Becoming Ray Bradbury

39. New Worlds: Graphic and Television Adaptations

240 | | 5 39 New Worlds: Graphic and Television Adaptations Martha Foley provided the only public literary recognition that Bradbury’s more controversial stories achieved prior to Fahrenheit 451. By the end of the year she would select “The Other Foot” for the Best American Short Stories 1952 annual. This was Bradbury’s third selection, and it was one of the few science fiction stories to appear in the series to that point. Tony Boucher did not think it was as good as Bradbury’s other five slick magazine stories that year; he felt that Foley selected it because it dealt with racial issues in a science fiction context, making it unique among stories in the major market magazines that she used as the basis for her anthology selections. Boucher felt that her focus on the so-called “snob market” magazines limited the value of her anthologies , but in reply Bradbury maintained that she “seems to exhibit none of the stigmata of the literary highbrow.” Nevertheless he agreed in general with Boucher’s assessment of the prize editors and extended the argument further to the bookstores, a market factor that he was finding more and more to blame in the marginalization of quality science fiction and fantasy: “I’ve made a steady try at getting booksellers in this community to sell s-f, but, better yet, read it.”1 In spite of this criticism, bookstores still provided a favorite recreation for Bradbury. Now that there was a little more money coming in, he and Maggie were beginning to buy more books for their home library. His newer reading discoveries were more dramatic and increasingly international. Dick Donovan had led him to the works of Sean O’Casey, and during a span of months in 1951 and 1952, Bradbury bought a number of O’Casey titles. He was drawn to the autobiographies, and among the plays he favored the delightful comedy A Pound on Demand over the more influential early O’Casey plays of the 1916 rebellion and itsaftermath.HewouldlatercompresshisloveofO’Caseyintothreeaspects,“the language,theflow,therhythmofhiswriting.”ThisinfluenceenrichedBradbury’s 1953–54 sojourn in Ireland, and inspired his own series of short Irish plays in the years following. He stopped reading O’Casey during those years to prevent any unconsciousborrowing,butO’CaseyremainedaBradburyfavoritenonetheless.2 Bradbury also began to read and acquire Luigi Pirandello’s novels, stories, and plays during the early 1950s. Pirandello represented one of the relatively rare reading intersections with Maggie’s love of continental literature, and they i-xvi_1-328_Elle.indd 240 6/27/11 2:52 PM Chapter 39. New Worlds | 241 eventually purchased at least nine mostly secondhand editions in English. With his interest in Pirandello Bradbury had acquired still another masking influence, for all of Pirandello’s best work depends on the drama of metaphorical and literal masks. He bought an English-language story collection by the French fantasy writer Marcel Aymé, who also wrote stories for children. A decade earlier Bradbury had read some of Jean Giono’s contemporary French fantasy fables, but found Aymé far more interesting. Aymé’s most famous story, “The Man Who Walked through Walls,” had been translated for the January 1949 Harper’s issue, andBradbury’sinterestinhisworkbeganhere.3 Theirapproachestofantasywere similar, and eventually Aymé, like Bradbury, reprinted some of his stories in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Aphorisms, more popular in the European literary traditions, also attracted him during this time. He had already read the aphorisms that structured Cyril Connolly’s The Unquiet Grave; now he discovered those of the expatriate Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jiménez. Very soon, Bradbury would choose an early Jiménez aphorism as the epigraph of Fahrenheit 451: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”4 This expansion of his reading loves coincided with the opportunity to extend his rather limited interaction with the world of television and film. Perhaps the most significant event of 1951 for Bradbury was a dinner with John Huston, arranged by Ray Starke in early February.5 Huston was always looking for screenwriters and was not afraid to take on new talent; he accepted Bradbury’s gift of books and invited him to a preview of his latest film, The Red Badge of Courage. Over the next two and a half years he actually read Bradbury’s work and answered his letters. Ray Starke knew Huston quite well, but even he had no idea whether this first meeting would lead anywhere. With Huston once again headed out of the country...