I think I may be getting too old to think about my mortality. Is this a contradiction? Maybe. What I really mean is that I’m getting to the point where aging and death is no longer interesting – just scary and depressing. Nevertheless, Ray Bradbury’s war of youth versus age is fun to read. Farewell Summer is the long anticipated follow-up to his classic Dandelion Wine. The story continues to follow Douglas and his younger brother as they interact with the elders in their town.
At some point I started getting the feeling that the aim of this book was to provide as many quotable phrases about life, age and death as could possibly be contained in 200 pages. There’s nothing wrong with this – there is definitely something to be said for being able to succinctly summarize important concepts in ways that are clever enough to be memorable. One such memorable quote:
“Life gives us everything then takes it away – youth, love, happiness, friends”
Unfortunately, I’m sure this is exactly right.
