The machineries of joy Book

4.5 rounded up to 5 - Reviewed for Books and livres

A sheer reading pleasure that reminds me of my teenage years, when Bradbury was one of my favourite writers - he still is. I may have read this back then - I remember the title of The illustrated woman because I'd read The illustrated man.

Of course, since it's a collection of stories, all are not equally good, but Bradbury's humour, his imagination, his writing really appealed to me.

How can everyday situations suddenly turn weird ? Priests arguing about the papal encyclical on space traveling, souls live on Mars - in wells, how to manipulate irate film directors, people disappearing from the Earth just because you wish them to, how a boy can lead a battle with a drum, how to take over the world when you can't move, how does the world survive when TV and radio suddenly disappear (by perfuming dogs and permanenting their hairs and painting everything), why does the summer end when it's just begun, are you living a legend, what happens during the Day of the dead, how to keep your husband when you're an illustrated woman, people that live forever and prevent those around them from living, how to deal with mirages and philosophy, can a soul inhabit a puppet, how do we look on beggars (this one was at the same time easy to smile at and terribly poignant), how an old woman fights death (Twilight zone anyone ?), how a situation can be reversed through the years, how to be a monogamous polygamist, how to make money for your family after your death, what will the future look like and how will we look at memories, who are the anthem sprinters and what do they do ?

You'll have all the answers reading this book.

"They had enjoyed thirty years of nonviolence together, in their case meaning nonwork. "I feel a harvest coming on," Will would say, and they'd clear out of town before the wheat ripened. Or, "those apples are ready to fall !" So they'd stand back about three hundred miles so as not to get hit on the head."