Review: The Illustrated Man By Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is the author that I have talked about most when talking to friends about books I have read. Now and Forever were two of my favorite short novels. Shadow Show is a tribute to the contributions that many famous writers made to him through stories based on their stories. Martian Chronicles is one of his most highly praised books. Today, it’s the turn of “The Illustrated Man”, another one of his classics.

The Illustrated Man, like the Martian Chronicles, is a collection that shares a common thread. It is about a man with all of his skin tattooed. These tattoos aren’t normal. They are images that when it gets dark come to life. This book contains 18 stories.

Each one, Ray Bradbury declares in the introduction is a metaphor about to explode. He asks “what if”, and from that, his stories are born. Ray Bradbury’s “The Prairie” is the first story to reveal the Illustrated Man’s skin. It shows us that he was a visionary. The family he shows us is one that we call home automation. It performs many tasks automatically, so humans don’t have to do any. The playroom can also be called virtual reality. However, it creates new worlds from children’s thoughts. It is alarming to see that this room has transformed into Africa, where lions are free to roam. Parents are starting to be concerned about their children’s wild imaginations.

“The other foot” is another story that caught my attention because of its authenticity. Bradbury imagines Mars being colonized by blacks and preparing for whites. They will now be the ones dictating the rules. It was published before 1950 by no American magazine. It was still a long road to take for civil rights defense to be promoted.

The story of “The Man,” which tells the story about how astronauts land in distant places on the same day Christ arrives, is comical to me. “The Long Rain”, which describes Venus as a place that never ceases raining, was very disturbing to me. The story of an astronaut father visiting his family every now and again, “The Rocket Man”, was one of my favorite stories.

“The Exiles” was a great read. It featured writers such as Poe, Dickens, and Bierce who hide on Mars after they burn their books on Earth. This short story was written three years before his Fahrenheit 451 novel, which is still my favorite book by the author.

For me, “The Fox and the Forest” is one of the most fascinating stories in The Illustrated Man. It tells the story of a couple who escape their country by using a time machine. My favorites include The cement mixer>> which tells the story Etril, a Martian man who doesn’t want to invade Earth. Marionetas SA>> is about a man who orders an artificial intelligence robot to be a copy of him to travel out there. His wife does not notice his absence. The Rocket, a story about a man who longs to go to Mars but cannot afford it, was also very charming. The book’s final story is “The Illustrated Man“, which explains how the tattoos on the mysterious man came to be. It serves as the common thread between these 18 stories.

Bradbury is a master of emotion. He makes us feel all the emotions: sadness, joy, restlessness and emptiness. Which one did I prefer the best? The Illustrated Man would be my choice, though it may just be because it’s more recent and I still feel the same sensations. Reading Bradbury is worth the effort.