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Ray Bradbury #1
Becoming Ray Bradbury
Becoming Ray Bradbury chronicles the making of an iconic American writer by exploring Ray Bradbury's childhood and early years of his long life in fiction, film, television, radio, and theater. Jonathan R. Eller measures the impact of the authors, artists, illustrators, and filmmakers who stimulated Bradbury's imagination throughout his first three decades. Unprecedented access to Bradbury's personal papers and other private collections provides insight into his emerging talent through his unpublished correspondence, his rare but often insightful notes on writing, and his interactions with those who mentored him during those early years.
Beginning with his childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, and Los Angeles, this biography follows Bradbury's development from avid reader to maturing author, making a living writing for pulp magazines. Eller illuminates the sources of Bradbury's growing interest in the human mind, the human condition, and the ambiguities of life and death--themes that became increasingly apparent in his early fiction. Bradbury's correspondence documents his frustrating encounters with the major trade publishing houses and his earliest unpublished reflections on the nature of authorship. Eller traces the sources of Bradbury's very conscious decisions, following the sudden success of The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, to voice controversial political statements in his fiction, and he highlights the private motivations behind the burst of creative energy that transformed his novella "The Fireman" into the classic novel Fahrenheit 451.
Becoming Ray Bradbury reveals Bradbury's emotional world as it matured through his explorations of cinema and art, his interactions with agents and editors, his reading discoveries, and the invaluable reading suggestions of older writers. These largely unexplored elements of his life pave the way to a deeper understanding of his more public achievements, providing a biography of the mind, the story of Bradbury's self-education and the emerging sense of authorship at the heart of his boundless creativity.
Beginning with his childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, and Los Angeles, this biography follows Bradbury's development from avid reader to maturing author, making a living writing for pulp magazines. Eller illuminates the sources of Bradbury's growing interest in the human mind, the human condition, and the ambiguities of life and death--themes that became increasingly apparent in his early fiction. Bradbury's correspondence documents his frustrating encounters with the major trade publishing houses and his earliest unpublished reflections on the nature of authorship. Eller traces the sources of Bradbury's very conscious decisions, following the sudden success of The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, to voice controversial political statements in his fiction, and he highlights the private motivations behind the burst of creative energy that transformed his novella "The Fireman" into the classic novel Fahrenheit 451.
Becoming Ray Bradbury reveals Bradbury's emotional world as it matured through his explorations of cinema and art, his interactions with agents and editors, his reading discoveries, and the invaluable reading suggestions of older writers. These largely unexplored elements of his life pave the way to a deeper understanding of his more public achievements, providing a biography of the mind, the story of Bradbury's self-education and the emerging sense of authorship at the heart of his boundless creativity.
360 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2011
About the author
Jonathan R. Eller
16 books4 followersJonathan R. Eller is the author of the definitive, three-volume Ray Bradbury biography, which includes Becoming Ray Bradbury, Ray Bradbury Unbound, and Bradbury Beyond Apollo—and served as general editor of the Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury and The New Bradbury Review. He is emeritus Chancellor’s Professor of English at Indiana University and cofounder of the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies, which he directed for a decade until his retirement in 2021.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
February 24, 2019
Not what it seems...
This biography is less about the legendary man himself and more about the details of a long literary career.
This book is a sort of who's-who of Ray Bradbury's literary exploits. Some interesting information about the man himself is there, to be certain. However, you have to really dig to find it. When you do find it, it is often a detail half told, one that will be completed seemingly randomly some fifty pages later. The majority of this work is spent chronicling the career of Ray Bradbury: who he worked with, what books inspired him, which books he read on writing, the ins-and-outs of several projects—all told in almost excruciating detail.
The structure of this book can be very confusing. It is not always chronological, nor sensible. For example, one section suggests it will discuss his falling in love with his wife. It does discuss this for about half the chapter, but then divulges into yet more of his career details. The rest of Ray and Maggie's story has to be found similarly scattered throughout the rest of this work. In that sense, it can be very hard to read and to follow. You rarely feel you are getting to know Bradbury or his career in a linear fashion.
I would have preferred a different biography. Hopefully, one that would have better captured the incredible wit and whimsy of an incredible man. Unfortunately, this was the only option my library had available.
The Bottom Line
If you are particularly curious about the minutiae of Bradbury's various projects and learning how his career and his style evolved over time, then this is a perfect read for you. However, if you were more interested in getting to know the man behind the stories, perhaps choose a different biography. There's one by Sam Weller I wish I had had the chance to read.
Regardless, I am putting together a wrap up of my favorite tidbits about Ray Bradbury as part of my author biography series on my blog and on YouTube. It's a way to showcase what I think my fellow readers would enjoy knowing about a literary legend. Both posts should be up next week, if you're curious :)
This biography is less about the legendary man himself and more about the details of a long literary career.
This book is a sort of who's-who of Ray Bradbury's literary exploits. Some interesting information about the man himself is there, to be certain. However, you have to really dig to find it. When you do find it, it is often a detail half told, one that will be completed seemingly randomly some fifty pages later. The majority of this work is spent chronicling the career of Ray Bradbury: who he worked with, what books inspired him, which books he read on writing, the ins-and-outs of several projects—all told in almost excruciating detail.
The structure of this book can be very confusing. It is not always chronological, nor sensible. For example, one section suggests it will discuss his falling in love with his wife. It does discuss this for about half the chapter, but then divulges into yet more of his career details. The rest of Ray and Maggie's story has to be found similarly scattered throughout the rest of this work. In that sense, it can be very hard to read and to follow. You rarely feel you are getting to know Bradbury or his career in a linear fashion.
I would have preferred a different biography. Hopefully, one that would have better captured the incredible wit and whimsy of an incredible man. Unfortunately, this was the only option my library had available.
The Bottom Line
If you are particularly curious about the minutiae of Bradbury's various projects and learning how his career and his style evolved over time, then this is a perfect read for you. However, if you were more interested in getting to know the man behind the stories, perhaps choose a different biography. There's one by Sam Weller I wish I had had the chance to read.
Regardless, I am putting together a wrap up of my favorite tidbits about Ray Bradbury as part of my author biography series on my blog and on YouTube. It's a way to showcase what I think my fellow readers would enjoy knowing about a literary legend. Both posts should be up next week, if you're curious :)
March 2, 2014
Very well done - and scholarly - biography of Ray Bradbury's life up until about 1953, when the author began working on the screenplay for John Huston's film adaptation of Moby Dick. Fascinating inside information about Bradbury's journey and growth as a writer. I'll be reading the next volume too. (Not sure if it's been published yet, though)
October 15, 2014
Strongly recommended to serious writers interested in how a successful writer got that way. Might be tough going, but isn't every book that expands one's understanding? I found it engrossing. We see the practical steps Bradbury took to become a better writer, and the real-life elements that contributed to his original style.
December 16, 2015
On the second page of the first chapter of Becoming Ray Bradbury, there were two quotations from the master that made this volume worth reading. The first is from a television interview where Bradbury stated, “Style isn’t worthwhile unless it’s absolute truth. They’re synonymous. If you tell the truth you automatically have a style.” (p. 2) Then, from an essay, “Fact without interpretation is but a glimpse of the elephant’s boneyard.” (p. 2) The latter seems like wisdom for more than writing.
Becoming Ray Bradbury is about a writer developing the craft until the point of being a master practicing artisanship. I was very impressed with his relationship with Henry Kuttner. Kuttner’s advice about never writing from the perspective of the superman (except indirectly) seemed well-taken (p. 73). I was also impressed with Bradbury’s voracious reading in other fields. I very much liked his feelings about Sterling North’s observation, “Never in the history of mankind have we been so in need of an ethical pattern. But war destroys ethics, while awakening myth. And the results of our ignorance and fear and superstition lie all about us in a shattered world.” (p. 105) Later, Bradbury was enamored with Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers where “…the archetypes are the picture-memory of the wisdom of the breed and there are as many of them as there are human qualities and problems.” (p. 108)
I was interested in the attitude of the mainstream (“slicks”) publications of the era. “The science fiction bias was quite strong with most of the slicks, and throughout the late 1940s Bradbury’s science fiction and dark fantasies were rejected by major market editors who almost always enjoyed the submissions, but found them ‘wrong’ or ‘not quite right’ for their readers.” (p. 179) I was very appreciative of the caustic description from fellow-novelist, Theodore Sturgeon, about the “…monumental leveling trowel of the literary critics.” (p. 203). Of course, I enjoyed his own Poe-ish rejoinder about editors and publishers in the “sophisticated” Manhattan environs as being “…a bunch of Clowns bricked into a catacomb wall with several million bottles of Amontillado…” (p. 229).
In addition to being concerned about the general state of literature, Bradbury also had a well-honed social conscience. His description of the colonists in The Martian Chronicles could well fit our own present and future: “…these colonials would be going into space that they had carefully sprayed with equal parts of philosophical cyanide and scientific DDT.” (p. 209) For a while, it looked like his stand against McCarthy and McCarthyism would bar him from the film industry forever (p. 269), but Huston’s interest in having Bradbury write the screenplay for Moby Dick circumvented the potential blacklist. Still, his writing colleagues couldn’t understand how he could oppose McCarthy and be so openly hostile to the Soviet Union (p. 270) as well. Frankly, it seems he understood the dangers of tyranny at either extreme.
I would have liked to have seen more about Bradbury’s relationship with “the other Ray,” Ray Harryhausen, and I would also have liked to have seen some mention of his challenge to computer game developers at a late ‘90s development conference. But, this is very much a literary biography.
While it may not be all I wished to read on the subject, it is an invaluable resource to any would-be writer and, indeed, even to those of us who are somewhat “fan-boys.” (Since, I purchased a Bradbury story when I was publishing Amazing Stories for Wizards of the Coast, I allow myself to add the designator, “somewhat,” to that description.”
Becoming Ray Bradbury is about a writer developing the craft until the point of being a master practicing artisanship. I was very impressed with his relationship with Henry Kuttner. Kuttner’s advice about never writing from the perspective of the superman (except indirectly) seemed well-taken (p. 73). I was also impressed with Bradbury’s voracious reading in other fields. I very much liked his feelings about Sterling North’s observation, “Never in the history of mankind have we been so in need of an ethical pattern. But war destroys ethics, while awakening myth. And the results of our ignorance and fear and superstition lie all about us in a shattered world.” (p. 105) Later, Bradbury was enamored with Philip Wylie’s Generation of Vipers where “…the archetypes are the picture-memory of the wisdom of the breed and there are as many of them as there are human qualities and problems.” (p. 108)
I was interested in the attitude of the mainstream (“slicks”) publications of the era. “The science fiction bias was quite strong with most of the slicks, and throughout the late 1940s Bradbury’s science fiction and dark fantasies were rejected by major market editors who almost always enjoyed the submissions, but found them ‘wrong’ or ‘not quite right’ for their readers.” (p. 179) I was very appreciative of the caustic description from fellow-novelist, Theodore Sturgeon, about the “…monumental leveling trowel of the literary critics.” (p. 203). Of course, I enjoyed his own Poe-ish rejoinder about editors and publishers in the “sophisticated” Manhattan environs as being “…a bunch of Clowns bricked into a catacomb wall with several million bottles of Amontillado…” (p. 229).
In addition to being concerned about the general state of literature, Bradbury also had a well-honed social conscience. His description of the colonists in The Martian Chronicles could well fit our own present and future: “…these colonials would be going into space that they had carefully sprayed with equal parts of philosophical cyanide and scientific DDT.” (p. 209) For a while, it looked like his stand against McCarthy and McCarthyism would bar him from the film industry forever (p. 269), but Huston’s interest in having Bradbury write the screenplay for Moby Dick circumvented the potential blacklist. Still, his writing colleagues couldn’t understand how he could oppose McCarthy and be so openly hostile to the Soviet Union (p. 270) as well. Frankly, it seems he understood the dangers of tyranny at either extreme.
I would have liked to have seen more about Bradbury’s relationship with “the other Ray,” Ray Harryhausen, and I would also have liked to have seen some mention of his challenge to computer game developers at a late ‘90s development conference. But, this is very much a literary biography.
While it may not be all I wished to read on the subject, it is an invaluable resource to any would-be writer and, indeed, even to those of us who are somewhat “fan-boys.” (Since, I purchased a Bradbury story when I was publishing Amazing Stories for Wizards of the Coast, I allow myself to add the designator, “somewhat,” to that description.”
April 5, 2016
Jonathan R. Eller has done me — and many others — the great service of writing Becoming Ray Bradbury, covering Bradbury’s growth as a writer from his birth in 1920 to 1953, the year he left for Ireland to work on the screenplay of Moby Dick for director John Huston.
If you know anything about Bradbury at all it probably comes from the possibly thousands of articles about, and interviews with him; his lively, exuberant, and inspirational public appearances at libraries, lecture halls, and conferences; and his appearances on television, especially during America’s trips to the moon. They have all combined to give us a picture of a man with a boy’s summer enthusiasm for life, a boy stretched out on the front lawn — spotted here and there with dandelions, of course — his hands behind his head and his eyes on the stars. It is a wonderful and fine picture, and we love it, and although it is an accurate, to a point, picture of the man, it is an inadequate picture of the writer.
Eller calls his book a “...biography of the mind,” and that is quite apt. Eller does not give us Bradbury the man (we learn little of his personal life, just enough to set scenes), but Bradbury the writer. In great and always fascinating detail, Eller chronicles the journey Bradbury took from his youth to his early middle years that made him, in Eller's estimation, one of the most individualistic, unique, uncompromising, and brilliant — despite certain flaws — writers that America produced in the Twentieth Century....
See the rest of my review at Neworld Review: http://www.neworldreview.com/vol_4No_...
If you know anything about Bradbury at all it probably comes from the possibly thousands of articles about, and interviews with him; his lively, exuberant, and inspirational public appearances at libraries, lecture halls, and conferences; and his appearances on television, especially during America’s trips to the moon. They have all combined to give us a picture of a man with a boy’s summer enthusiasm for life, a boy stretched out on the front lawn — spotted here and there with dandelions, of course — his hands behind his head and his eyes on the stars. It is a wonderful and fine picture, and we love it, and although it is an accurate, to a point, picture of the man, it is an inadequate picture of the writer.
Eller calls his book a “...biography of the mind,” and that is quite apt. Eller does not give us Bradbury the man (we learn little of his personal life, just enough to set scenes), but Bradbury the writer. In great and always fascinating detail, Eller chronicles the journey Bradbury took from his youth to his early middle years that made him, in Eller's estimation, one of the most individualistic, unique, uncompromising, and brilliant — despite certain flaws — writers that America produced in the Twentieth Century....
See the rest of my review at Neworld Review: http://www.neworldreview.com/vol_4No_...
December 6, 2018
Best book on the old man.
Read
December 20, 2020This is an extraordinarily complete and comprehensive account of how Ray Bradbury was inspired and created all of his stories and novels. Painstakingly filled with details, it's a very slow read.
Bradbury began writing while quite young, and was heavily involved in the science fiction fan community in the Los Angeles area. The book is full of information about his relationships with many of the players in the early SF field, such as Leigh Bracket, Henry Kuttner, August Derleth, Hannes Bok, and many others.
Unfortunately, it tends to loop back upon itself chronologically at times, which can be a bit confusing.
One quote I found amusing:
"Late in 1945, he would remark to (August) Derleth, 'God, are there no happy big-time writers?'"
It seemed to take him a while, personally, to find happiness, as he lived with his parents and even slept in the same bed with his older brother until his marriage at age 27.
The book mentions "Franz Werfel's perennial bestseller The Song of Bernadette", which I found interesting. I am not alone in having nominated Werfel's Star of the Unborn as the all-time worst SF novel ever published.
Another interesting passage:
"He (Bradbury) was able to use the evolving Dark Carnival collection to signify that a literary author had emerged from a genre where writers were often seen as entertainers rather than authors..."
I tend to enjoy "entertainers" more than "authors", myself. Non-fiction reading keeps me well aware of the miserable state of most human experience. I much prefer to read to escape from reality.
A great book for the serious Bradbury student.
Bradbury began writing while quite young, and was heavily involved in the science fiction fan community in the Los Angeles area. The book is full of information about his relationships with many of the players in the early SF field, such as Leigh Bracket, Henry Kuttner, August Derleth, Hannes Bok, and many others.
Unfortunately, it tends to loop back upon itself chronologically at times, which can be a bit confusing.
One quote I found amusing:
"Late in 1945, he would remark to (August) Derleth, 'God, are there no happy big-time writers?'"
It seemed to take him a while, personally, to find happiness, as he lived with his parents and even slept in the same bed with his older brother until his marriage at age 27.
The book mentions "Franz Werfel's perennial bestseller The Song of Bernadette", which I found interesting. I am not alone in having nominated Werfel's Star of the Unborn as the all-time worst SF novel ever published.
Another interesting passage:
"He (Bradbury) was able to use the evolving Dark Carnival collection to signify that a literary author had emerged from a genre where writers were often seen as entertainers rather than authors..."
I tend to enjoy "entertainers" more than "authors", myself. Non-fiction reading keeps me well aware of the miserable state of most human experience. I much prefer to read to escape from reality.
A great book for the serious Bradbury student.
June 28, 2020
This is a sometimes tedious look at what made Bradbury the writer he was. Rather than interview people who knew him, the author seems to rely more on correspondence and Bradbury interviews, resulting in a biography short on anecdotes and long on analysis of style and influence. It's not bad, but it doesn't do a lot to humanize the man.
April 14, 2021
For admirers only, and as one, I have mixed feelings. At many points I thought, I do not need to know which books Ray bought in 1943, or about what he gushed in a letter to Henry Kuttner in 1944. That said, I finished it, I do have a better understanding of his progression as a writer through F451, and the completist in me may well read the next two books. But not right now.
July 31, 2021
Almost too much information.
August 10, 2023
Good, thoroughly-researched, scholarly. Also, a bit too much for the reading with only a casual interest in Bradbury.
March 6, 2026
A good look at the early life of Bradbury and how he developed himself, with tremendous effort, into a writer that both popular and literary readers would go on to admire.
June 26, 2021
Jonathan R. Eller's Becoming Ray Bradbury is a very fine literary biography that focuses not on picayune personal matters--issue such as those sniffed at by the Russian Formalist critics of the 1930s, like whether Pushkin smoked--but instead on how a once-unknown, bookish mama's boy evolved into a writer whose work millions love and whose very name even more millions at least recognize.
Eller is a top-notch scholar of Bradbury's work, and as he delineates the events and relationships that shaped the development of this author's distinctive craft, he is able to bring in useful bits and pieces formerly lost to history. Who but Eller, for example, can refer casually to the "[m]ore than 200 known pages of discards moving forward from 'The Fireman' toward Fahrenheit 451..." (277-78), or can show us the first page of the story draft, composed back in 1943, of the tale that eventually became the final chapter of the 1950 The Martian Chronicles? At the same time, though, Eller illuminates the broad trends as well: the sometimes-fractious multiculturalism of Bradbury's prewar Los Angeles, the evolution of the pulp-magazine science fiction and fantasy genres of the 1930s and '40s, the mechanics of postwar book publishing...and of course the McCarthyism of the 1950s that made Fahrenheit 451 so timely.
With eminently readable prose, and using easily digestible 6- or 8-page chapters, Eller takes us from the aspiring high school author to the young man who, still in his early 30s, finally is growing beyond genre restrictions and into recognition by the wider literary world. Becoming Ray Bradbury then culminates with the publication of the man's most famous and enduring novel--and from there, the second of the two-volume biography, Ray Bradbury Unbound, ably takes over.
July 16, 2016
A detailed and entertaining look at the early career of Ray Bradbury, from his first high school writing experiences to the publication of Farenheit 451, which cemented his place in literary society. The book is essentially the story of Bradbury's attempts to be seen as more than a genre author, and both the positive and negative aspects of those attempts. His drive for literary acceptance occasionally challenged friendships, just as his drive for perfection challenged editors who wanted him to finish things. It's an interesting look at the beginnings of a guy that influenced my writing a lot.
July 17, 2016
Becoming Ray Bradbury should be required reading for anyone who is a fan of one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. Covering the first 33 years of his life, Jonathan Eller explores every aspect that created the young Bradbury. From his childhood love of movies and comic strips, the mentors who encouraged him and the editors and agents that helped his career is all examined. Though more academic than Sam Weller's Ray Bradbury Chronicles, it was nonetheless an enjoyable experience. The second volume awaits.
November 4, 2014
The book covers the same chronological periods multiple times, with a different focus each time. This left me confused about ordering of things I had read in different chapters. There was lots of interesting information presented, but I couldn't place the events on a master time line, which was disappointing.
June 26, 2016
Insights into the people and books that inspired Ray Bradbury's beginning years. Not very well written. The author constantly refers to Bradbury's stories but rarely takes the time to summarize. And a professor of English that uses the phrase "very unique"? Shame on him!
March 14, 2012
Found this at the library today: Joy!
August 10, 2015
Insight into the early struggling and self-teaching years of ray Bradbury's successful writing career; leading up to the publication of Fahrenheit 451 in the early 50s.
May 27, 2016
A superb scholarly bio and analysis of Bradbury's work based on interviews with Ray Bradbury himself and Ray's friends, editors, agents, and contemporaries. A must read for readers and writers alike.
Read
November 18, 2011Much too academic for me. I couldn't read it.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews