I really
liked Ray Bradbury The Martian Chronicles while reading it in high
school, although this wasn't my first
short story I picked, it is one that I enjoyed reading and one that I
could find online. The story takes place in the future, 2026, in what was a
city called Allendale, in California. The story starts by an alarm going off to
wake the former residents of this futuristic house, then the house announcing
the time in a rhythmical way, starts to do its daily chores. The narrator
describes to us the house's actions, the horrors of nuclear war, and how nature
goes on, like the house, without humans. This is a powerful and shocking short
story which tries, sometimes too hard, to drive a point home. This story is a
great reminder of how scared people were in the 1950's to nuclear war. I would
recommend this story to someone who likes science fiction.
http://www.jerrywbrown.com/datafile/datafile/110/ThereWillComeSoftRains_Bradbury.pdf
This was actually a really cool story to read! The house trying to continue on day to day tasks as if the people still live there has kind of a creepy aspect to it. It almost manages to make the house a real, living character in a way. Towards the end I found myself rooting for the house, hoping that it could save the owners (even if they were gone a long time before that). I do agree that it tries too hard at times to get the horror of nuclear war present in this story, but I kind of liked it better that way. I think, being written from the point of view of the house, that this story lives off of detail; that without the great detail added, this story would end up either too confusing or too boring to read. I’m glad you posted this as your review. I had never read this before, and just might have to get the whole book now!
ReplyDeleteThe house definitely gave me a creepy almost uncomfortable feeling. Despite the creepy feeling I got from it, I also found it rather intriguing how it seemed to fail to notice that the owners are missing, and just continues to go about things on a day to day basis. I also found the little cleaning mice fairly adorable. What really got me in this story was the dog, I was kind saddened by the sickly dog who lost his family, but that may just be me, I have a soft spot for animals. The horror of nuclear war is very clear in this story, and is especially evident when he describes the charred house and the silhouettes where there was no charring. I personally liked that little tidbit, and I enjoyed all the detail that was in this story I just think it would have been a little less intriguing if those details where not there. When the house caught on fire I was hoping that it could save itself and the people it thought still lived within it but alas that was not the case. Overall I enjoyed this story a lot and will have to look into more of this authors work.
ReplyDeleteI probably never would have read this story if you hadn't posted it, so thank you. I truly enjoyed it, and will now go purchase a collection of Bradbury's short stories so that I can read them all. My overall feeling from this story is one of emptiness. I am used to reading stories centered around the lives of humans. Even when a story heavily relies upon personification, it is still human-centered. I think this story would be, surprisingly, all wrong if Bradbury had included a human. The house is alive, the animals are alive (big surprise there...), and even the fire is alive. Obviously the house is a device to indirectly discuss life after a nuclear war, but I honestly didn't really care. The detailed descriptions of the house, and the vivid scene of the house burning completely enthralled me. I love well-written science fiction stories as they please my appetite for the unknown. I love being able to imagine exactly what was happening without having much real life experience to draw from. Just like the comments before mine, I was invested in the 'characters', although I didn't want the house to win. I wanted the fire to consume it all, because in my mind, I see the 'after' clearly. The house burns to the ground, the fire licks the final ashes of the house proudly, and then all that is left is a desolate, destroyed landscape. This was a fantastic story, and I sincerely hope everyone in the class ends up reading it.
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