英美短篇小 说Unit 21 Frost and Fire

单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,第三级,第四级,第五级,*,*,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,单击此处编辑母版标题样式,单击此处编辑母版文本样式,第二级,单击此处编辑母版标题样式,*,Unit 21,Frost and Fire,Ray Bradbury,Ray Bradbury,Ray Douglas Bradbury(August 22,1920 June 5,2021)was an American fantasy,science fiction,horror and mystery fiction author.Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451(1953)and for the science fiction and horror stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles(1950)and The Illustrated Man(1951),Bradbury was one of the most celebrated 20th-century American genre writers.He wrote and consulted on many screenplays and television scripts,including Moby Dick and most notably,It Came from Outer Space,and many of his works have been adapted into comic books,television shows,and films.,Writing,Bradbury claimed a wide variety of influences,and described discussions he might have with his favorite poets and writers Robert Frost,William Shakespeare,John Steinbeck,Aldous Huxley,and Thomas Wolfe.From Steinbeck,he said he learned how to write objectively and yet insert all of the insights without too much extra comment.He studied Eudora Welty for her remarkable ability to give you atmosphere,character,and motion in a single line.Bradburys favorite writers growing up included Katherine Anne Porter,who wrote about the American South,Edith Wharton,and Jessamyn West.,Writing,When later asked about the lyrical power of his prose,Bradbury replied,From reading so much poetry every day of my life.My favorite writers have been those whove said things well.He is quoted,If youre reluctant to weep,you wont live a full and complete life.,Writing,In regard to his education,Bradbury said:,Libraries raised me.I dont believe in colleges and universities.I believe in libraries because most students dont have any money.When I graduated from high school,it was during the Depression and we had no money.I couldnt go to college,so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.,Career,Ray Bradbury was free to start a career in writing when,owing to his bad eyesight,he was rejected admission into the military during World War II.Having been inspired by science fiction heroes like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers,Bradbury began to publish science fiction stories in fanzines in 1938.Bradbury was invited by Forrest J.Ackermancitation needed to attend the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society,which at the time met at Cliftons Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles.,Career,Bradbury sold his first story,The Lake,for$13.75 at the age of twenty-two.He became a full-time writer by the end of 1942.His first collection of short stories,Dark Carnival,was published in 1947 by Arkham House,a small press in Sauk City,Wisconsin,owned by writer August Derleth.Reviewing Dark Carnival for the New York Herald Tribune,Will Cuppy proclaimed Bradbury suitable for general consumption and predicted that he would become a writer of the caliber of British fantasy author John Collier.,Career,A chance encounter in a Los Angeles bookstore with the British expatriate writer Christopher Isherwood gave Bradbury the opportunity to put The Martian Chronicles into the hands of a respected critic.Isherwoods glowing review45 followed.,Cultural contributions,Bradbury wrote many short essays on the arts and culture,attracting the attention of critics in this field,but he used his fiction to explore and criticize his culture and society.Bradbury observed,for example,that Fahrenheit 451 touches on the alienation of people by media:,In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades.But only a few weeks ago,in Beverly Hills one night,a husband and wife passed me,walking their dog.I stood staring after them,absolutely stunned.The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio,its antenna quivering.From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear.There she was,oblivious to man and dog,listening to far winds and whispers and soap opera cries,sleep walking,helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there.This was not fiction.,Cultural contributions,Bradbury hosted The Ray Bradbury Theater which was based on his short stories.Bradbury was a consultant for the American Pavilion at the 1964 New York Worlds Fair48 and the original exhibit housed in Epcots Spaceship Earth geosphere at Walt Disney World.In the 1980s,Bradbury concentrated on detective fiction.,Bradbury was a strong supporter of public library systems,and helped to raise money to prevent the closure of several in California due to budgetary cuts.He iterated from his past that libraries raised me,and shunned colleges and universities,comparing his own lack of funds during the Depression with poor contemporary students.,Bibliography,Novels,(1950)The Martian Chronicles,(1953)Fahrenheit 451,(1957)Dandelion Wine,(1962)Something Wicked This Way Comes,(1972)The Halloween Tree,(1985)Death Is a Lonely Business,(1990)A Graveyard for