Someone suggested this book here months ago and I finally got a chance to read it. The Martian Chronicles is basically a series of short stories concerning the colonization of the planet Mars by invaders from Earth. In Bradbury’s world, humans have mastered interplanetary travel with numerous rockets used for this purpose. While the Planet Earth is beset with present and impending calamities, humans look to relocate to the red planet.
Ray Bradbury has a distinct style of writing with long drawn-out conservations and passages that expound on the vastness of the planet. On whole, reading his passages really put me in a state of melancholy, sometimes for the residents of Mars, sometimes on the desolate landscape, and sometimes on the loneliness of the inhabitants.
But at the same time, the message Bradbury is conveying will not be lost on anyone. He basically criticizes the greed and immorality of the human race who after laying waste to their own planet went on their way to destroy another. The urbanization, modernization and globalization of the last century or so is slowly blurring the lines between the distinct cultures that have existed for hundreds of years, and slowly we are forgetting the joy that existed in living a life of simplicity. As our intellectual faculties have grown, so has our desire to explore new and unknown frontiers. We don’t know when to stop. We keep crossing milestone after milestone. But now there are many who feel a sense of nostalgia for the past, a desire to return to the simple ways of the past.
Since this is a fix-up novel meaning it was developed by combining several short stories that have been published earlier, the novel may feel a little disconcerted at times. But this doesn’t take anything away from the amazing story that Bradbury has written.
by TalhaAhmad