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The Illustrated Man

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is a collection of 18 short stories loosely weaved into a novel. It was published in 1951 and it seems very much like The Martian Chronicals, his first novel which was also a collection of short stories edited together by the author.

Sadly, it seems like a very good Bradbury site is now gone and I was hard-pressed to find a listing of the individual titles of the chapters. Eventually, I did find a page in French which had what I needed. I when ahead and grabbed the listings for the other Bradbury stories I've read. I might re-read, or re-listen, to them and make a page like this for my thoughts on them.

I had meant to write down my thoughts on these stories the first time though, but didn't and this was a difficult book to listen to a second time. No fault of the book; I was just looking for something fresh to listen to, but I was determined to finally get though it again. The library has the movie version of this and I'm going to borrow in in a while and compare it to the novel. I'm certain it will be very different.

    Prologue: The Illustrated Man
    This is a simple introduction to the main characters: the narrator and the title character who is a former carnival side-show performer. He is covered with colorful illustrations which were he claims were tattooed on him by a witch. This is the first use of the word witch. It is used in other stories as well. It was interesting that the man described her as going back to the future after she tattooed him. I wonder if this is the origin of that phrase?

  1. The Veldt
    Two very spoiled children have an automated nursery which they use to remove a big obstacle from there lives: their parents. This story seemed familiar and might have been something I read in High School English class. The nursery reminded me of the holodecks from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The entire house was automated with inventions that are mentioned in other stories, such as the vacuum system which will take you to the upper floor.
    This story has the alternate title of The World the Children Made.

  2. Kaleidoscope
    I was pleased to find this story in the collection. I had just recently learned, in the trivia section of the IMDB, that the ending of Dark Star was similar to this and that some of the dialogue is almost word for word. This is especially true of the early script of Dark Star.
    The story involves twelve men who are cast adrift between the Earth and Earth's Moon when their rocket breaks up. Fortunately, they are all in space suits. The men's captain is typical of the space commanders who show up in later stories. He is arrogant and doesn't really seem to know or understand his men. All of the men will die, but their fates are varied.
    One of the men, who will not stop screaming about his predicament is killed by the main character when he happens to pass by him. This was a strange bit of almost frontier justice. It was almost humorous to note how meteors were quite a hazard. The main character, looses both a hand and a foot to two of them in rapid succession. He's able to seal his suit off each time and remain alive.
    A group of close-Earth-approaching asteroids captures one of the men in their gravity field and he drifts off with them out toward the orbit of Mars ; he will return in 5 years. One drifts off into deep space with his last words lost as radio contact breaks. The main character re-enter's Earth's atmosphere where he is seen as a falling star.

  3. The Other Foot
    This too seemed familiar and night have been read by me back in High School. This is also definately true of some of the stories in Dandelion Wine.
    The time is 1985 and for the last 20 years all of the black Americans have been living on the planet Mars. In 1984, there was a terrible atomic war and there are only perhaps one-half million survivors. A rocket from Earth with a handful of the men is coming to land to visit and ask for help. One man is determined to exact revenge on all of the wrongs done to the black people before they left for Mars.
    I couldn't help but wonder how everyone ended up on Mars. I thought of the nation of Liberia. I thought of David Duke and some of his ideas. It also made me wonder what about both the other races which were left on Earth and what had happened to anyone in a mixed marriage or of mixed parentage when before 1965 and the migration.

  4. The Highway
    A Mexican farmer, living with his wife by a highway, is witness to a great Northern exodus of cars and learns of the impending doom of an atomic war.
    It seemed odd to me that everyone seemed to be driving into the destruction. Also, I was reminded a bit of the ending of Terminator when Sarah Connor is getting gas for her jeep.
    This story was written under Bradbury's pseudonym Leonard Spalding.

  5. The Man
    A rocketship with around 10 men, including the standard-issue arogant captain, land on a world of other humans who totally ignore them. Eventually, the crew learns that these people were visited just the previous day by a man who Christians on Earth would call Jesus.
    The captain demands proof that this man is who he says he is after all. The captain has a feeling that this is a hoax perpetrated by the captain of another ship on a similar journey. When he can't get the needed proof from interviews with the planet's citizens, he speeds off to find this man, minus seven of his crew who remain behind. He wants to believe in the man and yet resists believing in him. He runs away to find the man and his own faith. Those who remain know that it will take him decades to realize that he left it on that very planet.

  6. The Long Rain
    Four men who have landed off course on Venus. They stuggle lost through the pale, ever-growing jungle in search of a sundome, a shelter from the rain and the insanity it seems to cause.
    I was immediately reminded of Bradbury's short story All Summer in a Day, where a class of 9 year olds await the day, which comes only once every seven years, that the rains will stop for an hour and Venus will bloom.
    Like Kaleidoscope, there was a bit of vigilant action when one crewman kills another before turning his gun on himself.
    This story has the alternate title of Death-by-Rain.

  7. The Rocket Man
    An story which told of a boy whose father was a rocket pilot. This took place in Illinois, the state where Bradbury was born. The father tries to snub out his son's interest in being a rocket man. His mother has a bizarre way of dealing with the absense of her husband. Ever seen he started going into space, she's pretended that he's been dead and gone. That way, when he returns, he's just a memory that can't really hurt you. With this, she hopes to lessen the shock she'd feel if he were to actually die on one of his voyages.
    I think that this was the first mention of beetle cars, which Bradbury would use in Farenheit 451. I wonder how he spelled it? It seemed to be a nod to socialism, what with the Volksvagen being the car of the people.

  8. The Fire Balloons
    A group of missionaries travel to Mars to set up a church. They believe that it will be for the Earthmen who now live and work on Mars, but the father who leads them, wants to create a church for the native Martians. He tries to present them with the Earth stories of the bible and an image of Jesus in a form like their own. These Martains appear as a ball of blue fire or lightning.
    The title is a reference to the main character's past. On Independence Day, he and his grandfather would launch paper hot-air balloons which were illuminated from within. These resemble the Martians in some ways.
    This story has the alternate title of In This Sign....

  9. The Last Night of the World
    A rather short story in which takes place on October 11th 1969. All of the adults in the world seem to realize that the world will end at then end of this particular day. One couple discuss it and go about their normal routine with no fear of the end that comes. There is no massive destruction, in fact, it will take a full 24 hours for everything to end. It seems to spread over the globe with the coming of midnight everywhere.

  10. The Exiles
    The spirits of censored writers and their creations live on Mars. This was the first story to talk about censorship and book burning. It takes place about 100 years in the future after Halloween has been banned and all of the books with frightening ideas have been burned, except for one last set which the captain had ordered up from a museum and brought with them.
    As they burn these books on Mars, all of the creations of these writiers, which are trying in vain to attack the spacemen, vanish nearly unseen around them.
    This might have been the story that mentioned distain for the scientific method, but I can't be sure.
    This story has the alternate title of The Mad Wizards of Mars.

  11. No Particular Night or Morning
    A spaceman goes a bit crazy and drifts off into infinity. Perhaps a bit of inspiration for Dark Star. He believes that unless something is right before his eyes, it doesn't exist. He's searching for a concrete feeling that something outside of his view is there and can't find it.

  12. The Fox and the Forest
    Two people, from the war-filled future of the year 2155, hide in 1938 to avoid their doom. This was the second story to talk about censorship of books and control of the populace. They are pursued by a man from their time who must bring them back. It's interesting to see how people from the future want to indulge in the various vices of the past, especially tobaccos and drinks. It's a way to spot someone from a time where such luxuries are sparce.
    This story has the alternate title of To the Future.

  13. The Visitor
    Humans who have contracted a fatal disease called Blood Rust, for which there is no cure, are exiled to Mars where they died after lingering for about one year. One of them, a young man named Leonard Mark, is a hypnotist of sorts and can provide the other victims with views and sensations of their long lost Earth. But only if they can learn how to share him.
    The name of the disease was a bit ironic since it almost describes the soil of Mars. It has a high iron content and rusty red with oxidation. Human blood is also red in part to the iron in the blood.

  14. The Concrete Mixer
    Martian's invade Earth and are killed by capitalism. This story paid tribute to the pulp science fiction of the 1930's which always showed invasions being thwarted by resourceful young Americans. The main Martian character is nearly burned along with his collection of these treasonous books. Again, a mention of censorship.
    It was good to see an invader who was not wanting to go along with the invasion. Skoogie brought up this glaring omission in the movie Independence Day back on 1996-07-04 Thursday.

  15. Marionettes, Inc.
    The year is 1989 and you too can have your very own android double. A bit like Blade Runner. Unfortunately, the machines think a bit too much for their owner's own good.

  16. The City
    An arogant captain again and a machine city named Revenge which will has kept vendetta for 20,000 years to kill the race of people who killed off the entire planet. Could that be us?
    This story has the alternate title of Purpose.

  17. Zero Hour
    Children help with a Martian invasion with their game. It's a pity that the adults just don't pay more attention.
    It was interesting to see how the adults thought that the game spread by word-of-mouth among the children. It was nationwide, but there were view-phones and I suppose that the children used them too. It seemed that they actually knew of the game because of a telepathic contact the Martians had with young children.

  18. The Rocket
    The most delightful of the stories. Here a man, living some time around the year 2040, who runs a junk yard wants to take his savings and send one member of his large family into space. He gets a rocket and boy does it fly! It reminded me of Salvage 1 in many ways.
    This story has the alternate title of Outcast of the Stars.

    Epilogue
    A wrap-up of the stories and the escape of our narrator.

2001-08-08 Wednesday