Dandelion Wine

Ray Bradbury said that in writing this book, he was too young and inexperienced to know that he shouldn't write it how he did, and that the book benefited greatly because of that. I can understand that sentiment. Dandelion Wine isn't so much a narrative novel as it is a portrait of a place and time. While it's odd enough to paint a portrait with a typewriter, it's maybe even stranger to think of a portrait of a place. Isn't that called a landscape? In case that wasn't bold enough, the time component of the portrait is fundamental to the book, and it absolutely is what makes it work. The book is a portrait of a summer. Most of us, youthfully ignorant or not, would assume not that such a book shouldn't be written but rather we'd assume that such a book couldn't be written, Bradbury proved that intuition to be unfounded. The scope and scale of the book, a sleepy little town in rural Ohio in a single summer, gives us a naturally childlike perspective. The book inhabits a child's world that doesn't have far off horizons or long term plans. Reading through Dandelion Wine feels just like remembering summers from my own childhood. That isn't to say that it reminds me of my own childhood memories, but rather that the experience of reading the book very closely mirrors the emotions of remembering my own summers of yesteryear. Dandelion Wine is an impossible book. Reading it has expanded what I thought books could be. It's like a piano player hearing a new chord played for the first time, I thought I knew all the chords, or at least that I knew what the range of possibilities were. That in itself elevates this book to a masterpiece, and my admiration of that accomplishment displaces some of the comfort and familiarity I would need to call this book a favorite. Favorite paintings, favorite songs, favorite art in general needs to be accessible, comfortable and familiar to settle into the category of favorite. It's an odd paradox, but when something is technically marvelous, it becomes unobtainable, and beyond what we feel connected to. More often it's when something is technically mundane do we give ourselves permission to wrap ourselves in it like a favorite warm blanket. It's easier to have a picnic on a hill than on Mt. Everest. Dandelion Wine is a book that I couldn't write, Bradbury's skill is just gargantuan, and so this is a book that I only can love and admire, but I can't call it a favorite.