Лекарство от меланхолии

by Ray Bradbury

'Когда все потеряно, остается надежда', — утверждает герой одного из рассказов Рэя Брэдбери. И эти слова могли бы стать эпиграфом ко всему сборнику 'Лекарство от меланхолии', на страницах которого всегда найдется место для грустных улыбок и добрых чудес.Книга представляет собой оригинальный авторский сборник, в который вошли девятнадцать рассказов, среди них 'Дракон', 'Берег на закате', 'Пришло время дождей', 'Улыбка', 'Земляничное окошко' и другие.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Collections, Classics, Anthologies

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).

The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".

Reviews

[Ethan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Medicine for Melancholy is a mixed bag of short stories by Ray Bradbury. A decent amount of them focus on Man's futile attempts to colonize Mars, a theme Bradbury focused on entirely in his excellent book The Martian Chronicles. Some of the stories I would classify as horror, and some are a bit hard to classify. The problem I have with this collection is that it has 22 stories, but I rated six of them 2.5 stars or less, and eleven of them (half the collection) 3.5 stars or less. So a good amount of the stories are either downright bad or pretty "meh". There are some gems in this collection though. My favourite story, hands down, was The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. It was worth the price of the book all by itself.

I have to say I'm a bit surprised this collection was ever published, because two of the stories seem like they would greatly offend Irish people. In one, an Irish chauffeur can't drive normally unless he's drunk; when he's sober he speeds and drives like a maniac. In another story, a bicycle accident occurs in Ireland on a foggy day, and an American tourist has to drive one of the injured people to the hospital. He remarks how afraid he is to drive to the hospital in the fog because of all the other phantom drivers out there "smelling of Guinness stout". Yikes... :-/

Individual ratings for each story and cumulative rating for the book as a whole are below:

In a Season of Calm Weather: 4.5/5
The Dragon: 4.5/5
A Medicine for Melancholy: 3.5/5
The End of the Beginning: 4/5
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit: 5/5
Fever Dream: 5/5
The Marriage Mender: 3.5/5
The Town Where No One Got Off: 4.5/5
A Scent of Sarsaparilla: 2/5
Icarus Montgolfier Wright: 2/5
The Headpiece: 1.5/5
Dark They Were, and Golden-eyed: 5/5
The Smile: 5/5
The First Night of Lent: 2/5
The Time of Going Away: 3/5
All Summer in a Day: 2.5/5
The Gift: 3/5
The Great Collision of Monday Last: 3/5
The Little Mice: 4/5
The Shore Line at Sunset: 4.5/5
The Strawberry Window: 2/5
The Day It Rained Forever: 5/5

79/110 = 71.818% = 3.59 stars

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cualquier cuento que uno tome al azar de este libro de Ray Bradbury destila añoranza, poseía, belleza y luz. Todas las sensaciones que los seres humanos podemos percibir en la vida son transformadas en hermosos relatos por parte de un escritor tan sutil y maravilloso como el viejo Ray.
Sucesos fantásticos, anécdotas del futuro, viajes a Marte e inventos inverosímiles.
Lluvias interminables o sequías que no terminan nunca, pinceladas de realismo mágico, desarraigo en Marte y esperanza de visitar el planeta rojo. Cada cuento tiene un brillo particular.
Nada era imposible para la mente brillante de Bradbury.
Todos estos cuentos poseen esa originalidad y esa frescura que no cualquier autor podría imprimirle.
Es innegable que Ray Bradbury sigue siendo uno de los mejores cuentistas de la literatura.

[Julio Bernad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es muy común asociar el nombre de Ray Bradbury a la ciencia ficción, sobre todo por su obra distopica Fahrenheit 451. Pero estaríamos cayendo en un juicio demasiado fácil y precipitado. Bradbury jamas se considero un escritor del genero, el se catalogaba como un cultivador del genero fantástico, un simple cuenta-cuentos creador de mundos imaginarios, y la prueba de ello se ve que obras ambientadas en planetas como Marte o Venus no se explican como se consiguieron atmosferas respirables, si sufrieron un proceso de terraformación o los medios por los cuales los seres humanos consiguieron llegar y posteriormente asentarse. Esta antología de brevisimas piezas es la mejor prueba para descubrir al Bradbury mas imaginativo y fantástico.

Reseña completa aquí: http://gymnopedieygnossiennes.blogspo...

[William III · Rating 3 out of 5]

In a Season of Calm Weather - 4/5
The Dragon - 2/5
A Medicine for Melancholy - 1/5
The End of the Beginning - 3/5
The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit - 1/5
Fever Dream - 4/5
The Marriage Mender - 1/5
The Town Where No One Got Off - 3/5
A Scent of Sarsaparilla - 3/5
Icarus Montgolfier Wright - 1/5
The Headpiece - 3/5
Dark They Were, And Golden-Eyed - 3/5
The Smile - 3/5
The First Night of Lent - 3/5
The Time of Going Away - 3/5
All Summer in a Day - 3/5
The Gift - 4/5
The Great Collision of Monday Last - 1/5
The Little Mice - 2/5
The Shoreline at Sunset - 2/5
The Strawberry Window - 2/5
The Day It Rained Forever - 3/5
Referent - 2/5
Almost the End of the World - 3/5
Here There Be Tygers - 4/5
Perchance to Dream (aka Asleep in Armageddon) - 5/5
And the Rock Cried Out - 3/5

[Temucano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buen libro. Bradbury es genial tejiendo historias, de forma sosegada, con esa cadencia poética, te va involucrando en la trama y en pocas páginas logra maravillar con algunos cierres magníficos. No son todos relatos de ciencia ficción, pero es en esos escenarios marcianos o venusianos, donde a mí más me cautiva, como en "Eran morenos y de ojos dorados", mi relato favorito del libro (que de hecho hubiera calzado perfecto en las "Crónicas marcianas").

Otros relatos que me gustaron fueron "El dragón" (de los pocos que conocía), "El maravilloso traje de helado de crema", "Todo el verano en un día", "La costa en el crepúsculo", "El día que llovió para siempre", y la descripción del hombre y su destino en "El fin del comienzo".

De seguro seguiré leyendo a Bradbury, siempre es un agrado.

[David Swisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into Medicine for Melancholy excited, because I love Bradbury’s blend of nostalgia and weirdness, but this collection left me a little underwhelmed. A lot of the stories felt more like unfinished sketches than complete pieces, and after a while the same tone of melancholy started to wear on me.

There are bright spots though. In a Season of Calm Weather was a favorite, short but sharp, with that flash of Bradbury wonder that makes you stop and smile. On the other hand, The Great Collision of Monday Last just didn’t land for me at all. It felt rushed and more gimmick than story.

Bradbury’s writing is still beautiful in places, and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t sentences that made me pause and reread just to soak them in. But overall this book felt uneven, almost like a grab bag of leftovers. If you’re already a Bradbury fan, you’ll find little gems here. If not, I’d say start with a more well known work like The Martian Chronicles first.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is a group of stories by one of the masters of the science fiction field.

A young woman is bedridden with a baffling illness. Her family decides to bring her, and her bed, outside, on the street, to take advantage of the human tendency to give unsolicited medical advice to complete strangers. A group of male friends, of the same physical size, pool their resources to purchase an expensive white suit, which they will share. It is the sort of suit that is guaranteed to attract the ladies. A young boy is sick with what his doctor is certain is nothing more than scarlet fever. The boy fears that his sickness is much more serious.

An after-the-apocalypse story is about an America where everything, and anything, from the past is to be hated and destroyed, including a famous painting that is based on a woman's smile. A group of human colonists are stuck on Mars because of a war on Earth. A colony ship is sent, five years later, after the war, and finds several hundred Martians, with no knowledge of any human colonists. Traveling across America by train, a businessman impulsively decides to get off at the next stop, whatever it is. He learns why there are some small towns where no one ever gets off the train. A couple of men who wander California beaches looking for coins or dropped jewelry find something really interesting. A real mermaid washes up on shore. Their thought is to pack it in ice, and eventually sell it, but the tide is coming in.

This book shows why Bradbury was such a great author. The stories aren't just science fiction, or fantasy, or horror. They feel like the sort of stories that could happen to anyone. If a copy can be found, this is a gem of a book.

[A Fan of Comics · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just what the doctor ordered!

A Medicine for melancholy is a series of short stories by Ray Bradbury. Even though it was written in 1959, there were quit a few stories readers can relate to today. A family moves to Mars to escape nuclear war on Earth, when they can not return, something very alien starts to happen to them. A Man orders a hair piece to charm his young neighbor, but will she be? A husband takes note from National Geographic Magazine and begins his passage to the next life, his wife is not so impressed. Some of these stories were a surprise. I wasn't expecting a few endings and they turned out more sci-fi or heart felt then I would have guessed. One of two felt a little out dated or under developed but the book is good enough as a whole that you wont even remember those ones.

[Cristina Bracho Carrillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

No me ha gustado tanto como "El país de octubre", pero hay un relato, "Sueño de fiebre", que se me ha marcado a fuego como una pesadilla. Sublime.

[Sergey Tomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Зачем подниматься на Эверест? Затем, что он существует»
Господи, как трудно рассказать об этой микстуре. Вот попробуйте представить себе, что книга может быть коробкой леденцов, в которой каждая конфета неповторима по вкусу. «Конфетница растягивает, мнёт и нарезает массу для леденцов. «Интересно, а леденцы кричат? Может, и кричат, только таким тоненьким голоском, что их не слышно». А эти, представьте себе слышно и очень даже отчётливо.
Что бы сделали, если бы вам пришлось наблюдать, как Пикассо рисует одну из своих великих картин на берегу океана, палочкой на мокром песке за час до прилива? Взяли бы вы лопату, сбегали бы за фотоаппаратом или прошлись бы вдоль берега и рассмотрели каждую деталь этого «полотна», впитали бы в себя чудо мимолётности самой прекрасной картины, обречённой погибнуть неизбежно и неотвратимо через мгновение? Замерло бы ваше сердце, когда, вернувшись домой, ваши губы прошептали: «Прилив начался»? Это переворачивает наши представления о прекрасном, которое застыло в вечности, с ног на голову. Или, представьте, что на дворе варварские времена, когда предметы искусства безжалостно уничтожают, и вот вы стоите в гигантской очереди, чтобы плюнуть на Джоконду, а потом толпа с яростью начинает раздирать холст, а в вашей ладони оказывается клочок с загадочной улыбкой… Или, вообразите, что человечество готовится проститься с притяжением земли, люди летят строить первую внеземную станцию. И два старика, сидя на веранде, ждут взлёта ракеты, в которой их сын. Мать и отец. «Господи помоги им. Смотри! Вот она! Вот! Оба вскрикнули. Мне миллионы лет от роду. Я родился минуту назад». Старик постригает газон, а мир уже изменился навсегда.
Или вот, вы когда-нибудь видели, чтобы один костюм стоимостью в пятьдесят долларов мог осчастливить сразу шестерых мужчин? Ваменос, Гомес, Мартинес, Вильянасаул, Домингес, Мануло – шестеро мексиканцев одного роста и объёмов груди и талии. И один белоснежный костюм на шестерых. Что-то будет? Безумие? Поножовщина? Убийства? Есть только один костюм на свете – костюм цвета сливочного мороженого, размер тридцать четыре. Белые крылья ангела. Белый, как одинокое зимнее облако в лунную ночь. Белый, как снег на вершине горы. Субботний вечер и каждому из шести отмерено всего лишь полчаса на то, чтобы пройтись в нём по улице. Полчаса часа на царствие… Мексиканцы ужасно смешные. Это отличное лекарство от меланхолии, ей-ей!
Или вообразите себе страшную болезнь, как в рассказе «Горячечный бред», болезнь, в которую никто не верит, но которой вы неизлечимо больны. Истинный триллер, хоррор, кошмар! От этого рассказа начинает всё чесаться, как в приступе ипохондрии. Если вы заразитесь, вы больше никогда не пожмёте руку другому человеку.
А что будет, если взять и внезапно сойти с поезда на станции, на которой никто и никогда не сходит. Возможно на этой станции вас поджидает человек, состарившийся в ожидании вас, того, кто, наконец, сойдёт на этой станции. Что если он поклялся себе убить того единственного, кто однажды сойдёт на станции, на которой никто не сходит? Что если у вас в кармане пистолет? Что если это блеф?
А что если старик вдруг поверит в то, что действительно есть такое время – время уходить. Строить каноэ и уплывать на закат? Что если у старика есть старуха, которая не может поверить в то, что это хоть капельку похоже на здравомыслие? «- Мне больно поверить, что ты не можешь поверить в мои ощущения надвигающейся Судьбы». «- Это мне больно оттого, что «Нейшнл Джиографик» попадает в руки старых, выживших из ума людей!»
Что если вы однажды прочтёте настолько правдоподобное описание встречи с русалкой? Способны ли вы на истинный триумф воображения? И что бы сказали на то, что новый год или рождество можно встретить в космическом пространстве и открыть своему ребёнку настоящее новогоднее чудо, не имея ни ёлки, ни гирлянд, но лишь пустоту и мерцающие звёзды, да человеческие голоса?
Можете ли вы вообразить себе жизнь на Венере, где солнце появляется лишь раз в семь лет и только на один час. А теперь представьте себе глаза ребёнка, маленькой девочки, которая помнит земное Солнце, но провела этот долгожданный час запертой в шкафу!
Этой ночью я вновь перепробовал все леденцы из этой коробки. Боже мой, какое это блаженство! Какой букет ароматов, соцветие чувств, буйство переживаний. Если у вас есть воображение, откройте эту коробку и попробуйте любую конфету. Наугад! Прочтите, что написано на фантике, закройте глаза, насладитесь.
Это сладкое лекарство, лекарство от меланхолии: «Тебе известно, что у тебя внутри? – Вы имеете в виду мой желудок или психологию?»

[Athziri Padilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Faltando 2 cuentos para terminar he decidido dejarlo. Llegué a este libro pensando que sería una especie de "primo" de "País de Octubre", vaya error. Si bien no por eso dejaré de leer a Bradbury; este libro es el claro ejemplo de que no todos los libros de un solo autor son buenos o malos

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Medicine for Melancholy is a pretty middling Ray Bradbury collection. The stories are the usual assortment of slice-of-life-with-a-twist, light science fiction and occasional cosmic horror that fans of Bradbury would expect. There are several gems in the collection, like the oft-reprinted "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (Earthly immigrants to Mars undergo a strange transformation) and "All Summer in a Day" (a group of kids prepare for a rare Venusian sunrise), the popular magic realism tale "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," and my favorite of the bunch, the mind-warping body horror of "Fever Dream," where a boy is victimized by a peculiar disease. Most of these, however, are favorites of Bradbury best-of collections and not unique to this volume, and that's where "Melancholy" falls down. The lesser-known stories are mostly banal, variations on themes about art and space travel without the wit or flourish of Bradbury's usual work. The volume also includes some odd stories that rely on gross stereotypes about Irishmen ("The First Day of Lent") and Native Americans ("The Headpiece"), and aren't good or interesting enough otherwise to compensate. Probably recommended for completists, as the better stories in this volume aren't hard to find.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is really one of my all-time favorite collections of short stories.
Written or published between 1948-1959, these are stories of surprise and wonder, and sometimes poignancy or humor. And wonderful images like the calliope bed and the vanilla ice cream suit.
My favorites include The Dragon
The Marriage Mender
The Smile
A Medicine for Melancholy
In a Season of Calm Weather


"Hush! Did you imagine, family, so many people, two hundred, would pay to give us their opinion?"
"Yes, " said Mrs. Wilkes. "Wives, husbands, children, are deaf to each other. So people gladly pay to have someone listen to them."
-Ray Bradbury, A Medicine for Melancholy

"you know what attics are? They're Time Machines, in which old, dim-witted men like me can travel back forty years to a time when it was summer all year round and children raided ice wagons. Remember how it tastes?
-Ray Bradbury, A Scent of Sarsaparilla

"What, civilization? Nobody wants it. Not me!"
"I could stand a bit of it," said the man behind another man. "There were a few spots of beauty in it."
-Ray Bradbury, The Smile

"So the shore-line stage was set, and in a few minutes the two men would meet. ...
The stranger stood alone. Glancing about, he saw his aloneness, saw the waters of the lovely bay, saw the sun sliding down the late colors of the day, and then, half turning, spied a small wooden object on the sand. It was no more than the slender stick from a lime ice cream delicacy long since melted away. Smiling, he picked the stick up. With another glance to reinsure his solitude, the man stooped again and, holding the stick gently, with light sweeps of his hand began to do that one thing in all the world he knew best how to do.
He began to draw incredible figures along the sand."
-Ray Bradbury, In a Season of Calm Weather

[Fei · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 J'ai aimé retrouver la plume de Bradbury même si ce recueil ne fera pas parti de mes favoris.
Les nouvelles sont assez inégales, certaines m'ont beaucoup plus et d'autre m'ont laissées perplexes. Ce recueil n'a pas vraiment de thème ou de fil conducteur entres les nouvelles et je pense que certaines aurait été plus marquantes si on avait eu un peu de contexte sur leurs publications.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so good! I now remember why I consider Bradbury to be one of my favourite short story writers. I'll be reading everything he's ever written over my lifetime because he's just superb. Loved many of these stories. There was even a mermaid!!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If nothing else, this has to be the best title ever.

[Andrés · Rating 3 out of 5]

obvio que no es Fahrenheit 451,
obvio que no es Crónicas Marcianas,
pero tampoco es como Las Manzanas Doradas del Sol.

Son cuentos que me gustaron, pero no sé hasta qué punto van a quedar en mi memoria.
De todos modos, AMO a Bradbury.

[Sauerkirsche · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schade, diese Kurzgeschichten waren bestenfalls mittelmäßig. Ich liebe Bradbury's October Country und Dandelion wine. In Medizin für Melancholie hat mir alles gefehlt was die beiden anderen so großartig macht, der Witz, das Makabere, die Phantasie und Tiefgang. Man findet zwar ein Sammelsurium an Sci-Fi, Fantasy und leicht schwarzem Humor, das ganze hat sich für mich jedoch sehr austauschbar angefühlt. Außerdem frage ich mich ob Ray Bradbury schlechte Erfahrungen mit Ehefrauen gemacht hat. In der Mehrheit seiner Erzählungen benehmen sich die Herzdamen wie wahre Hausdrachen und werden oft noch nicht mal als Menschen bezeichnet. Naja vielleicht lassen auch einfach die 60er grüßen.

[Pablo]

Bradbury redunda en las mismas imágenes (Ruina, paso del tiempo, desaparición, crisis) y a veces, logra cuentos hermosos, en alguno ensaya ya las Crónicas Marcianas. Pero su estilo (enumeraciones y contrastes) llega hasta donde puede, no siempre con gracejo.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A generally pleasant read, though the quality of the stories varies, as is probably inevitable in a collection like this. There are some real gems, like "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit" and the grade school anthology standard "All Summer in a Day"; there's also the memorably eerie "Fever Dream" and "The Town Where No One Got Off." But there are quite a few that I found fairly uninspiring. Bradbury's prose is usually rather pretty, and there's nothing too annoying or cringe-worthy, but some of the stories get a bit close to being filler.

As a small aside, I really enjoy the datedness of some of Bradbury's science fiction--for instance, the regular assumption in his stories that we'd have colonies on Mars by the 1990s. I don't think it interferes with the story in any way--it's just a remarkable reminder of how fast technological change was anticipated, and the direction that change was thought to go.

There are two stories about Americans in Ireland that I thought were by miles the worst of the lot (and perhaps dated in a more profound way than the 1950s nuclear families farming on Mars). One turns on the very obviously pre-MADD assumption that drinking makes people better drivers (oh, those loveably drunk Irish!). The other asks us to find it hilariously, disturbingly weird that people can have dangerous collisions riding bicycles (not cars--oh, those loveably uncivilized Irish!). These seemed to me to strike an oddly unperceptive and clunky note for such a generally thoughtful writer. But they are exceptions.

[shelby · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ***
took me forever to get through this, not because i couldn't get into it, per se, but since it was a collection of short stories i used it as a book to pick up while i was in between books. a very small handful of stories really stuck with me, but the majority i found it hard to really get sucked into. i also feel like a lot was left unsaid. bradbury is always a joy, but this collection just didn't strike me through the heart. one story i'm still thinking about weeks later is "the time of going away."

[Jessy Raga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cumplió mis expectativas, la mayoría de los relatos tienen final abierto más bien te dejan una sensación de honda reflexion; también se encuentran varias narraciones con ese toque visionario futuristico y profético tan característico de Bradbury. Mis relatos favoritos fueron los siguientes:

• El Pueblo dónde no baja nadie
• La sonrisa
• El maravilloso traje de helado de crema
• El regalo
• Eran morenos y de ojos dorados
• Remedio para melancólicos
• Tiempo de partir
• La ventana de color fresa
• El día en que llovió para siempre.

[Leonor Ñañez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simplemente, maravilloso.

[Francisco Carrasco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Algunos cuentos te toman muy desprevenido por la prosa que contienen. historias muy buenas que fácilmente pueden ser novelas en sí mismas. Me encantó

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of stories (some fantastical) that tries to deliver on the promised title. Whereas a lot of contemporary authors strive to illustrate a theme or present an idea, Bradbury is content to spin a tale solely to capture a particular feeling or mood. Awe, heartbreak, curiosity, dread, wonder, depression, anguish, and love are all on display in a series of unconnected but all delicately rendered narratives. While there are some sci-fi and ghost stories, the most effective tales were the mundane, "slice of life" stories. "In a Season of Calm Weather," "A Medicine for Melancholy," "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," "The Marriage Mender," "The Headpiece," "The Great Collision of Monday Last," and "The Day It Rained Forever" were all favorites. The only downside to this book is the stereotypical depiction of the Irish and Mexican-Americans in two of the stories. Both are made worse in that the narrator of each is a Bradbury surrogate, no doubt channeling some real life interactions had with people who probably inspired (to some extent) the characters in the story. These tarnish what would otherwise be a marvelous short story collection.

[Christina Xu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bradbury is remarkably talented at combining mundane moments with wildly absurd fantasy. He specializes in this niche and he executes it well.

This book collates a series of short science fiction stories, each mere pages in length, throwing the reader into new settings with new characters every chapter, which personally made it more diverse and interesting to read than Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles. Not every story was a hit for me but honorable mentions go to “The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit” and “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed.”

[emita · Rating 4 out of 5]

lo leí rápido, me gusto qcy estuvo bueno

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is classic Bradbury, and if it’s a medicine for melancholy, it’s very much of the hair-of-the-dog variety.

The science fiction is amazing—in his lyrical, fairy-tale style—but it isn’t all science fiction. “The First Night of Lent” is a story about the benefits of drunk driving—at least if you’re Irish. “The Great Collision of Monday Last” is another Irish story. Both were likely inspired by Bradbury’s time in Dublin working on a screen adaptation of Moby Dick. Mexico gets both a non-science fiction and a science fiction story, though the non-science fiction would probably be classed as low-key magical realism today.

There are a couple of his Martian stories here, and in fact I could have sworn I read “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” in The Martian Chronicles, but I just checked my copy and it isn’t there. It’s likely been featured in several collections, and I ran across one of them. It’s a memorable story. There’s also “The Strawberry Window”, another about the first settlers of Mars, and a Venus story.

The Venus story is a famous one, “All Summer in a Day”, which I’ve definitely read before, and it may have been in high school.

Christmas gets the drunk driving treatment as well, in the sense that we just wouldn’t think of it that way today. In “The Gift”, I’m not sure many people today would get the reference to candles on a Christmas tree. I find it hard to believe that was ever a custom, but apparently the Christmas season was shorter then, so the trees were fresher.

This collection is as beautiful as Chronicles, which is probably my favorite collection of Bradbury short stories.

There were nights in winter when he woke with porcelain in his bones, with cool chimes blowing in his ears, with frost piercing his nerves in a raw illumination like white-cold fireworks exploding and showering down in flaming snows upon a silent land deep in his subconscious.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where to even start with Bradbury? He really can do no wrong in my book. From the first story to the last in A Medicine for Melancholy I was in awe of his poetic prose. His language is so deep, so rich I wanted to cry, I love it so much. With a title like A Medicine for Melancholy it could be assumed these would be feel good, happy tales and while many of them are, there are quite a few surprises along the way. The Scent of Sasparilla and The Strawberry Window very much reminded me of Dandelion Wine (The Strawberry Window actually gave a nod to Green Town), haunting, bittersweet, nostalgic. The first handful of stories are well-written and pleasant with almost fairy tale qualities, then in sneaks Fever Dream and it shocks the system and your brain remembers just who you're dealing with here. Bradbury can write beautiful yet extremely unsettling stories. Dark They Were, and Golden-eyed was also a favorite of mine. It was the perfect blend of science fiction and eeriness.

In my opinion, the medicine for melancholy isn't happiness, it is escape. And that is exactly what Bradbury offers within these pages; a break from our reality, a head first dive into a new time, space, and circumstance. While exploring the vast, great unknown of outer space or the human mind, Bradbury takes the reader on a veritable world tour of emotions in order to form the ties that bind us to the very real human condition and make the reader feel less alone. This collection housed many more science fiction stories than the previous short story collection I read, The October Country, however he is able to seamlessly blend the fantastic with very raw, real, pure human emotions.

[Vladimir Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Наверное, лучший сборник Брэдбери. В нем фантастика занимает только половину, остальное — чистый реализм. Простые истории про то, как художник палкой чертил картины на песке, а прибой их смывал. Про то, как шесть бедных мексиканцев скинулись и купили один белый костюм. Как молодые супруги поругались из-за скрипучей кровати, а потом помирились. Как в городе перестал ходить последний, еще довоенный, трамвай.

Ну и Марс, конечно, и космическая романтика, и ужасы всякие. Не без этого. Тоже чудесные вещи. Но лирический реализм в исполнении Брэдбери - это что-то вообще непередаваемое, это как Чехов, помноженный на Искандера. Бешено рекомендую.