Transforming readers to other dimensions

Ray Bradbury, author of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, died yesterday. Known for his futuristic tales — he never used a computer, or even drove a car.

French film director Francois Truffaut introduced movie audiences to Fahrenheit 451; a bizarre society Bradbury created: one in which firemen burned books to keep the masses completely ignorant but couldn't extinguish their curiosity.

Here’s an excerpt from the novel, Fahrenheit 451.

The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. Her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. Her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. Her dress was white and it whispered. He almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked, and the infinitely small sound now, the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting.

The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain. The girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise, but instead stood regarding Montag with eyes so dark and shining and alive that he felt he had said something quite wonderful. But he knew his mouth had only moved to say hello, and then when she seemed hypnotized by the salamander on his arm and the phoenix disc on his chest, he spoke again.

“Of course,” he said, “you’re our new neighbor, aren’t you?”
“And you must be”—she raised her eyes from his professional symbols “—the fireman.” Her voice trailed off.
“How oddly you say that.”
“I’d—I’d have known it with my eyes shut,” she said, slowly.
“What—the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains,” he laughed. “You never wash it off completely.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, in awe.

Bradbury in my opinion was a true writer—he took us into a journey to the core of the human heart glorifying the potential of humankind.  I would say his work was more social commentary than science fiction. And he found innovative ways to express his take on the world.

Best of all, he continued to dream. He was so certain mankind would land on Mars; he asked to be buried there. And although it didn’t happen in his lifetime, I’d like to think it didn't stop him from believing it was possible.