Short & Sweet Treats discussion

"The strange and wonderful tale of man’s experiences on Mars, filled with intense images and astonishing visions. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.

The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.

But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame."

I hope I have enough time to read as I've been looking forward to the book!

Jen ƸӜƷ wrote: "I hope I have enough time to read as I've been looking forward to the book!"

Thanks jen! Let us know what you think.

Is anyone reading this? I'm thinking of joining as I haven't read this one in a while, and it's fun.

Greg,
I'm hoping to have time, but I have such a list of books at the moment. Not sure when I'll get to it, but I hope to read it sooner rather than later.

I'm about 2/3 through the book. I'm enjoying it though misunderstood what the plot was going to be. I thought it was the chronicle of one man's experience on Mars. I didn't realize it was the chronicle of the "planet " itself.

I think this is Bradbury's best book. I read it for the first time as a teenager and didn't fully appreciate it. I was expecting a novel. I read it again many years later and I loved it. By that time I was acquainted with the short story cycle. I also had developed a greater appreciation for lyricism and psychology. Of all of Bradbury's books that I have read, this is the one I could read over and over again.

I just finished this book and I absolutely loved it! (Of course, what can be expected of Ray Bradbury?)
I hope I don't give too much away for anyone who hasn't finished it yet.
I really enjoyed how Bradbury linked short stories together to make one novel. To my understanding, some of the stories were written and published before and some were written specifically for this book. I actually read "The Silent Towns" and "There Will Come Soft Rains" in grade school, but in different grades. They were both stories that really stuck with me throughout my life and I never realized they were both in this book.
I found this book to be very philosophical and also political in a lot of ways. The only other Bradbury book I have read was Fahrenheit 451. Of course, there were some connections between the statements made in that book and the ones made in "Usher II" in this. I'm curious to know how everyone felt about "Usher II". Was it over the top or just enough? I was always an Edgar Allen Poe fan when I was in grade school/junior high, so I really enjoyed that chapter and found it pretty funny. The two things I found most interesting was the fact that the House of Usher was reproduced mechanically. I felt like this made a strong statement about the horror genre, literature in general and nature versus machines. Could something as eerie as the house of Usher actually be reproduced mechanically, and can imaginative literature actually BE created or does it just come naturally over time like an old house that took years to get to its point of spookiness? The second thing that I found interesting was that Stendahl tells Garrett that he enclosed him in the wall "Because you burned Mr. Poe's books without really reading them." implying that had he READ the books first, it would have made a difference. I wonder what other peoples' thoughts are on this. Do you think Bradbury is making more of a statement on the importance of forming our own opinions than on the importance of literature?
Ok, this post is probably getting too long. Sorry, I'm new here. One more thing. Do you think Bradbury was successful in combining each short story into one long novel? Did you feel like each was connected and had a seamless flow? Or would each story stand better on its own?
Thanks for reading this!

I'm afraid I'm not going to get to read the book this year, too much on my plate.

This book is amongst Bradbury's best.