A third character, Clarence, possibly represents Bradbury’s childhood self, as he lingers for long hours outside of various studios in Hollywood waiting to catch sights and collect the autographs of movie stars. The unnamed narrator works with Roy Holdstrom, a childhood friend and stop-motion animator, and Fritz Wong, a director with an individualist spirit. Bradbury juxtaposes the two to highlight themes of mortality, existentialism, and aspiration, and how they come to influence and either subordinate to or dominate the human will. The novel is set entirely in two starkly different spaces, the movie studio of Maximus Pictures and the cemetery that adjoins its backyard. Bradbury draws from his formative experiences with the different absurdities of Hollywood culture while creating the science fiction films It Came from Outer Space, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and King of Kings. Set in 1954, it is a fictionalized autobiography loosely based on the author’s time working in Hollywood as a writer in a movie studio. A Graveyard for Lunatics is a 1990 mystery novel published by speculative fiction author, Ray Bradbury.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |