The Illustrated Man Part 1: Review

            The The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury will be an interesting place to start. This book is full of short stories surrounded by a frame story involving the titular character.

The book begins when the unnamed narrator first meets the Illustrated Man. They are both on their own journeys and, since they’ve met in the same place, decide to keep each other company for the night. The Illustrated Man removes his shirt to reveal tattoos covering his whole body. He says he can feel them moving.

The mysterious man further claims that the tattoos were etched into his flesh by a witch—from the future. This is what gives them their power: at night they move, and when they move they tell their tales. The narrator isn’t sure what to make of this, but when they lie down to sleep he cannot resist the temptation to look at the Illustrations. And as he observes, they begin to squirm…

The following stories take place primarily in the future, involving futuristic technology, self-aware robots, Mars, the end of the world, and beyond. They work their way around, ending with the Illustrated Man’s own story, and a surprise for our poor protagonist.

The stories, as with all of Bradbury’s fiction, explore what the results of imaginative situations would be, the answers to the infinitely versatile question, “What if?”. Some are just exercises in what could be in the years to come (i.e., “The Veldt”), while others deal with social issues of the time they were written (i.e., “The Other Foot”).

All are creative and fun reads, dispensing an overall enjoyable experience. I would say that it rightfully earned the National Book Award for being a Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. What’s even more fun is figuring out how the stories can fit on a single timeline (the tattoo artist, after all, was supposedly a time traveller).

Time travel is a fun and complex tool to weave stories around, but it can sure cause me a great deal of headaches, and I don’t even have a head.

Next time: A Possible Timeline for The Illustrated Man and other continuity issues of note.