Fried Green Tomatoes—both good movies in their own rights, but for totally different reasons that appeal to totally different tastes. Now imagine that the recording of Fried Green Tomatoes has been spliced with alternating snippets and vignettes cut from a Lifetime movie, and you’ll have a fair approximation of what reading Long After Midnight was like.

Overall, I give the book three out of five stars. The only—and I repeat, only—reason it didn’t get two stars was because of the few stories that genuinely took my breath away. Brilliance lurks within Long After Midnight. You just have to wade through a lot of trash to get there—not unlike the real New Jersey Turnpike, if you think about it.

http://readabookonce.blogspot.com/2012/02/long-after-midnight-by-ray-bradbury-or... show less

The October Game was my favorite story in Long After Midnight. It's one of those tales where the last line punches you right in the gut.

Unfortunately, many of the rest of the stories didn't resonate with me. Perhaps I read this collection too close to The Martian Chronicles? I couldn't help but compare the two and The Chronicles always came out ahead.

I'm still happy that I read this collection, as my goal is to read all of Ray Bradbury's work. I guess not all of his stories are going to knock the ball out of the park, but a mediocre Bradbury story is still better than a good one from most other authors.

Recommended for fans of science fiction, dark fiction and short stories.

Will add reviews for each story as I make my way through, not necessarily in order:

DRINK ENTIRE: AGAINST THE MADNESS OF CROWDS

One of the stranger shorts I've read by Bradbury. His poetic language has gone so mad in this one it's barely controlled, in danger of going off the rails. It doesn't, but not by much. There is a moral to this story of a witch and a broken middle-aged soul in NYC, I am sure, but it is late and the message eludes me. Carpe Diem, perhaps? Enjoyable, but not essential.

THE OCTOBER GAME

Somehow this story has evaded me up until now. If you've never read it before, by all means stop reading this review and go track it down immediately. It's short, cruel and wonderful. Bradbury at his darkest. How I wish he would've show more spent a little more time writing while in this frme of mind. One of the best closing lines in a short story, ever, period. show less

I loved this short story collection. Ray Bradbury is such a kind writer and you can tell he loves his characters. And his writing is exquisite.