{"id":9908,"date":"2013-06-30T18:15:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T16:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=9908"},"modified":"2013-08-08T18:26:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T16:26:03","slug":"american-sf-literature-in-romania-ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=9908","title":{"rendered":"American SF literature in Romania: Ray Bradbury \u2013 \u201eFahrenheit 451\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

[translation: Petre Solomon, Paladin Publishing, 2013]<\/strong>
\n(a reader’s guide to fantasy)<\/font><\/p>\n

by Oliviu Crâznic
\ntranslation from Romanian by Alina-Olimpia Miron
\n 
\nclick aici<\/a> pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n 
\nRay Bradbury (1920-2012… another recent, immense loss for culture) is considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th<\/sup> century. He wrote SF literature, \u201efantasy\u201d literature, \u201ehorror\u201d or \u201emystery\u201d literature and even gothic literature; literary criticism, history and theory mention The Fog Horn<\/i> as being an emblematic work within the current established by H. Walpole, revealing, nonetheless, the deep connection between Bradbury and 19th<\/sup> century Gothic writers (perhaps not a random connection, if one takes into account the fact that Ray Bradbury is a descendant of Mary Bradbury who had been sentenced to death for witchcraft and turning into an animal in 1692, in Salem \u2013 the sentence, however, was not put into application); Bradbury himself admitted being a disciple of E.A. Poe. (Note: there will always be theoretical disputes, but, personally, I think it is enough to invoke professor J.E. Hogle\u2019s monumental studies \u2013 Harvard University, University of Arizona, collaborator of other several prestigious universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, Fields of Specialization: Literary Theory and Criticism \/ The Gothic \u2013 to counter-attack the idea that the Gothic is a current that\u2019s long been \u201edead\u201d, studies stating that the Gothic has unabatedly continued on its sinuous road up to now with the help of illustrious names, from E.A. Poe to J.C. Oates.)<\/i><\/p>\n

In 2013, in Romania one can \u201cfind\u201d Ray Bradbury at Paladin Publishing, in the collection coordinated by Michael Haulic\u0103, the Science Fiction Masters <\/i>series and in Petre Solomon\u2019s stunning translation (one of the best translations I\u2019ve ever read \u2013 the text has a natural, exquisite flow). The novel chosen to launch the \u201eRay Bradbury\u201d series is the everlasting Fahrenheit 451<\/i>, a dystopia at the same level as 1984<\/i> (G. Orwell) and Brave New World<\/i> (A. Huxley). The book focuses on a firefighter from an oppressive future society in which firefighting doesn\u2019t mean putting fires out, but, on the contrary, burning books and the houses where \u201cdissidents\u201d hide these books. The more or less accidental encounter with a girl interested in real life \u2013 and not the robotic attendance to the society she lives in \u2013 triggers in the hero conflicting feelings which eventually end up placing him on the other side, with all the ensuing risks (the tense moments when the main character exchanges ideas with his captain, but also those when he\u2019s hunted by the \u201cHound\u201d are simply remarkable).<\/p>\n

In addition to the downright \u201cclassic\u201d narration style, what\u2019s utterly stunning is the accuracy manifested by Bradbury regarding the anticipation of several \u2013 material and spiritual \u2013 aspects characteristic of today\u2019s society (to name just a few: the destruction of personality, individuality with the help of chaotic and controlled information \u2013 with the role played by the mass-media \u2013, the easiness with which the \u201cminorities\u2019 rights\u201d can turn into \u201ethe minorities\u2019 dictatorship\u201d, but also concrete elements related to the day-to-day life, such as the huge flat-screen TVs, inexistent when the book was written, but common now.)<\/p>\n

Fahrenheit 451<\/i> was adapted into a movie in 1966 by Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut (starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie). Martin Scorsese appreciated the film, and Ray Bradbury himself declared he was pleased with the result, even if not fully. Yet another reason for the reader willing to buy this volume, which will not disappoint in the least. And perhaps it might not be a bad idea for Paladin Publishing to delight us in the near future with Bradbury\u2019s other masterpiece, A Pleasure to Burn<\/i>, a collection of short-stories connected, to a certain extent, to the Fahrenheit <\/i>universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[translation: Petre Solomon, Paladin Publishing, 2013] (a reader’s guide to fantasy) by Oliviu Crâznic translation from Romanian by Alina-Olimpia Miron   click aici pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103     Ray Bradbury (1920-2012… another recent, immense loss for culture) is considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He wrote SF literature, \u201efantasy\u201d literature, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[890,986,77],"tags":[1158,304,1164,1123,636,312],"class_list":["post-9908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-readers-guide-to-fantasy","category-egophobia-38","category-english","tag-a-readers-guide-to-fantasy","tag-alina-olimpia-miron","tag-egophobia-38","tag-english","tag-oliviu-craznic","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2zO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9908"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9946,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9908\/revisions\/9946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}