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    Farewell Summer
    Farewell Summer
    Farewell Summer
    Ebook161 pages2 hours

    Farewell Summer

    By Ray Bradbury

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The master of American fiction returns to the territory of his beloved classic, Dandelion Wine—a sequel 50 years in the making

    Some summers refuse to end . . .

    October 1st, the end of summer. The air is still warm, but fall is in the air. Thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding, his younger brother Tom, and their friends do their best to take advantage of these last warm days, rampaging through the ravine, tormenting the girls . . . and declaring war on the old men who run Green Town, IL. For the boys know that Colonel Quartermain and his cohorts want nothing more than to force them to put away their wild ways, to settle down, to grow up. If only, the boys believe, they could stop the clock atop the courthouse building. Then, surely, they could hold onto the last days of summer . . . and their youth.

    But the old men were young once, too. And Quartermain, crusty old guardian of the school board and town curfew, is bent on teaching the boys a lesson. What he doesn’t know is that before the last leaf turns, the boys will give him a gift: they will teach him the importance of not being afraid of letting go.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 21, 2013
    ISBN9780061830013
    Author

    Ray Bradbury

    In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nominee, he was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

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    Reviews for Farewell Summer

    3.5/5

    221 ratings24 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Utterly delightful!
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed this sequel/extension of "Dandelion Wine" by the same author. It was written 55 years after the first book and was his last published work (as told in the Afterword by the author, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 91). It is the coming of age story of Douglas Spaulding who is realizing that...
    • 4/5
      I love RB but his later stories seem airy, full of prose, metamphor, and philosophy but lacking a dense story behind it like his earlier works. The missle of the book save it. The conversation between one old man and a boy who is becoming one, one leaving this live and one entering in the middleo of the book saved it.
    • 5/5
      Sequel to Dandelion Wine. I read DW a few weeks ago and couldn't wait to read Farewell Summer.This is a lovely read! FS is a coming of age story , a bit more serious that DW,but enjoyable just the same.Touching,heartwarming and one of those books you hate to see end,like losing a friend.Anyone that has ever been a teen-that is now in the "fall or winter" of your life is sure to love these 2 books. I wish there was another sequel!!!! Anyone that truly appreciated a "peculiar old time machine",like a Grandparent or neighbor,this book is for you. Anyone that remembers being a child growing to a teen,this book is for you. Great summer read.Please read them in order to get the full impact. Lots of chuckles and laughs and some tears too. I have to "live with the memory of this book" before going on to another read. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
    • 4/5
      Very different from my memory of Dandelion Wine. Admittedly, I didn't reread that before reading this... and I don't think you need to. Unless you're unfamiliar with Bradbury's style, though, as this may be difficult to grasp as a stand-alone....

      Poetry. In prose form, no worries. But the plot is not relevant. The metaphors & themes & Truths are what makes this worth reading. Try to read it out loud with a lover or friend.

      Very short - the pages in my edition has wide margins and spacing, and short chapters, making it out to be about half the indicated page count. (So, think of it as a 100 p. book.) I read it in one morning, while coping with interruptions from housework.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this sequel/extension of "Dandelion Wine" by the same author. It was written 55 years after the first book and was his last published work (as told in the Afterword by the author, who passed away in 2012 at the age of 91). It is the coming of age story of Douglas Spaulding who is realizing that he growing up and doesn't know if he likes it. Things are starting to change and change can be scary. It is an interesting book and I enjoyed it more knowing that Bradbury wrote it as an old man knowing that the end was near.
    • 3/5
      Doug here doesn't want to grow up. He's clearly got Peter Pan issues. And he doesn't seem to mind killing people or hurting them to forever stay a boy.This is the direct sequel to Bradbury's classic "Dandelion Wine" which I (re)read a year and a half ago. There is a mean streak up the back of this book is the best way I can say it. I suppose we can ascribe this to the young Doug Spaulding entering puberty. I don't know. Here and there are some of Bradbury's usual quiet insights into things but the overall tone of this book and the rather strange end to it put me off. I didn't care for this. Simple as that.Bradbury has an interesting afterword.
    • 4/5
      Really wasn't expecting much from this, but it got me anyway. Lovely writing, short and sweet as summer itself. So glad I finally got it.
    • 3/5
      It's really Bradbury. It's really not Dandelion Wine. Nothing ever is.
    • 4/5
      Follow-up to Dandelion Wine. If you think of it as Jean Sheppard or Garrison Keillor with a twist you get the idea. Not as good as its predecessor, but Bradbury still reminds you why he is a master.
    • 3/5
      I loved Dandelion Wine, but this sequel felt like a waste of time. The story never got interesting.
    • 5/5
      I was standing at Powell's the other day, saw this book, and actually shrieked right there in the aisle. I had no idea this was in the works. You'd think the Bradbury machine could have sent me an email, no? This one picks up a summer or two after Dandelion Wine, at the tail end of the summer. The old man has the old men nailed this time. As one might expect. However, he's still fully aware of what it's like to be a youth, teetering on the brink. There's a kiss in this book, and some silliness that will make you smile. There are bits of it that feel a little contrived, but not so's you'd notice much. It's a delightful addition to the Spaulding canon.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. Last month I joined the group read of Dandelion Wine in honor of Ray Bradbury's passing, and fell in love with both the story and the writing. Farewell Summer is a continuation of that story. In the afterword of the book, Bradbury states that he originally intended for this book to be part of Dandelion Wine, but that his publishers felt that it made the book too long and that it would be better to polish it some more and release it as a sequel. So, it basically picks up where DW leaves off. It is very well done, and I fell in love with Douglass' grandpa in this one. Highly recommended."Grandpa's library was a fine dark place bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore. Here it was that Grandpa sat in place with now this book and now that in his lap and his gold specs on his nose, welcoming visitors who came to stay for a moment and lingered for an hour."
    • 4/5
      When I saw Ray Bradbury had written a sequel to "Dandelion Wine", one of my all-time favorite books, this went straight to the top of my reading list. Taking place just over a year after Dandelion Wine, it follows the exploits of Douglas (now "Doug") Spaulding and his family and friends. Unlike the various stories and digressions and sub-plots of the first book, this one focuses on one big story: how Doug's terror of growing up provokes a "civil war" between the children of Green Town and its senior citizens. This book is significantly darker than the first (especially the ending), and I didn't like the focus on a single plot as much, as it felt like this plotline was a little stretched out at times. Even so, I really enjoyed this book. Bradbury writes as well as ever, and I'm very glad he wrote another book about Green Town, even if it took him almost 50 years to do it.
    • 4/5
      In Green Town, Illinois, signs appear that summer is almost officially over. A change in the air. A blooming of a particular flower. A last, final grip of the summer heat slowly giving way to cooler winds. Doug feels the pull of autumn, but unlike the other boys in town, he senses something else. Something trying to control him and the other boys. Something the old folks in town, lead by the head of the school board Calvin C. Quartermain. In a final effort to keep autumn at bay, he gathers together his friends for a final battle against the Quartermain and his cronies."Farewell Summer" is a fantastic tale of youth fighting against growing up. The one thing I love about Bradbury and why I can't seem to get enough of his books is the language he uses. The phrases seem alive, full of movement, and have a way of recalling the excitement and wonder of childhood adventures.And yet, the last two chapters threw me for a loop, mostly due to the imagery -- the idea of Quartermain bidding his sexual drive goodbye and passing it on, in a bizarre way, to Doug. The idea fits with the story of young vs. old, but its presentation was a bit abrupt and odd.That, however, doesn't detract from me recommending the book as a great look into the eternal struggle to keep from growing older.
    • 2/5
      I absolutely loved Dandelion Wine, but could not get into this sequel. I was glad it was short. The boys' actions to declare war on the elders didn't make much sense to me. Or maybe they would have if the boys talked more like preteen boys. When Doug made the speech about the chess pieces, the story lost me and never did get me back. I finished it because I kept waiting for it to grab me and because it was Ray Bradbury.
    • 5/5
      I was very apprehensive when I purchased this book last year and again when I picked it up over labor day weekend. After all, Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite authors and certainly the favorite author of my youth. "Dandelion Wine", the novel to which this is the sequel, remains one of the most powerful evocations of an American boyhood summer in a small country town. "Farewell Summer" is about the end of that boyhood but not in an empty, post-modern way. It is more about the natural flow of life and how if you keep your inner eye open, the magic does not have to end with the coming of manhood. It is about the continuity of generations and what we give to each other as human beings. It is also about forgiveness and redemption about how we are never separated from community. At the close of this story, I was overcome emotionally in a way I haven't been since I finished "The Lord of the Rings" for the first time. If you are a Bradbury fan, read this book. If you have become cyinical about the human race, read this book. If you just want to feel better about things in general, read this book.
    • 4/5
      I think people are generally a little too hard on this book. I liked it a lot, and will read it again. I'm a long time fan of Dandelion Wine - and to me the characterization seemed right on, and the themes felt like a natural and evocative continuation. There are priceless moments that stand among the strongest highlights in Bradbury's writing career. That said, the psychology among the old men interests me more than Doug's in this book. I don't think the reader can help but see Mr. Bradbury casting himself as the oldtimer protagonist facing down his youthful self now than he is a living bookend to his romantic adventures in writing about this mortal coil.Beautiful, important, and special.As a stand alone work - I can't rate it as much as a 4, but strictly as a fan of the writer and the first part of the story, I could have pushed it to a 5.The book is probably best read in less than 4 sittings - and comes across as more of a short story than a novel. Perfect reading for a late August vacation, like the one I just read it on.
    • 4/5
      I thought this was a superbly written book, Mr. Bradbury certainly knows how to write, in a few pages, dense moving prose, take the time to read this book. A master at work, and you can finish it in a day.
    • 3/5
      This sequel to Bradbury's Dandelion Wine is not as masterful as its predecessor, but it adds well to the tale of the young boys youth. You'll want to read it if you read Dandelion Wine. It is a much shorter and even easier read, but fits well with the first book.
    • 4/5
      The sequel to Bradbury's own Dandelion Wine pits the boys of summer against the old men of Green Town, Illinois. According to the afterword, the ideas laid down here were also in the first draft of the first book. It only took him 50 years to catch up.
    • 2/5
      It's supposed to be a great book, and I get the point, but I could not quite relate to the boy.
    • 4/5
      This is a short but wonderful book about life and growing up, told in a very different, unusual way. Definitely worth reading over and over again.
    • 3/5
      Fifty years after Dandelion Wine, this sequel puts a new twist on the themes of the original. Ray Bradbury is amazingly poetic in his storytelling, weaving an interesting tale of maturity and responsibility. Bradbury reintroduces readers to Douglas Spaulding and his young friends who proceed to wage a war against the old men of the town, convinced that they can find a way to keep from growing up. As the story progresses the reader comes to an understanding of the different seasons of life the characters are in as the young men and old come to an understanding of themselves and each other.

    Book preview

    Farewell Summer - Ray Bradbury

    I. Almost Antietam

    CHAPTER ONE

    THERE ARE THOSE DAYS WHICH SEEM A TAKING in of breath which, held, suspends the whole earth in its waiting. Some summers refuse to end.

    So along the road those flowers spread that, when touched, give down a shower of autumn rust. By every path it looks as if a ruined circus had passed and loosed a trail of ancient iron at every turning of a wheel. The rust was laid out everywhere, strewn under trees and by river-banks and near the tracks themselves where once a locomotive had gone but went no more. So flowered flakes and railroad track together turned to moulderings upon the rim of autumn.

    Look, Doug, said Grandpa, driving into town from the farm. Behind them in the Kissel Kar were six large pumpkins picked fresh from the patch. See those flowers?

    Yes, sir.

    Farewell summer, Doug. That’s the name of those flowers. Feel the air? August come back. Farewell summer.

    Boy, said Doug, that’s a sad name.

    tree.jpg

    Grandma stepped into her pantry and felt the wind blowing from the west. The yeast was rising in the bowl, a sumptuous head, the head of an alien rising from the yield of other years. She touched the swell beneath the muslin cap. It was the earth on the morn before the arrival of Adam. It was the morn after the marriage of Eve to that stranger in the garden bed.

    Grandma looked out the window at the way the sunlight lay across the yard and filled the apple trees with gold and echoed the same words:

    Farewell summer. Here it is, October 1st. Temperature’s 82. Season just can’t let go. The dogs are out under the trees. The leaves won’t turn. A body would like to cry and laughs instead. Get up to the attic, Doug, and let the mad maiden aunt out of the secret room.

    "Is there a mad maiden aunt in the attic?" asked Doug.

    No, but there should be.

    Clouds passed over the lawn. And when the sun came out, in the pantry, Grandma almost whispered, Summer, farewell.

    On the front porch, Doug stood beside his grandfather, hoping to borrow some of that far sight, beyond the hills, some of the wanting to cry, some of the ancient joy. The smell of pipe tobacco and Tiger shaving tonic had to suffice. A top spun in his chest, now light, now dark, now moving his tongue with laughter, now filling his eyes with salt water.

    He surveyed the lake of grass below, all the dandelions gone, a touch of rust in the trees, and the smell of Egypt blowing from the far east.

    Think I’ll go eat me a doughnut and take me a nap, Doug said.

    CHAPTER TWO

    LAID OUT IN HIS BED AT HIS OWN HOUSE NEXT door with a powdered-sugar moustache on his upper lip, Doug contemplated sleep, which lurked around in his head and gently covered him with darkness.

    A long way off, a band played a strange slow tune, full of muted brass and muffled drums.

    Doug listened.

    It was as if the faraway band had come out of a cave into full sunlight. Somewhere a mob of irritable blackbirds soared to become piccolos.

    A parade! whispered Doug, and leapt out of bed, shaking away sleep and sugar.

    The music got louder, slower, deeper, like an immense storm cloud full of lightning, darkening rooftops.

    At the window, Douglas blinked.

    For there on the lawn, lifting a trombone, was Charlie Woodman, his best friend at school, and Will Arno, Charlie’s pal, raising a trumpet, and Mr. Wyneski, the town barber, with a boa-constrictor tuba and—wait!

    Doug turned and ran through the house.

    He stepped out on the porch.

    Down among the band stood Grandpa with a French horn, Grandma with a tambourine, his brother Tom with a kazoo.

    Everyone yelled, everyone laughed.

    Hey, cried Doug. What day is this?

    Why, Grandma cried, "your day, Doug!"

    Fireworks tonight. The excursion boat’s waiting!

    "For a picnic?"

    Trip’s more like it. Mr. Wyneski crammed on his corn-flake-cereal straw hat. Listen!

    The sound of a far boat wailed up from the lake shore.

    March!

    Grandma shook her tambourine, Tom thrummed his kazoo, and the bright mob drew Doug off along the street with a dog pack yipping at their heels. Downtown, someone threw a torn telephone book off the Green Town Hotel roof. When the confetti hit the bricks the parade was gone.

    At the lake shore fog moved on the water.

    Far out, he could hear a foghorn’s mournful wail.

    And a pure white boat loomed out of the fog and nudged the pier.

    Doug stared. "How come that boat’s got no name?"

    The ship’s whistle shrieked. The crowd swarmed, shoving Douglas to the gangplank.

    "You first, Doug!"

    The band dropped a ton of brass and ten pounds of chimes with For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, as they thrust him on the deck, then leapt back on the dock.

    Wham!

    The gangplank fell.

    The people weren’t trapped on land, no.

    He was trapped on water.

    The steamboat shrieked away from the dock. The band played Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.

    Goodbye, Douglas, cried the town librarians.

    So long, whispered everyone.

    Douglas stared around at the picnic put by in wicker hampers on the deck and remembered a museum where he had once seen an Egyptian tomb with toys and clumps of withered fruit placed around a small carved boat. It flared like a gunpowder flash.

    So long, Doug, so long … Ladies lifted their handkerchiefs, men waved straw hats.

    And soon the ship was way out in the cold water with the fog wrapping it up so the band faded.

    Brave journey, boy.

    And now he knew that if he searched he would find no captain, no crew as the ship’s engines pumped belowdecks.

    Numbly, he sensed that if he reached down to touch the prow he would find the ship’s name, freshly painted:

    FAREWELL SUMMER.

    Doug … the voices called. Oh, goodbye … oh, so long …

    And then the dock was empty, the parade gone as the ship blew its horn a last time and broke his heart so it fell from his eyes in tears as he cried all the names of his loves on shore.

    "Grandma, Grandpa, Tom, help!"

    Doug fell from bed, hot, cold, and weeping.

    CHAPTER THREE

    DOUG STOPPED CRYING.

    He got up and went to the mirror to see what sadness looked like and there it was, colored all through his cheeks, and he reached to touch that other face, and it was cold.

    Next door, baking bread filled the air with its late-afternoon aroma. He ran out across the yard and into his grandma’s kitchen to watch her pull the lovely guts out of a chicken and then paused at a window to see Tom far up in his favorite apple tree trying to climb the sky.

    Someone stood on the front porch, smoking his favorite pipe.

    "Gramps, you’re here! Boy, oh boy. The house is here. The town’s here!"

    "It seems you’re here, too, boy."

    Yeah, oh, yeah.

    The trees leaned their shadows on the lawn. Somewhere, the last lawnmower of summer shaved the years and left them in sweet mounds.

    Gramps, is—

    Douglas closed his eyes, and in the darkness said: Is death being on a ship sailing and all your folks left back on the shore?

    Grandpa read a few clouds in the sky.

    That’s about it, Doug. Why?

    Douglas eyed a high cloud passing that had never been that shape before and would never be that shape again.

    Say it, Gramps.

    Say what? Farewell summer?

    No, thought Douglas, not if I can help it!

    And, in his head, the storm began.

    CHAPTER FOUR

    THERE WAS A GREAT RUSHING SLIDING IRON sound like a guillotine blade slicing the sky. The blow fell. The town shuddered. But it was just the wind from the north.

    And down in the center of the ravine, the boys listened for that great stroke of wind to come again.

    They stood on the creek-bank making water in the cool sunlight and among them, preoccupied, stood Douglas. They all smiled as they spelled their names in the creek sand with the steaming lemon water. CHARLIE, wrote one. WILL, another. And then: BO, PETE, SAM, HENRY, RALPH, and TOM.

    Doug inscribed his initials with flourishes, took a deep breath, and added a postscript: WAR.

    Tom squinted at the sand. What?

    War of course, dummy. War!

    Who’s the enemy?

    Douglas Spaulding glanced up at the green slopes above their great and secret ravine.

    Instantly, like clockwork, in four ancient gray-flaked mansion houses, four old men, shaped from leaf-mold and yellowed dry wicker, showed their mummy faces from porches or in coffin-shaped windows.

    Them, whispered Doug. "Oh, them!"

    Doug whirled and shrieked, Charge!

    Who do we kill? said Tom.

    CHAPTER FIVE

    ABOVE THE GREEN RAVINE, IN A DRY ROOM AT the top of an ancient house, old Braling leaned from a window like a thing from the attic, trembling. Below, the boys ran.

    God, he cried. "Make them stop their damned laughing!"

    He clutched faintly at his chest as if he were a Swiss watchmaker concerned with keeping something running with that peculiar self-hypnosis he called prayer.

    "Beat, now; one, two!"

    Nights when he feared his heart

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