Enjoyed this greatly! A balanced critical assessment of his career and work. I love Bradbury, but I think so often people just gush about how important he was or how much they love him.
Your point about him not being “science” fiction in the way of Asimov and Clarke is definitely part of his appeal for me. I always tell my friends that Star Wars isn’t science fiction but space fantasy and they roll their eyes.
I’d like to read that C.S. Lewis piece now. Thanks for sharing!
There's the idea of hard vs. soft science fiction, which I guess maps onto this and which I don't think was a term of art when Lewis wrote that essay in the fifties.
The other applicable literary criticism idea -- which I'm sure you've seen in the discourse around the recent New York Times list -- is that of literary authors (using that as a merely descriptive term) using genre tropes. Cormac McCarthy writing what could be described as a post-apocalyptic adventure novel, or Kazuo Ishiguro writing about the lives of clones. I think Bradbury's writing is at least arguably closer to that than to, say, Asimov or Frank Herbert. Or, to bring it back to Lewis, Lewis writing a science fiction novel with steampunk-ish elements that goes in very Lewisian directions.
Enjoyed this greatly! A balanced critical assessment of his career and work. I love Bradbury, but I think so often people just gush about how important he was or how much they love him.
Your point about him not being “science” fiction in the way of Asimov and Clarke is definitely part of his appeal for me. I always tell my friends that Star Wars isn’t science fiction but space fantasy and they roll their eyes.
I’d like to read that C.S. Lewis piece now. Thanks for sharing!
There's the idea of hard vs. soft science fiction, which I guess maps onto this and which I don't think was a term of art when Lewis wrote that essay in the fifties.
The other applicable literary criticism idea -- which I'm sure you've seen in the discourse around the recent New York Times list -- is that of literary authors (using that as a merely descriptive term) using genre tropes. Cormac McCarthy writing what could be described as a post-apocalyptic adventure novel, or Kazuo Ishiguro writing about the lives of clones. I think Bradbury's writing is at least arguably closer to that than to, say, Asimov or Frank Herbert. Or, to bring it back to Lewis, Lewis writing a science fiction novel with steampunk-ish elements that goes in very Lewisian directions.
Thank you for this! Very insightful.
Excellent piece, well done!
Thanks so much.