Customer Reviews

Dandelion Wine

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

From the very start this book was confusing. The author had not been very clear on the setting. The book was skipping around to much. It never stayed or talked about one or a few main events throughout the book. It was a good book to read in the summer. It had the right words and summer type theme. But that was not enough to convice me that the book was good. If your into action pack type books then this book isn't the right book for you.

My dear fellow readers, you wish to have a book that you can reread every 5 or 6 years and not only have the beauty of the writing be as inspiring as before, but, also, a book whose internal meanings change along with the reader's changing life, this is the book for you. Raymond Bradbury put all of his science fictions abilities aside and created one of 'pure prose poetry'. It grabs the souls of anyone who lived through and fully experienced an adolescent, country summer whether they were the child observer or the observed adult. While there was never anything spectacular that ever happened to any of us, each moment of our day-to-day lives led us to be the sensitive adults that we, hopefully, are now. Like 'To Kill a Mockingbird', it takes us to a time when, to us, the world around us was more innocent, more forgiving and more magical. I read this every fith summer not only as a reminder of where I came from and how a child's naivity can open his heart to everything around him but also as an adult living in a finite and time-measured world who is preparing to say 'Good-bye'.

Sit back and slowly partake of the bitter yet sweet dandelion wine that has been carefully prepared for you. The sequence of our lives will reveal itself delicately through its amber glow.

This is the finest piece of fiction I have ever read.

Ray Bradbury is a master, no question, and this little book is a masterpiece. I first read it as a child - now, many years later, I go back to it often. It is simple, yet the prose is elegant and the message timeless. I have enjoyed almost everything Ray Bradbury has written but this is absolutely a favorite. I just joined a group of women in a book club and this is the book I intend to have everyone read - I can't wait to introduce them to it!

This is a lovely little book...childhood summertime capture in so many pages in your hands just like the dandelion wine in the jars on the cellar shelves. Left me with memories of catching fireflies, playing kickball til after dusk, laying in the grass watching the clouds, camping out in the backyard and jumping at every shadow and noise in the dark. I can't imagine not reading this with a smile on your face :-)

Ray Bradbury has penned a tribute to the halcyon days of his youth, a full 1928 summer in the life of a 12 year boy living in a smallish town in the upper midwest. Life was easy going and without worries, surrounded by an extended family, including great-grandparents, and a neighborhood of caring life-time friends. Reminds me of my own youth in the 1960's in Pennsylvania, without world war and depression in the future, and with only a few technological differences. You wont find anything here about the great problems of American democracy in the first half of the twentieth century, nor any tales of international espionage or outer space adventures, but it is an enjoyable read.

The Spaulding boys experience all the familiar delicacies of summer such as eskimo pies, new tennis shoes, cutting grass, beating rugs, and of course, the making of grandpa's dandelion wine. Along the way, they debate the great philosophical issues of whether old people were ever young, and if so, do they have first names.

They meet two extreme old-timers, who imbue them with tales of the Civil War, and world travel, before they go peacefully into that quiet night to collect their just rewards. And of course, progress comes to their town, when the last trolley is replaced by a bus, and new strains of grass are proposed that would eliminate lawn mowing and weeding.

The town is terrified briefly by a stalker, and perpetually by the unseen and unknowable dangers lurking in the ravine. The lowly junkman, long extinct from American life, is not only active, but a source of great knowledge, comfort, security, and counsel, in addition to second hand toys and household goods. Minor tragedies occur, such as when a dear friend's family leaves town, the demise of the happiness machine, the time machine, and the green machine, and the inevitable return to school and the coming of autumn.

I have always known Bradbury to be a science fiction writer, but ironically, the deepest earthly and human truths were put into this novel. The novel reminded me of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio. With plenty of individual stories and with a constant influx of new characters, Dandelion Wine leaves a lasting impression on a reader. The stories hold plenty of earthly truths; truths that are so obvious, so amazing, yet so hidden within out society, that the reader's mind is constantly stimulated with things that are so common in our everyday lives. The novel goes through the experiences of a town during the summer of 1928. The novel explores the pleasures of summer, and the gloom of death. In the end, the reader is almost forced to recall Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and say to themselves: So it goes.

This is one of my top 5 favorite books. Bradbury rocks.

This is a chronicle of a simpler time in Middle America, often presented in the form of a metaphor. It is the summer of 1928, from opening day until the school supplies are readied for the first day of school in the fall. New sneakers, packed with enormous potential for running, jumping and general activity are one of the opening traditions of the summer. The title comes from the making of dandelion wine, which is considered to be a way to pack the emotions of summer into a bottle. Since the dandelion flower is yellow and round, it bears some resemblance to the sun.
As the story moves through the days of summer, there is the pain of a friend moving away, the fear of a major summer illness of a child, the death of a great grandmother, the concern over a haunted area of the town, and a women's social society. Through it all, there is a note of underlying mysticism, but it is simply humans in a small town doing what people did in small towns in those days. The introduction of the supernatural forces is clearly meant to be a set of metaphors for the usual unusual events over the course of an active summer. The best example of this is the happiness machine. One of the inhabitants builds a machine that mentally takes you to many of the exotic places in the Earth. However, the wife of the man who built it points out that it is a bad thing, because it makes you want to go places you can't. Furthermore, it doesn't make the supper, mend the clothes, clean the house, or do any of the routine, but necessary tasks of daily life.
One of the most moving segments was the death of the great grandmother, who dies contented, considering it just another event in a long life filled with many happy routines. The segment begins with a recapitulation of her life, all of the actions of cleaning, cooking and taking care of children. She makes one last sweep of the house to check on things, and then goes upstairs to her bed to die. She dispenses some last-minute advice about how to carry on, commenting that she will live on in her descendents. With that last act out of the way, she curls up in bed and quietly and peacefully dies.
Reading it took me back to the days when I was twelve and growing up in Iowa. We had our summer rituals, the places we avoided because of the spooks, our favorite fields and swimming places and we also let the doors slam behind us. Bradbury writes very well, but you cannot appreciate these stories if you take them too literally. However, if you are capable of thinking metaphorically, then this is the summers of my youth as well as the youth of millions of other active boys.

It's the summer of 1928 in a small town in Illinois and Douglas Spaulding is 12 years old. And for the first time in his life he realizes that he is alive, truly alive. He begins keeping a list of all the "firsts" of the summer - first new pair of sneakers, first batch of dandelion wine bottled for the winter months, putting up the porch swing, etc. But with this new awarness of being alive comes the realization that he also will one day die.

This is a difficult book to explain. The writing style is incredible, almost poetic in some ways, and capable of creating powerful visual images and feelings. The beginning, especially when Douglas becomes aware of everything around him, is very moving. But towards the end, when he begins to recognize his own mortality, it gets a bit dark. The chapters are often very disconnected, as if they're snapshots instead of continuations of the story, and that adds to the sometimes dream-like quality of the writing.

This is a very enjoyable book, one that really causes you to think and perhaps even re-consider priorities. It's just a difficult book to summarize and explain.

I read this book years ago when I was about sixteen. I read it during my summer break and couldn't put it down. It was magical and innocent. A great read for anyone.