The words you are searching are inside this book. To get more targeted content, please make full-text search by clicking here.
Discover the best professional documents and content resources in AnyFlip Document Base.
Search
Published by kjutzi, 2017-09-13 13:10:46

The Crowd

The Crowd

“The Crowd”

First, let’s look at the Bradbury short story,
“The Crowd,” published in Weird Tales
magazine, in May of 1943. Bradbury wrote the
story when he was just 22-years-old, very
close to the same time he wrote “The Lake.”
“The Crowd” would mark Bradbury’s second
publication in Weird Tales, as he was starting
to break into the pulp fiction magazines of the
time. Weird Tales was a popular American
genre magazine featuring lavish covers,
interior illustrations, and stories of fantasy and
horror. Weird Tales was, in many ways, a
precursor to later television programs like The
Twilight Zone. “The Crowd” would be included
in Dark Carnival as well as its later revised
and rewritten incarnation, The October
Country.

“The Crowd” is a chilling, suspenseful story about the nature of
pedestrians who show up at the scene of fatal automobile accidents. Who
are these people? One inquisitive man begins to have his suspicions and
starts to investigate. “The Crowd” is rooted in the classic Edgar Allen Poe
motif of the “obsessive character,” a theme that Bradbury was often drawn
to in his early work. The story subscribes to the concept of "low fantasy,"
where magic or supernatural events intrude on our everyday world. The
opposite of "low fantasy" is "high fantasy," more the realm of alternative,
the province of trolls, orcs, worlds with three moons and the like.

With this premise for "The Crowd" in mind, Bradbury set out to write the
story. And its autobiographical origins are as fascinating as the story itself.

Many people are stunned to learn that
over the course of his 91-years of life,
Ray Bradbury never once drove an
automobile. Well, unless you count
this toy car he had when he was three
and still living in Waukegan, Illinois.

In 1935TK, while visiting a middle
school friend at his home shortly after
he had moved to Los Angeles, the
two teenagers heard a tremendous
crash outside. Ray and his friend
rushed out into the L.A. sunshine to
see a car that had struck a telephone
pole at a terrific speed. The vehicle
was split almost in half. Ray and his
friend ran to the vehicle, its engine
hissing with steam. It was a large car,
carrying six passengers. Four of them
had been killed instantly. 14-year-old, bespectacled Ray Bradbury reached
the driver’s side door and looked in through shattered glass at the driver, a
woman, barely clinging to life. The woman turned to the teenager and
looked at him. Her jaw broken and hanging by one hinge. Looking at Ray, a
young man she didn't know, her eyes fluttered and she died.

Ray Bradbury was in shock. He told his friend he had to go home. Bracing
himself against a brick wall, sick and saddened, he used the wall to hold
himself up.

“I only realized later that the wall I was leaning against surrounded a
cemetery. I was surrounded by death everywhere,” Ray said.

From that horrible moment forward, Ray Bradbury swore he would never
drive an automobile. And he didn't. For the rest of his life he rode bicycles,
took taxis, bummed rides, and, later in life, when he had become a wealthy
author, he hired a full-time limousine driver. But he never once drove a car.

“The Crowd” is a perfect example of “autobiographical fantasy.” In it, Ray
took a real like experience, the car crash he witnessed when he was 14,
and turned it into a macabre and haunting story of the dark fantastic. In the
12 years I worked closely with Ray Bradbury, he brought up the woman
who died in front if him on multiple occasions. "I dreamed about her again,"
he would say, his eyes pooled up with tears. The memory of that woman
and the tragedy surrounding her death stayed with Ray Bradbury all of his
life.

*Tangent Alert! One thing you will
notice throughout this course is that
I’m prone to taking slightly tangential
detours that relate in one way or
another to the topic at hand. I promise
these anecdotal detours won’t take
long and soon enough we will merge
back onto the freeway. Unless, of
course, you are now afraid of riding in
automobiles!

Anyway....in the early 2000s, Ray Bradbury, now an octogenarian and long
associated with the space age and Mars because of his 1950 book The
Martian Chronicles, was invited to visit Jet Propulsion Laboratories in
Pasadena, California. The scientists had recently landed one of the Mars
Rovers on the surface of the Red Planet and it was beaming back time-
delayed images from the surface of Mars. When Ray arrived at JPL, in his
80s and in a wheelchair, the scientists asked him if it was true that he had
never driven a car.

“That’s true,” Ray responded. “Well,” one of them asked, “would you like to
drive the Mars Rover?"

They proceeded to hand Ray the controller mechanism to the Rover and
Ray Bradbury briefly steered the Mars Rover over the surface of Mars.
When he was done, the scientists handed him a gift—a laminated Martian
Driver’s License they had made, replete with Ray Bradbury’s photograph.

While Ray Bradbury never drove a car on earth, he did drive a vehicle on
Mars.

True story!

“The Crowd” is a perfect example of “autobiographical fantasy.”
In it, Ray took a real like experience, the car crash he witnessed
when he was 14, and turned it into a macabre and haunting story
of the dark fantastic. In the 12 years I worked closely with Ray
Bradbury, he brought up the woman who died in front if him on
multiple occasions. "I dreamed about her again," he would say,
his eyes pooled up with tears. The memory of that woman and
the tragedy surrounding her death stayed with Ray Bradbury all
of his life.

*Tangent Alert! One thing you will notice throughout this course is
that I’m prone to taking slightly tangential detours that relate in
one way or another to the topic at hand. I promise these
anecdotal detours won’t take long and soon enough we will
merge back onto the freeway. Unless, of course, you are now
afraid of riding in automobiles!

Anyway....in the early 2000s, Ray Bradbury, now an octogenarian
and long associated with the space age and Mars because of his
1950 book The Martian Chronicles, was invited to visit Jet
Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California. The scientists
had recently landed one of the Mars Rovers on the surface of the
Red Planet and it was beaming back time- delayed images from
the surface of Mars. When Ray arrived at JPL, in his 80s and in a
wheelchair, the scientists asked him if it was true that he had
never driven a car.

5

“That’s true,” Ray responded. “Well,” one of them asked, “would
you like to drive the Mars Rover?"
They proceeded to hand Ray the controller mechanism to the
Rover and Ray Bradbury briefly steered the Mars Rover over
the surface of Mars. When he was done, the scientists handed
him a gift—a laminated Martian Driver’s License they had
made, replete with Ray Bradbury’s photograph.
While Ray Bradbury never drove a car on earth, he did drive a
vehicle on Mars.
True story!

6


Click to View FlipBook Version