Aud read and liked Estella's review of The Illustrated Man (Voyager Classics):

"I really wanted to give this 5 stars because when I read it in high school it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever read.

I guess I loved the characters, their understandable flaws and their varying desires for freedom, which inevi...more I really wanted to give this 5 stars because when I read it in high school it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever read.

I guess I loved the characters, their understandable flaws and their varying desires for freedom, which inevitably lead them to space and the kind of liberation only the dying know.

And wow, at the start of the '5os, Bradbury sees the civil rights movement coming, only he sees it ending in Mars. "The Other Foot" is fantastic!

Reading the book now, I see more warts, like a few lazy endings, a weak premise here, an overly-philosophical soliloquy there, and finally, the not-quite-right, but good enough, attempt to string the stories together through the illustrated man character. It helps that the story of the illustrated man is riveting. I can't imagine the book without it.

Re-reading the book also brought new pleasures, like a new appreciation for Bradbury's ability to describe the frictions between married people, the pain of poverty, and the desire to find something magnificent to live for. I also kept imagining the stories done up as Twilight Zone episodes.

Disenchantment aside, a lot of the stories excite me, and this book is still one of my favorites.(less) "