i’m glad that they let Margot out. Life is long and surely she got over it. Perhaps her revenge was to live better than any one else. I got over my closet experiences and forgive my trespassers. even William might have grown up to be a better man. billserle.com
Thank you, Greg ❤️ The way we are especially as children, demonstrated in this story by Bradbury, is down to evolution. But evolution has decreed that children cannot have and raise children .. yet. So it is down to us to guide them through education and love to be better than us. And I do believe in my heart sadly that Republicans want none of this if it limits their power. 😥
All week I’ve been living through FOMO. I didn’t get to a store to find those stupid glasses. We didn’t have a total eclipse in Colorado. My friend traveled all the way from Bellingham, WA to Texas to see it. I saw reports of large gatherings suddenly gasping at the sight and listened to the Annie Dillard descriptions. I missed it and have felt a little like Margot this week. Now, suddenly, I feel a little better after reading your post. I will probably not live long enough to make it to the next total eclipse, but today the sun is shining so brightly. The sky is so blue (as it occurs only in Colorado). My peach tree has just exploded in blooms. So there, to all you bullies!! (Oh and you know who will be in court tomorrow….)
Mobbing is cruel and surely, many of us have experienced it. Luckily, my parents taught me to stand up to them, so here I am still kicking ass 😊 #Resist
Sigh. I was in 6th grade 68 years ago. I read a lot of Bradbury from that age on (I was hooked into SF by that time by Heinlein's juveniles, a writer whose philosophy I also later came to abhor). But I don't remember this story at all. As a child during the time the Cold War first heated up and then went full swing, my concerns were far more the threat we viscerally lived with. And so the Bradbury story that has stuck with me all my life was "There Will Come Soft Rains" with its description of an automated house trying to communicate with its owners who were by now just shadows on the wall, burned there as the unthinkable.
I haven't returned to Bradbury much since then (I HAVE read Fahrenheit 451) but not because of perceived conservativism. The later stories are just, well, boring.
But I'm fascinated by what our respective reactions, 28 years apart, show about the concerns that kids face at different times. By 1984 the fear of nuclear holocaust had much been reduced by the trust we had gained via the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction and the cognitive dissonance we had all developed as to the dangers. And the rise of Reaganism and the divisions fostered by Vietnam had put the idea of conformity and the dangers of being different far more to the fore.
I have a story that shows what it was like to grow up in that first part of the Cold War. We had air raid drills regularly (and sirens that went off every Wednesday). In first grade, "duck and cover" meant getting under our desks. Later it changed to going to the cloakroom, away from windows, and lying on the floor with our hand cupped over our neck. Then it moved to going to the basement, away from windows, and lying down in the same position. By fifth grade, busses showed up and we were all herded out in a practice evacuation. By 6th grade the schools just stopped trying. We still had earthquake drills (it wasn't that long after the big Seattle quake of 1949) which were just, again, getting under our desks. But by 6th grade, cognitive dissonance had set in. You just couldn't live a normal life with that kind of fear, so you ignored it.
I was a logical little cuss during that time, btw. I always thought that the IDEAL time for the Russians to strike was Wednesdays at noon, when no one paid any attention to the sirens.
By the time I was teaching, in the late sixties, my attitude towards the whole thing was encapsulated by this
"A planet doesn’t explode of itself," said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air.
"That they were able to do it is proof that highly
That's a good story and hat's the only way to live, really. The sirens become meaningless. When I hear a fire alarm, my firs instinct is, Ugh, why did this thing go off.
Bradbury overwrites. Another thing I don't love. He seems to be very much in love with his sentences.
Bradbury shows us exactly what kind of insecure asshole he was. Those of us with a soul feel awful for Margot, but Bradbury is telling us that he reveres the bully. The bully is a "winner". Tough luck for the losers.
I also was in advanced reading classes but I’m terribly glad we missed this one story. Interesting about Bradbury’s conservative slide in light of his writing.
Of all the notable sci-fi writers, Bradbury is the only one I could never warm up to. LOVE Arthur C Clarke, Issac Asimov, even HG Wells, and these days Andy Weir, but I could never get Bradbury to make sense to me or my worldview. He simply wasn't a very good mass audience author; prolific yes, engaging, not so much. He seemed mostly to be writing only for his own amusement, as in this story, "All Summer in a Day." His latter-day faux conservatism is not a surprise. I'm sure, were he alive today, he'd be preaching about all the "woke." It's always funny to me that while railing against things like "political correctness," or "being woke," the people that make the most noise about it are the ones who want to force you into THEIR way of thinking. The intellectual hypocrisy continues, as usual.
Yeah, I never got into him much either. Lacks something. I really liked STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. That and LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS are probably my two favorite of the genre. Weird how so many of them -- Bradbury, Heinlein, Ayn Rand (arguably sci fi), Orson Card -- leaned to the right.
Maybe the point for Bradbury really was the Sadism. Interesting about his political leanings; I also get a Donald Barr vibe from his writing. Maga bullies with megaphones do indeed resemble “William” while too often, we’ve all identified w “Margot”. It’s easy for some to be grotesque and cruel when being kind and given sunlight is so much more needed. This would be a good story for Elon to ponder as he fantasises about putting people on an inhospitable planet. .
Am I better off for not having read Bradbury’s story? Would the storybook bullying have had the same impact on a kid whose real-life bullies were his parents? (Religious abuse; I won’t bore you with the details.) Would it have taken less to heal emotionally from merely being locked in a closet for an hour than my therapeutic three years of writing a book about it in my seventies? (I acknowledge that being locked in a closet on another planet might be worse!)
Acute accounting of "All Summer in a Day." I had to teach it in middle school but had the same visceral reaction to it that you did.
The Bradbury story that haunts me still is "A Sound of Thunder" in the way it echoes today's world from the theme of planet destruction to the possible (terrifying) re-election of Trump - or Deutscher as he's called in the story: "...an iron man, a man with guts, by God!" who destroys the country.
Thank you, another great, thought provoking Sunday Substack.
William reminds me of school ground bullies. He is 45. My take on the ending, like the playground bully when confronted by the teacher yells THEY DID IT!
45William, always one to goad others to be accomplices and the first to disavow guilt, always at the ready to point the fingers at others, the THEY. This is true if claiming a botched Covid-19 response had nothing to with him, indeed unlike bullies not only will 45 point at others, 45 will proclaim his actions were perfect, especially as in a call to Zelenskyy or Raffensperger, no less stealing classified government documents or cooking the books to interfere in an election. Perfect calls, perfect juggling of the accounts, a perfect January 6 visit to the Capitol. Yes 45 is perfect, perfectly insane!
All Summer in a Day is truly demoralizing. It is, however just a story. Living each day knowing 45 can be elected makes me feel like Bradbury's story is a pleasant walk in the park.
I remember this story from seventh grade. I was lucky enough to attend a 40th class reunion for that Catholic elementary school and met up with Ms. Turner, who was my teacher, and 23 and fresh out of leaving the convent at the time. I told her about that reader and that story and the impact, and she was so excited because she was the teacher who had chosen the book and the curriculum. It had an orange and purple cover, we both remembered.
I became an English major and then a college librarian. Words have always had impact. This story was one reason why.
That's awesome! A writing teacher I had in college was interviewed in a magazine and said that the thing about writing is that it's not about immediate impact. You might be speaking to someone not even born yet. You never know who might be reading.
When I was ten 64 years ago I read all the science fiction I could in our small town library. One of the Bradbury short stories that was prescient in a way the the later conservative Bradbury would probably not believe or wish he had written is “A Sound of Thunder.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
By the way, Venus is prima facie evidence of what happens with run away greenhouse gas accumulation.
So Greg, I grew up in the Cold War era where Khrushchev was banging his shoe on the dais while seated at the UN. I was terrified of him! Neighbors had constructed a fallout shelter where they stored blankets and canned goods. My parents thought our neighbors were nuts because they knew if we were to fight and a nuclear war ensued, we’d all be dead. Thankfully, that didn’t occur and us kids used that shelter as a “nightclub” to hang out in. I never read Bradbury, but did listen to “The Twilight Zone” by Rod Serling. That was enough to send me over the edge!
With all of that said, I really enjoyed your podcast with LB and Sandi Bachom. Sandi had me laughing when she shouted out “SHONDA” and then was saying goodbye, which for Jewish people, takes another two hours! :) Tomorrow, we listen or watch for whatever news we can get on this trial. I would not be surprised if Trump suddenly “calls in sick”. Hope the jurors are heavily vetted over and over again before they render a verdict. It is going to be quite the task for Bragg and staff to come up with viable people to serve. Thanks again!
i’m glad that they let Margot out. Life is long and surely she got over it. Perhaps her revenge was to live better than any one else. I got over my closet experiences and forgive my trespassers. even William might have grown up to be a better man. billserle.com
Only with our concerted guidance and love, and defeat of Republican greed for power
Most bullies are losers 😉
The part I'd missed is that her parents were planning to take her back, so maybe this horror hastened her leaving.
🥲
Thank you, Greg ❤️ The way we are especially as children, demonstrated in this story by Bradbury, is down to evolution. But evolution has decreed that children cannot have and raise children .. yet. So it is down to us to guide them through education and love to be better than us. And I do believe in my heart sadly that Republicans want none of this if it limits their power. 😥
Thanks, William (who is so unlike the William in the story!). The nature of GOP interest in children is a subject I'd better avoid on a Sunday...
All week I’ve been living through FOMO. I didn’t get to a store to find those stupid glasses. We didn’t have a total eclipse in Colorado. My friend traveled all the way from Bellingham, WA to Texas to see it. I saw reports of large gatherings suddenly gasping at the sight and listened to the Annie Dillard descriptions. I missed it and have felt a little like Margot this week. Now, suddenly, I feel a little better after reading your post. I will probably not live long enough to make it to the next total eclipse, but today the sun is shining so brightly. The sky is so blue (as it occurs only in Colorado). My peach tree has just exploded in blooms. So there, to all you bullies!! (Oh and you know who will be in court tomorrow….)
Peach tree blooms last a lot longer than eclipses!
Mobbing is cruel and surely, many of us have experienced it. Luckily, my parents taught me to stand up to them, so here I am still kicking ass 😊 #Resist
When he mobbing happens it's like being caught in the rapids. Scary stuff.
I'm glad you're here standing up to them!
Yes, it’s scary speaking truth to power, Greg but I’m made of the right stuff, coming from leaders of WWII Resistance. ✌🏻
Sigh. I was in 6th grade 68 years ago. I read a lot of Bradbury from that age on (I was hooked into SF by that time by Heinlein's juveniles, a writer whose philosophy I also later came to abhor). But I don't remember this story at all. As a child during the time the Cold War first heated up and then went full swing, my concerns were far more the threat we viscerally lived with. And so the Bradbury story that has stuck with me all my life was "There Will Come Soft Rains" with its description of an automated house trying to communicate with its owners who were by now just shadows on the wall, burned there as the unthinkable.
I haven't returned to Bradbury much since then (I HAVE read Fahrenheit 451) but not because of perceived conservativism. The later stories are just, well, boring.
But I'm fascinated by what our respective reactions, 28 years apart, show about the concerns that kids face at different times. By 1984 the fear of nuclear holocaust had much been reduced by the trust we had gained via the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction and the cognitive dissonance we had all developed as to the dangers. And the rise of Reaganism and the divisions fostered by Vietnam had put the idea of conformity and the dangers of being different far more to the fore.
I have a story that shows what it was like to grow up in that first part of the Cold War. We had air raid drills regularly (and sirens that went off every Wednesday). In first grade, "duck and cover" meant getting under our desks. Later it changed to going to the cloakroom, away from windows, and lying on the floor with our hand cupped over our neck. Then it moved to going to the basement, away from windows, and lying down in the same position. By fifth grade, busses showed up and we were all herded out in a practice evacuation. By 6th grade the schools just stopped trying. We still had earthquake drills (it wasn't that long after the big Seattle quake of 1949) which were just, again, getting under our desks. But by 6th grade, cognitive dissonance had set in. You just couldn't live a normal life with that kind of fear, so you ignored it.
I was a logical little cuss during that time, btw. I always thought that the IDEAL time for the Russians to strike was Wednesdays at noon, when no one paid any attention to the sirens.
By the time I was teaching, in the late sixties, my attitude towards the whole thing was encapsulated by this
"A planet doesn’t explode of itself," said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air.
"That they were able to do it is proof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there.
That's a good story and hat's the only way to live, really. The sirens become meaningless. When I hear a fire alarm, my firs instinct is, Ugh, why did this thing go off.
Bradbury overwrites. Another thing I don't love. He seems to be very much in love with his sentences.
Bradbury shows us exactly what kind of insecure asshole he was. Those of us with a soul feel awful for Margot, but Bradbury is telling us that he reveres the bully. The bully is a "winner". Tough luck for the losers.
We never do find out if William, specifically, feels bad. He isn't singled out at the end. Hmm.
I also was in advanced reading classes but I’m terribly glad we missed this one story. Interesting about Bradbury’s conservative slide in light of his writing.
A lot of the sci fi writers of the time leaned libertarian. Heinlein especially.
Wow Greg! No one can evoke memorable poems, books, stories, evrn mean kids like you! Visceral! Thanks
Thanks, Gwen!
Of all the notable sci-fi writers, Bradbury is the only one I could never warm up to. LOVE Arthur C Clarke, Issac Asimov, even HG Wells, and these days Andy Weir, but I could never get Bradbury to make sense to me or my worldview. He simply wasn't a very good mass audience author; prolific yes, engaging, not so much. He seemed mostly to be writing only for his own amusement, as in this story, "All Summer in a Day." His latter-day faux conservatism is not a surprise. I'm sure, were he alive today, he'd be preaching about all the "woke." It's always funny to me that while railing against things like "political correctness," or "being woke," the people that make the most noise about it are the ones who want to force you into THEIR way of thinking. The intellectual hypocrisy continues, as usual.
Yeah, I never got into him much either. Lacks something. I really liked STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. That and LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS are probably my two favorite of the genre. Weird how so many of them -- Bradbury, Heinlein, Ayn Rand (arguably sci fi), Orson Card -- leaned to the right.
Maybe the point for Bradbury really was the Sadism. Interesting about his political leanings; I also get a Donald Barr vibe from his writing. Maga bullies with megaphones do indeed resemble “William” while too often, we’ve all identified w “Margot”. It’s easy for some to be grotesque and cruel when being kind and given sunlight is so much more needed. This would be a good story for Elon to ponder as he fantasises about putting people on an inhospitable planet. .
Elon is incapable of pondering. He would find it funny that Margot was locked there.
Am I better off for not having read Bradbury’s story? Would the storybook bullying have had the same impact on a kid whose real-life bullies were his parents? (Religious abuse; I won’t bore you with the details.) Would it have taken less to heal emotionally from merely being locked in a closet for an hour than my therapeutic three years of writing a book about it in my seventies? (I acknowledge that being locked in a closet on another planet might be worse!)
I'm so sorry to hear this, Earl, but I am grateful that you are here and sharing with us.
And no, it wouldn't.
Acute accounting of "All Summer in a Day." I had to teach it in middle school but had the same visceral reaction to it that you did.
The Bradbury story that haunts me still is "A Sound of Thunder" in the way it echoes today's world from the theme of planet destruction to the possible (terrifying) re-election of Trump - or Deutscher as he's called in the story: "...an iron man, a man with guts, by God!" who destroys the country.
I'll have to check that one out.
I still can't decide if this one is good or not...
Greg
Thank you, another great, thought provoking Sunday Substack.
William reminds me of school ground bullies. He is 45. My take on the ending, like the playground bully when confronted by the teacher yells THEY DID IT!
45William, always one to goad others to be accomplices and the first to disavow guilt, always at the ready to point the fingers at others, the THEY. This is true if claiming a botched Covid-19 response had nothing to with him, indeed unlike bullies not only will 45 point at others, 45 will proclaim his actions were perfect, especially as in a call to Zelenskyy or Raffensperger, no less stealing classified government documents or cooking the books to interfere in an election. Perfect calls, perfect juggling of the accounts, a perfect January 6 visit to the Capitol. Yes 45 is perfect, perfectly insane!
All Summer in a Day is truly demoralizing. It is, however just a story. Living each day knowing 45 can be elected makes me feel like Bradbury's story is a pleasant walk in the park.
William is, indeed, 45. Thanks for this, Old Man!
I remember this story from seventh grade. I was lucky enough to attend a 40th class reunion for that Catholic elementary school and met up with Ms. Turner, who was my teacher, and 23 and fresh out of leaving the convent at the time. I told her about that reader and that story and the impact, and she was so excited because she was the teacher who had chosen the book and the curriculum. It had an orange and purple cover, we both remembered.
I became an English major and then a college librarian. Words have always had impact. This story was one reason why.
That's awesome! A writing teacher I had in college was interviewed in a magazine and said that the thing about writing is that it's not about immediate impact. You might be speaking to someone not even born yet. You never know who might be reading.
When I was ten 64 years ago I read all the science fiction I could in our small town library. One of the Bradbury short stories that was prescient in a way the the later conservative Bradbury would probably not believe or wish he had written is “A Sound of Thunder.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder
By the way, Venus is prima facie evidence of what happens with run away greenhouse gas accumulation.
So Greg, I grew up in the Cold War era where Khrushchev was banging his shoe on the dais while seated at the UN. I was terrified of him! Neighbors had constructed a fallout shelter where they stored blankets and canned goods. My parents thought our neighbors were nuts because they knew if we were to fight and a nuclear war ensued, we’d all be dead. Thankfully, that didn’t occur and us kids used that shelter as a “nightclub” to hang out in. I never read Bradbury, but did listen to “The Twilight Zone” by Rod Serling. That was enough to send me over the edge!
With all of that said, I really enjoyed your podcast with LB and Sandi Bachom. Sandi had me laughing when she shouted out “SHONDA” and then was saying goodbye, which for Jewish people, takes another two hours! :) Tomorrow, we listen or watch for whatever news we can get on this trial. I would not be surprised if Trump suddenly “calls in sick”. Hope the jurors are heavily vetted over and over again before they render a verdict. It is going to be quite the task for Bragg and staff to come up with viable people to serve. Thanks again!