Bradbury at the Library

 

I am sitting at a table on the second floor of Dublin’s main library.  It is a new building with an architectural flair that is futuristic in style.  Looking through the portals that pretend to be windows I see rooftops of houses and buildings that remind me of the ill-fated landings on Mars in Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles”.

The rocket lands and the crew is shocked to find what looks to be a small American town with houses that are connected to their pasts.  It is familiar yet strange and wholly disconcerting considering this is what they left on Earth only to find mirrored on Mars.  It is one of several connected short stories that comprise the book.

And it is pure genius.  Never mind it envisions Mars as having a breathable atmosphere.  It is told in such a way that we gladly set aside our incredulity to be immersed in something so beautifully bizarre, so magnificently melancholy.  “They made their way to the outer rim of the dreaming dead city in the light of the racing twin moons.” 

As is the case repeatedly throughout human history we bring our sins with us and spoil what we touch.  It is the myth of the rugged individual which fails to understand we are persons fully and essentially interconnected.  It is the first murder when Cain kills his brother Abel and looks to blame God.  We are our brother’s keeper, even Martian ones.

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