by Ray Bradbury
My idea of a real intellectual is Chuck Jones, who did Bugs Bunny. You sit down with him and discuss Mark Twain and the idea of comedy. The first night I met Gilbert Highet we talked about Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the film Disney had just made of it, twenty years ago. All I’m really saying is, don’t hit me with a bladder full of your brains! I’m not interested in proving your IQ or mine. I’m interested in having fun with ideas, throwing them up in the air like confetti and then running under them.
PARIS REVIEW: There was a time, though, wasn’t there, when you wanted recognition across the board from intellectuals?
BRADBURY: Of course. But I no longer want to be accepted by certain intellectuals. If I hear tomorrow that Norman Mailer likes me, I’ll kill myself. I think he’s too hung up. Or if I heard that Kurt Vonnegut suddenly liked me a whole lot, I would worry; I’d begin to think I was going around the bend. He has problems, he has terrible problems. He cannot see the world the way I see it. I suppose I’m too much Pollyanna, he’s too much Cassandra. But I prefer to see myself as the Janus, the two-faced god who is half Pollyanna, half Cassandra, warning of futures and perhaps living too much in the past—a combination of both. But I don’t think I’m too overoptimistic; I’m action-oriented and I know exactly what I want to do the next thirty years to help save the world and the country, and I intend to do it. I’ll write articles about it and I’ll lecture about it.
PARIS REVIEW: Vonnegut was written off by intellectuals as a science fiction writer for quite some time. Now it’s been decided that he isn’t, that he never was a science fiction writer. He’s been redeemed for the mainstream. So Vonnegut is “literature” now, and you’re on the verge.
BRADBURY: [Gaelic accent] I pray, Mother Cabrini, any day now I make saint. [Laughs]
PARIS REVIEW: Did Vonnegut make it because he’s a Cassandra?
BRADBURY: Yes, that’s part of it. It’s the terrible creative negativism, admired by New York critics mainly, that has caused his celebrity. New Yorkers love to dupe themselves, as well as doom themselves—in reality they’re doomed and they’ve got to do something fast. New Yorkers smell their own doom, and of course don’t know what to do about it; the average person is helpless and doom-oriented. But I haven’t had to live like that. I’m a California boy. I’m basically optimistic because of it, because we’re a really free society, we have no hierarchy. I don’t tell anyone how to write and they don’t tell me.
PARIS REVIEW: Do success or fame do anything for you?
BRADBURY: Not a thing. There’s no time to think of it. Anyone that thinks of it had better stop writing. No, I’m too busy. The kind of success that’s fun is a one-to-one thing where you meet a person that really knows and loves your work and says so, and proves it by saying, “Hey, that section in that book where you said this?” That’s swell, that’s immediate, there’s no crap, they really know what they’re talking about and prove it. But all the other stuff—publicity and advertising, that sort of thing—you’ve got to have it to let people know you exist in the world, but you must never believe it.
PARIS REVIEW: Do you resent that you’re not thought of when it comes time for National Book Awards, Pulitzers, that sort of stuff?
BRADBURY: I did when I was younger. But I’m getting something that a lot of writers don’t get: an immense feedback of love. Talk about energy? When you see it in people’s faces, it can’t be hidden; love can never be hidden. That’s better than a lot of these awards which are handed out by critics and intellectuals. I hope my friends give me a dinner later in life. I attended two dinners in the past two years, one for James Cagney, one for Orson Welles. I wouldn’t have dreamt of staying away. I wrote a love letter to Cagney which was printed in the program that was handed out at the banquet. I got two letters from Cagney about how important that evening was to him, because these were real people standing up saying real things. The same with Orson Welles. Citizen Kane touched all our lives! I’ve seen it thirty times now. That kind of award is important. That’s real stuff.
PARIS REVIEW: What do you want to do in the future? I see you’re writing poetry.
BRADBURY: Yes, I began writing poetry forty years ago, and it was dreadful. People encouraged me to give it up, but I couldn’t stay away because I was in love with Shakespeare, Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Frost, and Pope. I’ve never been a technician, I’ve never been able to learn things technically. I have to take them into my blood. About five years ago my poetry began to be of such a quality that I was not ashamed. My first book of poems, When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, has done very well critically and has sold seven or eight thousand copies, an incredible amount these days.
As far as other things in the future: I want to finish a book on creativity, and someday in the near future I want to do a Grand Opera. I’ve been working with a lot of composers the last seven, eight years—Billy Goldenberg, Lalo Schifrin, Jerry Goldsmith. And I’ve written cantatas and madrigals and musicals. I’m intrigued with music, though I don’t read a lot. But I work very well with them doing certain kinds of lyrics. And I would like to do opera—a science fiction opera—if I can find the ghost and flesh of Puccini somewhere in the world to help me out, because he’s certainly one of my favorite operatic composers. Beyond that, do more short stories, more poetry. More essays, and keep moving, I hope, to the end of my life.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All books have an essential cast of characters that make them work. This one is no different. First and foremost, I wish to thank Ray Bradbury for nearly a decade of memories that will always stay with me. Marguerite Bradbury was present during many of the conversations contained in this book. I am deeply grateful to her for her generosity and wonderful sense of humor. You are sorely missed. Thanks to the entire Bradbury family, in particular Alexandra, “Zee,” who was patient with innumerable requests of the most minute nature.
In the Ray Bradbury universe, thank you to my dear friends Santiago Montejo and Craig and Patti Graham, who were always there to help and always there with wonderful laughter.
Gratitude also to Eric Larson, John King Tarpinian, and Nard Kordell. God speed, my friend.
Thanks also to Malcolm and Christine Bell at the incomparable Mystery and Imagination Bookshop in Glendale, California, for hosting the blast off.
At Stop Smiling Books, JC Gabel has been my true creative partner. Thanks for bringing the idea for this book my way and for having the total faith to trust my vision. I’ve never had more fun on a project, thanks to you. To James Hughes for your confidence and commitment. To Sybil Perez for copious and essential behind-the-scenes work, including the midnight hour copy-edit; Tina Ibañez for the striking book design; and the entirety of the Stop Smiling crew, thank you. I am also deeply grateful to the gifted Zen Sekizawa who photographed the stunning Bradbury “still-lifes” in the book.
At Melville House, to Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians for the trust and vision, and to Kelly Burdick for steering this rocketship with grace.
I am extremely grateful to Charles Thompson (aka Black Francis), fellow Bradbury aficionado and legendary musician, for providing the thoughtful foreword to this book. Your generosity and good nature are deeply appreciated. Thanks also to Pixies manager Richard Hermitage.
Thanks to my colleagues in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago—most notably my friend and mentor Dr. Randall Albers.
As ever, my remarkable and savvy agent Judith Ehrlich has been my friend, partner, and manager on every conceivable front. A better collaborator I could not find.
My steadfast assistant Karen Schmidt took on the bulk of the transcription work for this book. Thanks also to Nicolette Kittenger and Jon Gugala for additional transcription toilings.
There are simply too many friends to name, but I must bow to my pal John McNally, drinking buddy and writer extraordinaire. And to Steve Edwards, dear friend and sounding board. And thanks go to my friends at the peerless Columbia College Chicago Library,
Kim Hale, Jan Chindlund, Jo Cates and her husband—the late, wonderful teacher, writer, and friend—Jim Sulski.
To Professor Jon Eller—gracious, generous, my brother in Bradburian scholarship. Thank you for realizing there is room for all of us who find the life of Ray Bradbury a work of art in and of itself.
To Jennifer Brehl and Peter Schneider—good friends and consummate pros, thank you for your continued friendship and support over the years.
To my beloved family—thank you. To those dearly departed, Mom, Tam Tran, Dis, and Sage, your presence is felt, always.
And to my darling wife Jan—eleven years of loyalty, support, and love. We are my favorite story, and you are my finest editor. I’m beginning to wonder, could I even write without you?
And, finally, to my two babies, Mai-Linh and Le-Anh, my two little bibliophiles, you are my joy, my love, my life. Live Forever!
Sam Weller is the author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury. He has lectured across the United States on the life and work of Ray Bradbury. Weller is the former Midwest Correspondent for Publishers Weekly magazine. He has written for The Paris Review and NPR’s All Things Considered, and was a host for the Chicago Public Radio program Hello Beautiful! A frequent literary critic for the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Playboy.com, Weller is also a professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago.