The Martian Chronicles: Expectations and Reading

Man Vs. Mars

            I recently finally got around to reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I read Ray Bradbury before back when I read Fahrenheit 451. However, somehow along the way I got The Martian Chronicles confused with the book The Martian. While I’ve never read The Martian, I remembered seeing trailers for the movie that was coming out with Matt Damon. They showed a Bear Grylls type Man vs. Mars, as opposed to a Man vs. Wild, type of story with a bit of pioneering thrown in. I also remembered Hank green talking about his love for the book. Therefore, in my mistaken mind, I was very excited to finally get to read The Martian Chronicles.

            As I started reading it, I kept waiting for the Man vs. Mars plotline to start, for the adventure, for the excitement, but it never came. When Ylla was falling for the earthmen and Mr. Xxx kills the second expedition, I was waiting for the moment humans would start trying to colonize Mars. The existence of Martians didn’t seem to fit in with the previews of the movie at all, but I just figured that movies often have to cut out a lot of material. Even as the Martians became extinct and the earthlings finally came to stay, I only thought that it was still going to turn into Man vs Mars.

Appreciating Bradbury?

            It never happened though. As a result, I was unable to appreciate Bradbury’s meditative writing that I had fallen so much in love with in Fahrenheit 451. Bewildered, I could only barely follow the plot once I had finally given up on Man vs. Mars. Upon reflection, I can better appreciate his work, but in the midst of it I was just too disappointed. On the other hand, when I read Fahrenheit 451, I appreciated the fact that Bradbury can balance the need for story with the desire to convey a message. The simplest moral of Fahrenheit 451 could be boiled down to “value books”, but as I said in my post on the book it’s more complicated than that. “It isn’t just the books, but the critical thinking after the books, the discussion, the ‘why?’s that make them meaningful, valuable, and dangerous.”

Moral of The Martian Chronicles

            The Martian Chronicles could also be boiled down to an immature moral, “Hug Trees”, but again Bradbury is more complex than that. He doesn’t just rage against humankind and their civilization, but instead recognizes the value in human life and human dreams. He admits the unavoidable drive of humans to explore and on the opposite hand to tame. He both critiques it with the “Usher II” vignette and almost celebrates it contrasting the Martian civilization and the human one. Clearly, Bradbury prefers the “glass” Martian civilization to the temporary human one made of “plastic”. But he understands while the human one is fleeting, in the long scheme of things, the Martian one was also temporary. He explores this in “Night Meeting”.

            Part of the reason The Martian Chronicles is able to explore so many disparate themes is because it is made up of a bunch of short stories that Ray Bradbury only loosely basted together to form a single coherent narrative. However, since they all deal with the question of human life’s impact on the world, they didn’t feel scattered when I read them.

What About You?

            Have you ever read The Martian Chronicles? Or something else by Ray Bradbury? What did you think of it? Did you like it? Have you ever gotten a book confused with another? How did your expectations affect your reading of the book? Let me know in the comments.

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Image Credit: Acrylic on Canvas - 28" x48" By Michael Whalen, for The Martian Chronicles 1989 edition.