I read this book a while back after hearing the universal praise for it, and ended up not enjoying it. The prose was often confusing, with some parts that I’m still not sure what exactly was happening. Characters felt one-dimensional with rarely any development and the female characters were so useless that it’s borderline misogynistic. The themes of the story had no nuance, being either shoved in your face constantly or literally explained to you in a long-winded monologue by characters made only to spout these facts. Not only that, but the whole message of “book good tv bad” is just incredibly overdone, with the fact that various television shows, along with video games and music, can tell powerful stories that change the lives of those who experience them on the same level, if not better, than books do. Now books are important and are an amazing medium, but disregarding everything but books is extremely elitist, leading to the entire book sounding like the rambling of an old man who complains about every bit of technology while being told that vaccines cause babies to turn into reptoids by Facebook. Outside of the book itself, I see many people defending it vehemently, calling everyone who didn’t like the book “part of the problem”, basically belittling them for not being a snob who reads nothing but dry, lifeless literature from 400 years ago. What did you think about the book? Why did you like/not like it?
Personally I love Bradbury’s prose style, it’s almost poetic and extremely descriptive, but because it’s not straightforward it’s certainly confusing at times.
I’ve always loved “A Sound of Thunder” for a smaller bite of his style. The way he described going back in time and the skin of the T Rex are lovely.