dandelion_wine

Ray Bradbury

I read this out of a Ray Bradbury "Library of America" hardcover collection. The quality of the book was really fantastic, and the paper stock was super thin but that made it nice to flip through.

I was inspired to read this after reading through Long After Midnight, which is a short story collection by him. I knew him as purely sci-fi, and was pleasantly surprised by the content of those short stories. Dandelion Wine did not disappoint.

Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered. Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a change of seasons in a sip, a whole year in a swallow.

We follow the child Douglas move through life in the summer. Early on he coaxes a punch out of his brother, experiences pain and reacts with an existential revelation. He's alive! Do other people feel this?

Each story is unique. Some real, some fantastical, all of them differently shaped slices forming a glinting mosaic against the backdrop of summer. In the background, dandelion wine captures each memory and it is bottled and preserved for the future.

The wine was summer held in amber, the taste of warm dust and ripe apples, cut grass and blue sky, forever trapped and forever free.

Instead of bottles of wine, we have the chapters of this book.