A review by ntembeast
A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury

5.0

...yes, I remember now. I read this story many years ago, when I was still just a child. I was probably younger than even the kids in this story who are all nine. I remember reading this because of the impact it left on me for the rest of my life. It's a story that is one of the only ones I remember out of those early years of my childhood. And it revolutionized my world. It introduced me to so many things. It showed me a world that was not mine, a world as foreign and alien as if I had been truly sent to another planet on which to live. It was ugly, it was dark, and it was a trap. My heart screamed with fear and horror when I read this story.... That's what I was introduced to. To fear... and to horror. Fear that something so wonderful like my Sun, my beautiful and health-bringing Sun, could be somehow stolen away from me. But what's worse... is that my fellow classmates could do that to me.

I had a lot of trust issues when I was a kid. Thinking back now, I wonder if this could have influenced me even then. I wonder if it could have thrown my world even more into mortification at the actions that humans--even children who are so wonderful at times, but so cruel at others--can commit. A part of my mind, the more message-aware part makes my brain tick and say: Do you see the political messages they were sending kids those days? *Chuckles* But I'm not here to talk about politics thankfully. We could talk forever about this very debatable topic, and I'd really rather not begin wars, but discussions.

I grew from reading this story, no matter what set of mind it tried to throw me into. It showed me a new and frightening range of the human capacity that my innocent, optimistic mind had never even conceived was possible. Thank you, though I say it with some bitterness, for corrupting that belief with so beautiful and picturesque a story. Though it taught me, and taught me with the least pain possible--I am glad to have read such a story. It was horrible, it was vicious... it tore me to the soul, and still does.... But I learned from it the other end of the possibilities given to us in this life. And I learned it safely. In a classroom with friends. In a class with a teacher I trusted. In a place where we all got the same message, and we all felt the same agony and pain. We were closer because of that story, and we were more experienced because of it.

Perhaps if every person in this world read this story, they might gain more respect for their own actions, and the way others feel. *Smiles warmly* It's an amazing short work, and will pierce you to the soul with its home-hitting message. At only a handful pages, it's totally worth the read. I think you'll be surprised by how amazing a story a few pages can make. Please, definitely give your time to this. You will not regret the experience, no matter how harsh it might be.