Dandelion wine (novel)

Dandelion wine (in the original English. Dandelion Wine ) is a novel by the American writer Ray Bradbury . The novel was published by Doubleday in 1957. In 1983 Diogenes Verlag published the book in a German translation by Alexander Schmitz.

The novel tells in a series of short stories, some of which have already appeared in magazines, the experiences of the twelve-year-old boy Douglas Spaulding in the summer of 1928. Douglas lives with his family in the fictional city of Green Town in the American state of Illinois. Green Town is also the location of the plot of the two novels The Evil Comes On Quiet from 1962 and Farewell Summer from 2006 - Farewell Summer is also the follow-up novel for dandelion wine .

The novel has strong biographical features: Bradbury's birthplace, Waukegan, Illinois, is a model for Green Town. Douglas Spaulding is a combination of Bradbury's middle name "Douglas" and the middle name of Bradbury's father "Leonard Spaulding".

content

Content in excerpts based on a numbered chapter sequence. In the original the chapters are not numbered.

Chapter 1: Douglas wakes up early on the first morning of summer. From his window he greets nature and, like a conductor or a magician, follows the activities in the small town of Green Town, which is also awakening: the lights go on, people start their day's work. Full of childlike expectations, Douglas is looking forward to the upcoming experiences of the summer of 1928.

Chapter 2: The father takes Douglas and his ten year old brother Tom to collect berries in the forest. Douglas feels all the time that something special is coming. There must be something special behind every bush. When he rolls over the forest floor with Tom, he knows what it is: He's alive. For the first time in his 12-year life so far, he has this intense attitude towards life that he would like to keep for as long as possible. (This short story, originally titled Illumination , appeared in Reporter magazine as early as 1957. )

Chapter 3 (dandelion wine): One of the summer rituals in Douglas' family is to collect the first flowering dandelions in the meadows and to process it with grandfather to make dandelion wine. Douglas and Tom bring the yellow flowers. Grandfather makes the wine and stores it in the cellar for those gloomy winter days. The dandelion wine stands as a symbol for the happy memories and experiences of summer, from which people still feed in winter.

Chapters 4–5 (sneakers): A second important summer experience is walking with the other boys through the city and the meadows with light sneakers. But in addition to his winter boots, Douglas only has the well-worn sneakers from last year. He wants new "magical" shoes to roam the world. But the father advises against it. In the shoe store, however, he can get the owner, Mr. Sanderson, who as a businessman no longer wore sneakers for decades, to try them on. Sanderson remembers his own youth when he moved with the ease of gazelles and antelopes. Douglas gets the longed-for pair of shoes in exchange for running errands for the shop owner. (This short story, originally titled Summer in the Air , was published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1956. )

Chapter 6: Douglas wants to write in a notebook everything that he experiences in the summer. In the first part he writes the rituals and repetitions, in the second part new experiences and insights. One of the first experiences is the sentence “I am alive”, as he reads out to Tom and explains: Thinking about it and consciously experiencing it is new.

Chapter 7: With the summer, Douglas' family fixes the porch too. Grandfather hangs the swing there, and there the adults tell each other stories that stimulate the children's imagination. (This short story, originally titled The Season of Sitting , appeared in Charm magazine as early as 1951. )

Chapters 8, 9, 11, 13: The old gentlemen of the city tell each other horror stories. Leo Auffmann, a jeweler, calls on them to stop. Douglas and his grandfather, who are just passing by, suggest to the skilled supervisor that they develop a happiness machine. Auffmann first rides home on his bike and shows that his own happiness lies in his family idyll. But the tinkering with the machine does not start well, it results in the first argument with his wife Lena in six months, whereby the cake is burning for her for the first time in 20 years. Auffmann delves into the construction of the machine so much that he neglects everything around him. His wife finally packs the things. Before she leaves, however, she wants to try the luck machine, but comes out of the box sad and with tears. She explains to Leo why the machine can't work. Leo then tests the machine himself, and it catches fire. Lena cleverly delays the alarming of the fire brigade, so that it is certain that the lucky machine really burns down. Lena stays, and family happiness moves in again. (Originally called The Happiness Machine , this short story was published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1957. )

Chapter 14: Twice a year the Spauldings knock out the rugs in the garden. They gather around the carpets and hit them, imagining what was spilled, spilled, crumbled on them, who walked over them. Douglas and Tom see the whole city, the neighbors and their preferences in the carpet pattern.

Chapters 15-16: The three children Alice, Jane and Tom do not believe that 72-year-old Mrs. Bentley has ever been young. You live in the present, unlike Mrs. Bentley, who has kept all kinds of mementos from her past in the house. Eventually, Mrs. Bentley learns to appreciate the here and now. She gives the children their things from their own childhood and burns old junk. Tom later dictated to his brother Douglas in his notebook: Old people were never children. (This short story with the original title Season of Disbelief appeared in Collier’s magazine as early as 1950. )

Chapters 17-18 (Time Machine): Charlie Woodmann, John Huff, and Douglas Spaulding visit old Colonel Freeleigh. He is a true human time machine and can tell the boy about all imaginable events that have occurred during his lifetime. For Douglas this is an incentive to go through life attentively in order to later also tell children about his experiences. (Originally titled The Last, the Very Last , this short story appeared in Reporter magazine back in 1955. )

Chapter 19: Sisters Fern and Roberta are hiding in the attic after they knocked down Mr. Quatermain with their strange electric car. You remember the purchase and decide never to drive the device again. In the end, Douglas reports that Mr. Quatermain is fine. (This short story, originally titled The Green Machine , was published in Argosy magazine back in 1951. )

Chapter 20: Times are changing: The electric tram is retired with its conductor Mr Tridden. On his last trip, the Douglas, Tom and Charlie takes. (This short story, originally titled The Trolley , appeared in Good Housekeeping magazine back in 1955. )

Chapters 21–22: One of Douglas' good friends, John Huff, reports that he will soon be moving to another town with his father. They wonder what they will remember of each other. Douglas enjoys being with John on the last day and tries to prevent him from going down with a special game ( ox on the mountain ).

Chapters 23–24: Elmira Brown is unlucky who has had a few things going wrong over the year. Meanwhile, she suspects that her neighbor Clara Goodwater is a witch who is causing trouble. Clara is also her rival for the post of chairwoman of the women's club. Clara has been chairwoman for years, while Elmira only ever receives one vote - her own - in the elections. She suspects black magic is in the game because something always happens to her before the elections. She wants to arm herself against Clara's supposed magic in the new elections with her own counter-magic. But it makes her sick that she can only stammer. Again, all votes go to Clara. Elmira chooses herself again. Now she is so sick that she falls down a flight of stairs while running to the toilet. But she did not suffer any serious injuries. Clara offers her a second ballot.

Chapters 25–26: Colonel Freeleigh is bedridden in old age and remembers days gone by by calling a friend in Mexico City . The latter opens his window, holds out the phone and transmits the sounds of the street to Freeleigh. This one enjoys the memories. When the nurse tries to take the phone away from him out of health care, as she says, he calls Mexico one last time. When Douglas finds him dead, he puts the phone to his ear and hears the window closing far away - a metaphor for Freeleigh's death. (This short story, originally titled The Window , appeared in Collier’s magazine as early as 1950. )

Chapters 28–29: 31-year-old newspaper journalist Bill Forrester befriends 95-year-old Helen Loomis. Helen tells him a lot about her life, about the places she has traveled around the world. Mostly alone, as she could not find a husband and company. With Forrester, however, she relives her experiences a second time together. While Helen thinks she recognizes a smart admirer from the past in Forrester, he confesses to her that he once tore a picture of Helen from the newspaper. Helen had, however, shown her life with a picture as a 20-year-old at public events. Both feel that they have missed the time and hope to meet again in a later life. (This short story, originally titled The Swan , appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine back in 1954. )

Chapters 30–31: Lavinia Nebb goes to the cinema with two friends, even though they recently found the body of another friend. There is apparently a serial killer going on. After the cinema, Lavinia accompanies the friends home and later runs into their apartment in fear. She locks the door - and hears a throat clearing in the living room. Then she must have stabbed the intruder with her scissors, suspect Tom, Charlie and Douglas the next day. Whether it was the serial killer remains unclear. It could also have been a harmless tramp. In any case, Charlie thinks it would be a shame if the murderer's greatest thrill of these days was over. Douglas sees it differently, he has seen one of the corpses and finds it rather depressing. (This short story, originally called The Whole Town's Sleeping , was published in McCall’s magazine as early as 1950. )

Chapter 32: Douglas' great-grandmother says good-bye in her own way. Over the years, the now 90-year-old has looked after the family and the household. She was the good ghost in the house. Douglas remembers the many things and experiences with her. Now she is in bed and wants to die - but in a fulfilling, peaceful way. (Originally called Good-Bye, Grandma , this short story appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1957. )

Chapter 33: Disaffected by death and loss, Douglas notes the deaths and broken things in his notebook. He begins to think that one day he too will probably die.

Chapter 34: Douglas and Tom go into a slot machine house and let a mechanical wax figure fortune teller predict the future for them. The card she gives Tom and which is usually written with a prophecy remains empty. The boys are now speculating what this is supposed to mean. Douglas believes the wax figure is alive and frees it from its glass cage with Tom. But the owner of the shop, Mr Black, takes the doll back and throws it away. Douglas and Tom find her, take her to the garage, and look at her. When another blank card falls out of the figure, they imagine that theoretically every wish could be written there, especially eternal life.

Chapters 36–38: Mr. Jonas is the town's junk dealer who transports his odds and ends through the streets by horse and cart. People can use it freely, but also give him things that they have lost interest in. The children believe that they can get practically anything from Jonas' pool. When Douglas lies in bed one morning with a fever and hallucinations and the doctor remains at a loss, Tom asks the junk dealer for help. Jonas puts two bottles with fresh air, soothing smells and other stimulating substances in Douglas' bed. As the morning dawned, his family realized that he was feeling better.

Chapter 39: Grandmother cooks divine meals for the extended family and several boarders. But with her visit, Aunt Rose upsets everything. She brings order to the kitchen, grandmother gets new glasses and a cookbook. Grandmother's magical cooking skills are disappearing. Only when grandfather takes his aunt to leave and Douglas secretly restores the mess in the kitchen does it taste good again. (This short story appeared in Everywoman's Magazine back in 1954. )

Chapter 40: Summer says goodbye. In the shops the boys see pens and notebooks: School is getting closer. In the cellar of the Spaulding family, the dandelion wine keeps memories of the summer experiences.

additional

The chapters of the novel that had previously appeared as short stories were partially redesigned by Ray Bradbury.

expenditure

• Ray Bradbury: Dandelion Wine. Roman ("Dandelion Wine", 1982). Diogenes, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-257-21045-0 .
• Ray Bradbury: Dandelion Wine. A novel . Avon Books, New York 1999, ISBN 0-380-97726-5 .
• Ray Bradbury: Farewell summer. Sequel to "Dandelion Wine" . William Morrow Press, New York 2006, ISBN 0-06-113154-7 .

literature

• William F. Touponce: Ray Bradbury and the poetics of reverie. Fantasy, science fiction, and the reader (Studies in speculative fiction; Vol. 2). UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor, Mich. 1983, ISBN 0-8357-1569-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of short stories in Dandelion Wine , accessed April 10, 2008