Farewell Summer (review: 2/5)

I was really surprised to find a Ray Bradbury book that I didn’t like. His latest book, Farewell Summer, is the 50-years-later follow-up to Dandelion Wine, set (somewhat autobiographically) in an idyllic summer in the American midwest. It’s a meditation on life, maturation, and death told through a war between the neighborhood boys and a local elder. The book is really short. The publisher even cheated a bit: with generous margins and extra-wide line-spacing it just barely makes it over the 200-page mark. One of the things that bothered me was that the book was so dialogue-driven, when his narration is what I really appreciate. And perhaps I’m just too young to relate to all this deep reflection. Maybe if you like the Mitch Albom “life lessons” thing, you’ll dig it.
So the story didn’t really catch my interest too much, but the writing is as sharp as ever. It’s not every day you can find a sentences like this:

The cake stood like a magnificent Alp upon the kitchen table.

There are many other fine phrases that I wish I could write and/or would love to steal. If you’re looking for yummy Bradbury narrative goodness, I’d turn to something like The Illustrated Man or Something Wicked This Way Comes.