High Fidelity

...Such inconsistencies may not mean much when Bradbury himself is mining events for his short stories—"autographical fantasies"—as he calls them...

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...And his deferential treatment towards the female relatives of Darius, captured after the battle of Is sus, was exceptional for the time—and indicative of his respect for women (he executed Greeks convicted of rape and appointed a woman to govern one of his conquered provinces...

...Bradbury's insistence, for example, that his uncle died over a particular, privately symbolic holiday weekend, despite being presented with newspaper clippings that clearly prove otherwise, calls into question everything else that cannot be verified...

...In other words, those truly interested in maintaining the natural magic and mystique surrounding a work of fiction would be well advised to avoid biographical accounts of its author...

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...If you're not with Ray Bradbury, you are a myopic, unfeeling human being that just doesn't get it...

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...But judging Rogers's work as he would like us to judge Alexander's life—that is, on its totality—Guy Rogers has produced a very readable, entertaining, and thought-provoking book...

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...Even your windshield can make matters worse because of small scratches that can increase reflected glare...

...This glare-induced "blindness" is especially prevalent in the early morning or late in the afternoon, and due to the extremely reflective qualities of other cars...

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...EGL226-03 Burnsville, Minnesota 55337 For information on all our products: www.NextTen.corn BOOKS IN REVIEW one from the egomaniacal, sometimes cruel, film director John Huston, George Burns, and W.C...

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...Driving can expose you to more dangerous glare than any sunny summer day at the beach can...do you know how to protect yourself...

...It should not be dismissed or ignored, but it definitely should be taken for what it is...

...The fan Weller paints a scene wherein Bradbury repeatedly spurns the advances of his mistress for years before finally relenting, without ever asking why in the world Bradbury continued to meet alone with this woman if he really wanted to avoid an affair...

...And while The Bradbury Chronicles is filled with wonderful portraits of a burgeoning science fiction scene, the development of a young writer into a legend, and candid portraits of every82 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2005 Health News—Eye Protection To some, sunglasses are a fashion accessory...

...An uncritical autobiography can be taken with the requisite grains of salt, but having another person—ajournalist at that—portray a life...

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...But once a responsible biographer takes a skeleton out of the closet, he is obliged to dance with it...

...It should be noted Bradbury was not simply paranoid...

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...In one of the most heroic episodes of the book, more than a dozen pages are dedicated to Bradbury's fight against the McCarthy-era Hollywood blacklist, a struggle that included an open letter to Republicans from November 10,1952...

...3.) Choose a username and password and enter your e-mail address, you will then be redirected to The Digital Spectator...

...In an introduction to a collection of short stories, Bradbury once wrote of finding inspiration in being present at the tragic drowning of a young girl he was playing with at a lake, but Bradbury now contends she was not even an acquaintance, which introduces an element of doubt to all the other details he provides...

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...It's a fascinating take on Ray Bradbury's life, which should be no surprise, really, since it was mostly recorded directly from the lips of Ray Bradbury himself, one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century...

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...Cleitus was probably drunk, too, and didn't know when to shut up...

...It is possible that his decision to burn the Persian royal palaces at Persepolis was made while drunk...

...The book is an argument written by an advocate...

...High Fidelity JOURNALIST SAM WELLER'S RECENT EBULLIENT, at times embarrassingly gushing biography of fantasy-literature legend Ray Bradbury, The Bradbury Chronicles, lodges many indelible images in readers' minds...

...A young Bradbury receiving a note from the painfully reclusive creator of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs, sent from his home in Tarzana, California...

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...For example, Bradbury's groping and making out with his cousin Vivian—who more than half a century later summed up 14-year-old Ray Bradbury to Weller in one line, "He was horny...

...This powerful glare of the sun can be damaging to the various layers of the eye...

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...Adam and Eve had forbidden fruit...

...Alexander shut Cleitus up by running him through with a spear—and Alexander immediately regretted that drunken action, too...

...The result is essentially what an autobiography usually is: a mostly idyllic tale of a life full of trumped-up meaningful exchanges and events that, for most of us, are as foreign as Martians...

...Keep the salt-shaker handy...

...but then Weller completely ignores the issues raised...

...None of this is to say Weller's biography is uninteresting or unpleasant to read...

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...in Weller won't allow more than a paragraph addressing real concerns in the science fiction subculture that Bradbury was more than a little lax in his descriptions of technology—the "science" part of "science fiction," as it were...

...Such examples notwithstanding, Alexander the Great remains a very flawed individual...

...He must be judged on the whole of his life...

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...The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, Predicting the Past, Remembering the Future by Sam Weller (MORROW, 400 PAGES, $26.95) Reviewed by Shawn Macomber JULY/AUGUST 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 81 BOOKS IN REVIEW been expected to accept the consequences of the knowledge that we seek...

...There are several places in The Bradbury Chronicles where Weller attempts to promote his autonomy by noting discrepancies between Bradbury's story and the historic record or, even worse, Bradbury's own previous accounts...

...One is never quite sure, although neither Weller's admission in the introduction that he is a "lifelong, card-carrying member of the Intergalactic, Time-traveling, Paleontology, Mummies, Martians, Jack 0' Lanterns, Carnivals, and Foghorn-coveting Ray Bradbury fan club," nor Bradbury's ringing endorsement emblazoned on the cover of the book—"It's as if somehow Sam Weller slipped into my skin and my head and my heart"—doesmuch to bolster confidence...

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...In the letter, Bradbury accused the GOP of winning "on the issue of fear itself, and not the facts" and antagonistically declared, "I do not want to hear anymore of this claptrap and nonsense from you...

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...You cannot unlearn Still, despite the cousins, prostitutes, and mistresses, Bradbury comes out of his biography better than most, in no small measure due to the fawning fandom of his "authorized biographer" and Bradbury's own unabashed proclivity for fancifully mythologizing his own life...

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...Alexander, however, like any figure, cannot be honestly judged by a few incidents, as dramatic as they might be...

...He was a binge drinker with a quick and violent temper...

...His army committed atrocities, but for the most part these were no more foul than those committed by his opponents...

...But the fact that the one-two punch of Lyndon Baines Johnson's escalating the war in Southeast Asia and Jimmy Carter's de-escalating the U.S...

...And that one paragraph ends with a swift dismissal: "The purists, in their myopic love affair with hardware," Weller writes, "did not understand that Ray Bradbury cared little about technological accuracy...

...84 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2005 LUBLIMELSIMWZIII I ii!Pi rAMIIMILIil 41Eiminwmwwwwwwim SPECTATOR Welcome to AmSpec Modern The Digital Spectator The American Spectator is now available online...

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...One of the most telling examples of this comes when Weller gingerly broaches the topic of Bradbury's marital infidelities with the line, "Ray Bradbury, like all of us, was human...

...Some, perhaps, may also find it difficult to read Fahrenheit 451 ever again without the intricacies of Bradbury's high school romp with a "plump" prostitute invading their consciousnesses: "She washed me off," Bradburytells Weller...

...He insists on using the "culturally sensitive" BCE rather than BC, which only serves to confuse, and ignores the fact that whether it's "BC" or "BCE" we're still counting from the birth of Jesus Christ...

...Lyda D. Tymicth /1 NASA's researchers looked to nature for a solution...

...Danger can come from reflected light off of another vehicle, from the pavement, or any other reflective surface...

...Well, whywould she ever want to do a thing like that to such a committed family man...

...And, of course, that was almost fatal...

...Unfortunately, there are some seedier images that will stick with readers from here to eternity as well...

...Such an analysis of almost any "great" person, argues Rogers, ultimately reveals the "ambiguity of greatness...

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...Thus, the central question of The Bradbury Chronicles emerges early on: Is this the true story of Bradbury or a great storyteller's heroic yarn easily sold to the clearly eager-to-please Weller...

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...If some journalist wants to write a 300-page love letter to his favorite author, fine, best of luck...

...economy turned Bradbury into a staunch Republican warrants only half a no-quote paragraph...

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...Weller's book should be read as if he were a brilliant lawyer writing Ray Bradbury's brief in the court of the literary universe, pleading his case for a legacy...

...Beware of windshield glare...

...A mother nurturing an imagination with trips to see Lon Chaney films in Waukegan, Illinois, the town that would serve as background for such classics as The Martian Chronicles (1950), Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), and Dandelion Wine (1957...

...Who among us would actually enjoy a true account of all that has lurked in his head and heart throughout his life...

...Fields to classic film star Marlene Dietrich and fantasy-literature giant Forest J. Ackerman, Weller provides precious little perspective when it comes to Bradbury's dealings with anyone or anything outside his fictional creations...

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...And the witnessing of a tragic car accident and the death of a woman that so scarred Ray Bradbury that he never learned to drive...

...Rogers's prose is rarely sparkling and at times his recounting of the often-told history comes across as perfunctory...

...From time immemorial, we have collectively Shawn Macomber is a reporter and staff for The American Spectator...

...No one is asking for a dry, dispassionate day-byday inventory of a life or even necessarily something fair...

...which inspired the boy to find immortality through the written word...

...At a drinking party his general Cleitus—who had saved Alexander's life at the Granicus by chopping off the arm of a Persian cavalry officer who was about to put a sword through an exposed Alexander—criticized Alexander's ego and his policy of bringing Persians into his ranks...

...we have the biography section at Barnes & Noble...

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...In truth, The Martian Chronicles seem less a work of fiction in places than The Bradbury Chronicles...

...Occasionally the autobiographer admits a character-building screw-up, thus proving one's flaws are not being ignored, but even these are accompanied by a multitude of excuses, dismissals, and rationalizations...

...1.) Go to www.spectator.org, click on Subscribe, and go to "First Time Subscribers...

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...Once he decides to sell his biography as a serious examination of his subject rather than a paean to him, some skepticism on the part of the biographer is in order...

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...The sun rises and sets at peak travel periods, during the early morning and afternoon rush hours...

...Electrico knighting a young Bradbury with an electrically charged sword, demanding he "Live forever...

...They can also darken useful, vision-enhancing light rays...

...At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists looked to nature for a solution by studying the eyes of eagles, known for their extreme visual acuity...

...Weller shows no interest in entertaining the merits of any literary criticism of Bradbury's work, ignoring the fact that, while criticism may oftentimes be unfair, it is rarely totally unfounded...

...Yet, motorists struggle on despite being blinded by the sun's glare and cause countless accidents every year...

...Still, despite the cousins, prostitutes, and mistresses, Bradbury comes out of his biography better than most, in no small measure due to the fawning fandom of his "authorized biographer" and Bradbury's own unabashed proclivity for fancifully mythologizing his own life...

...Conveniently, Weller's failure to ask any further questions lifts any direct complicity from Bradbury's shoulders, while shamefully placing the onus on both his supposedly over-aggressive mistress and, unbelievably, his wife, who, Bradbury contends, drove him to cheat by once threatening to divorce him...

...Weller paints a scene wherein Bradbury repeatedly spurns the advances of his mistress for years before finally relenting, without ever asking why in the world Bradbury continued to meet alone with this woman if he really wanted to avoid an affair...

...The classic short story "The Fog Horn" coming into being during a late night walk on a beach during which Bradbury and his wife came upon the abandoned hulk of a serpentine roller coaster half-buried in sand...

...A request under the Freedom of Information Act showed the FBI had the author under surveillance for completely unfounded suspicions of possible Communist connections...

...Bradbury seems to have feuded bitterly with nearly everyone he met up with, but here Weller clearly takes his favorite author's side in every petty fight with boyhood chums to peers in the film and pulp-writing industries, nearly all of whom are accused of being jealous of his godlike talent or plagiarizing him to one degree or another—as if Bradbury himself didn't owe a debt of inspiration to the Space Age writing of H.G...

...Or Bradbury blaming his wife for driving him to infidelity, when she obviously did nothing of the sort...

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...Deadly accidents are regularly caused by such blinding glare...

...But inconsistencies actually do matter when one is writing a book based almost entirely on interviews with Bradbury...

...Since most fiction writers are imagining lives more exciting than their own, the truth can often as not be—Ernest Hemingway notwithstanding—a bit underwhelming...

...the impetus or inspiration for a story, and knowing, for better or worse, will forever color your experience with characters and events...

...BOOKS IN REVIEW (throughout his campaign, he kept a copy of the Iliad, annotated by his tutor, Aristotle, under his pillow...

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