Passings

Ray Bradbury, the iconic science-fiction author behind such classics as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, has reportedly passed away at age 91.

Ray Bradbury, the iconic science-fiction author behind such classics as The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, has reportedly passed away at age 91.

The sci-fi and genre website i09.com is reporting that the Illinois-born Bradbury, recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Arts, passed away in his Los Angeles home Wednesday morning.

The late author’s grandson, Danny Karapetian, gave the following statement to i09.com:

“If I had to make any statement, it would be how much I love and miss him, and I look forward to hearing everyone’s memories about him. He influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it’s always really touching and comforting to hear their stories. Your stories. His legacy lives on in his monumental body of books, film, television and theater, but more importantly, in the minds and hearts of anyone who read him, because to read him was to know him. He was the biggest kid I know.”

Karapetian added:

If you're looking for any single passage to remember him by, I just picked up my copy of The Illustrated Man, my favorite of his books. The introduction is entitled "Dancing, So As Not to Be Dead," and there are some great lines about death. My favorite: 

"My tunes and numbers are here. They have filled my years, the years when I refused to die. And in order to do that I wrote, I wrote, I wrote, at noon or 3:00 A.M. So as not to be dead." 

I'm an actor, something he was always been really proud of, and told me once, after getting cast in a play. "You're living out my life! You're doing everything I wanted to do but couldn't!" He was such a driving force in my life, but what always fascinated me were his impact on others. How his stories lifted people up and saved them from lonely summers. Who among us was never buried deep in a Bradbury story, lost in his meticulously yet effortlessly crafted metaphor? 

Feel free to share your thoughts on this great author below in the comments.

By 33rd Square

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