Ray Bradbury Interview.

Part 1

        Recently we had the chance to speak with Ray Bradbury about writing, reading, and that wonderful family, the Elliotts. In fact, because of some phone trouble, we got to speak with him twice! Bradbury was feeling pretty cheerful. In August he celebrated his 81st birthday, and last year he received the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, which will probably sit quite nicely along with all his other awards (including the O. Henry, the Benjamin Franklin, the World Fantasy Award, the Nebula, and the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America).
        Bradbury is known to readers around the world as a master of the short story (Driving Blind, I Sing the Body Electric), but he has also written mysteries (Death is a Lonely Business) and children's books (Switch on the Night), as well as plays, poetry, and films. Next spring he has a new collection of short stories due, and this October ("Ray Bradbury Month"), Bradbury's latest novel, From the Dust Returned, will be published. From the Dust Returned builds on stories about the Elliott family which have appeared in magazines and collections over the years, and makes of them a wonderful story where the house the Elliott family lives in is as much a character as the very friendly - and winged - Uncle Einar, or A Thousand Times Great Grandmere (the mummy of the family), or Tim, the orphan found on the doorstep and raised to be the family historian.

        BookSense.com: Was it difficult to pick up the story of From the Dust Returned?
        Ray Bradbury: No, no. I'm not in charge. My subconscious does all the work. When it's ready to do something it does it. I don't think about these things - they just happen automatically. Time passes, sometimes you finish things quicker - in a week or a month, sometimes it's two or three years, and in this particular case about 55 years.
        In that time, were you writing pieces of it?
        Here and there, but I didn't work at it a lot. Maybe once a year.
        Would you be tempted to write more of these stories about the Elliott family in the future?
        You never know the reasons why you do things. I've never intellectualized about my work: Where the stories come from, why they develop the way they develop, I simply don't know that. It's all kept a secret from me. I think that's why people like my work, because they know it's very honest work, very intuitive, and it's very dreamlike. These things come to me a lot of times while I'm waking up in the morning around 7 o'clock. I don't dream things, but there's a time between waking up and being fully awake when your mind is relaxed and things come to you and you are surprised by them and you jump out of bed and run and write them down. So that happens to me all the time.
        Has that always happened to you?
        That happens with, I would say, 60% of my work. I don't believe in dreams. People say, "Have you ever dreamt a story?" That's never happened to me. I do believe in that relaxed state that when you're waking up you're not thinking intellectually, but you're perceiving things in that state before you're fully awake.
        Was it the same way 50 or 40 or 20 years ago?
        No, I learned to relax and enjoy myself better starting about 40 years ago. Fifty years ago I thought about my stories much too much. I benefited from relaxing and enjoying my intuitive self later in life.
        Why did you decide to novelize From the Dust Returned instead of making it a collection of short stories?
        I don't decide these things. When you look at most of my so-called novels they're not novels at all. The Martian Chronicles is looked upon as a novel, it isn't. It's a collection of short stories that I wrote without realizing they were related to each other. Then, very late in time I put them all together and they were put into a book that looked like a novel. The same way with Dandelion Wine: a collection of short stories that I put together and made to look like a novel. The same way with Green Shadows, White Whale, a collection of my stories about Ireland and John Huston. So I think of all the writers who are writing today - for that matter, at any time - I'm very unusual in that I write a series of short stories, and then very late on in time, discover I've written a book. And that's true here, too.
        The excellent cover of From the Dust Returns is the original art created by Charles Addams for your story "Homecoming" in Mademoiselle magazine. Did you have a picture of the house in your head before you saw Charles Addams' painting?
        No, I depended on Charles Addams. We had similar imaginations, that's why we got on so well. I was 26 years old when I met him in New York and he had just done that painting for Mademoiselle. When I saw it I realized he was a kindred spirit so we made plans to write a book together. I was going to do the stories, and he was going to do the illustrations. But time went by and we couldn't find a publisher who would pay a little bit of money to him and a little bit to me to proceed with the book. So he went his way and created the Addams Family and I went my own way and created my family in this book. In a way we're quite similar, except finally we separated and he did his wonderful family and made his television show and motion pictures and here I am now very late in time with a somewhat similar family, but not quite as funny!
        The Elliott family is occasionally funny, but they're pretty dark.
        It's a strange family, isn't it? They're all related to my family. A lot of it's based on my childhood, my Aunt Neva, and my grandmother.
        Where did the name "Neva" come from?
        It's the short form of Nevada. My grandfather had silver and gold mines out in Nevada when my aunt was born. But the damn things turned out badly - there was no gold and no silver. He lost all of his money in his gold and silver mines. In the meantime, my aunt was born. When he returned from Nevada he named her Nevada, and it became Neva over time.
        Did your family find it strange when they saw themselves in your stories?
        Well, none of my family were around when those first stories were published - just my aunt Neva, and she was very pleased that I put her in these stories. I dedicated The Golden Apples of the Sun to her.
        Which of the characters in From the Dust Returned is your favorite?
        Oh, I think my Uncle Einar. The story "Uncle Einar" is based on my real Swedish relative. My mother was born in Stockholm and she came to the U.S. when she was 2 years old. She had five brothers and sisters and one of them, Einar, was my favorite uncle of all my Swedish uncles. He was very loud and boisterous and happy and he came to visit usually about once a week. He worked for a laundry in my hometown and he would come to the house and bring my mother's laundry and we would always have a great visit. I grew up with him and I loved him so much that later I put wings and flew him in the sky and he became that short story. Of course, he was very happy about that. He lived a long while.
        Were your family storytellers?
        My aunt Neva was, and she lived next door to me, so she was a very important influence. She introduced me to the Oz books, and read the Oz books to me when I was a child, and Alice in Wonderland and Grimm's Fairy Tales. She encouraged them. She read Edgar Allan Poe to me when I was eight or nine years old. These were very deep and continuing influences.
        Did you do drawings to accompany these stories?
        I've drawn primitive sketches of Uncle Einar, because I loved his wings, but they weren't worth looking at.
        Are you happy with the way From the Dust Returned turned out?
        It's a complete surprise, like everything of mine. Sometimes, late at night, if I can't sleep I go downstairs and I take one of my books off the shelf and I open it and read it and I'm always astounded at what I read. I say to myself, "My god, did I write that?" I feel very lucky. Everything of mine is god-given. I think I was born with a genetic talent - I think we're all born to become ourselves and our job in life is to find out just who in hell we are, because we don't always know that immediately. Over a period of time you experiment and try and find out where your true self lies. Writers are very lucky because they can experiment with their typewriter or with their handwriting and over a period of 10 or 15 years discover who they are. All of my books are revelations of what I was born with, and I've been lucky to be able to direct myself and find these stories along the way.
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        Read Part 2 of our fascinating interview with Ray Bradbury, in which he talks about films, Halloween, and how the future looks to him!

Part 2

        Here's the concluding part of our interview with Ray Bradbury. In the first part we talked about that wonderful family, the Elliotts, who feature in his wonderful new novel, From the Dust Returned. Then we got a chance to pepper him with questions about anything at all, and Mr. Bradbury rose to the challenge, answering our questions as fast as we could pose them. It was great fun, and I can only recommend attending the readings he is doing in this month - or at least watching him on Charlie Rose (October 24), or the History Channel (Feb 1, 2001!).

        I've read you typed Fahrenheit 451 in 9 days on a rented typewriter…
        That's right. At UCLA library, down in a room underneath the library.
        Do you still use a typewriter?
        Oh yes. I don't have a computer. A computer's a typewriter, so I don't need two. I just need one.
        I know you have a mixed relationship with technology...
        No I don't. All I ask is that you tell yourself why you need a thing, and then you use it. Why do you need a telephone? Well, we're using one right now. Why do you need a computer? Well, if you're in business, a computer is a very important part of your business, especially if you're selling things to people and you have 2-300 sales in a day. At the end of the day your computer adds it up for you - that saves a heck of a lot of time, doesn't it? So you look at each machine and say, "How do I this?" If you use it for stupid or silly reasons... like the internet is often used by men - it's a toy. You can play with a toy, but don't play with a toy all the time. That's all I'm saying.
        Do you still enjoy Halloween?
        Not quite as much because friends of mine like Federico Fellini died on Halloween morning eight or nine years ago and that destroyed Halloween for me. That evening I shut up the house and threw out the pumpkins because it was no longer as much fun when it got real.
        Now I mainly stay home and answer the door and take pictures of all the trick-and-treaters who come. I love to have my camera and take pictures of all the various costumes.
        Do you ever go to the library the way you did as a child?
        I don't need to - I have 3,000 books in the house!
        Do you still do book tours?
        I go to many libraries and speak free; I do not charge a lecture fee at libraries. They sell my books and they keep all the money. I help them make a profit and raise money to buy books. I love to speak at libraries. I've spoken to at least 95 libraries in California in the last few years and helped them to buy books. It's wonderful fun. Everything must be fun, or you mustn't do it.
        Are your books still being read in schools?
        More than ever! Fahrenheit 451 is in almost every school in America. It's in the middle schools - strangely enough! - all the young people 9, 10, 11 years old are reading Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Something Wicked This Way Comes, they're in all the schools, in all the high schools and all the colleges. In France Fahrenheit 451 is outstanding study with French students all over the country.
        So children are still definitely finding your books?
        More than ever.
        Which of your books do you enjoy the most?
        All of my books are my children, so I have no special favorite. I have four daughters; I have eight grandchildren, and I love them all the same. The same way with my books, I treat them equally, I love them equally.
        How many letters do you receive each week?
        Between 200 and 300 letters a week.
        Do you ever get time to answer them?
        I try to answer all of them that are intelligent and ask good questions. There's a certain amount that you can't answer. I try to answer what I can.
        Are you involved with any of the five films ("The Martian Chronicles," "Fahrenheit 451," "The Sound of Thunder," "The Illustrated Man," and "Frost of Fire"), presently being made from your stories?
        Yes, I've just finished the screenplay of The Illustrated Man. I've contributed the screenplay to The Martian Chronicles and one for Fahrenheit 451. I don't know how much of those screenplays will get used. You never know.
        What are you reading?
        I'm rereading George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. Shaw is a huge influence in my life. I just returned from Milwaukee, Wisconsin a week ago where they were having a George Bernard Shaw festival and I was the keynote speaker because of my great love and admiration for Shaw.
        Do you have a favorite bookshop?
        Not anymore! They've closed up here. I had two favorite bookstores and the landlords raised the rents so high the bookstores had to close and go on the internet in order to survive, which is a great shame. I love to visit bookstores and sit and talk to the proprietors who have a knowledge of books that is quite amazing.
        Given a chance to meet anyone, who would you want to meet?
        I think George Bernard Shaw. He's incredibly talented and a brilliant man and I think the best playwright of the 20th century.
        How does the future look to you now?
        Fine! We always make do, don't we? We've gone through some terrible times. Communism dominated Europe, but finally after 40 years or so, the combined efforts of our country and people like Ronald Reagan - who was very brave and said, "Tear down the wall," - and Pope John Paul II, an incredible man, a very important man in the history of undoing Communism by visiting Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary, but we finally did it. There's a lot of things that have been terribly evil in the twentieth century but we've managed to overcome them. We're going back to the moon and then we're going to head out to Mars sometime in the next 20 years. I wish I were going to be around to see it. Maybe I will be, by a miracle. You never know.