Only when I grew up did I realize that it was the nostalgia that came early in life.
The "balloons" are made of red, blue and white tissue paper. Inflate the balloon and it becomes a lantern shape; hang a small cup filled with hay at the bottom, light the hay in the cup, and instantly the balloon will dance with flickering flames, glowing dreamlike on this summer night. of light and shadow. The little boy holding the balloon carefully was shocked by the wonderful firelight - it was his grandfather who led him to make such magical and beautiful things. He was so fascinated that he couldn't bear to let go of his hands, but his grandfather gently motioned for him to let go... so The magical lantern left his hand and soared slowly, flying over the tops of the apple trees in the yard of his home and across the skyline of the small town on a summer night. The little boy looked up until the fireball turned into a small point of light and finally disappeared. In the distant summer sky.
The little boy had never felt such beautiful sadness. When the "fire balloon" got farther and farther away, he already burst into tears.
After he grew up, those dreamlike childhood summer memories solidified into his eternal nostalgia. Later, he became a science fiction novelist, Ray Bradbury. His works are recognized as the most poetic science fiction novels.
It turns out that the "balloon" that lit the fire is the "sky lantern" that we Chinese are familiar with. I tried to imagine Ray Bradbury’s first experience with the magic lantern in his childhood, looking back across the vast time and space in his later years, and using his poetic style to summon that unforgettable summer night. That article was not a novel but a documentary essay, titled "Take Me Home". It was the last short article published by the elderly writer - it was him who published it in the science fiction special issue of The New Yorker magazine in June 2012. On the occasion of death.
Yes, go home, follow the magic lantern rising into the sky, and that wonderful summer memory will take the 90-year-old writer back to his childhood and his eternal home.
Ray Bradbury's science fiction story, full of poetry and nostalgia, took me to a distant time and space, strange yet familiar, beautiful yet cruel, desolate yet everyday.
Although I like his science fiction novels, on a summer day like this, I especially want to reread his non-science fiction short stories, such as the poetic and prose collection "Dandelion Wine", which is all about memories of childhood summer days. Among them, "Dandelion Wine" tells the story of the grandfather asking the children to collect the golden dandelion petals that bloom in summer, add the clear mountain spring and the family recipe, and prepare a sweet wine in the wine press. Summer was condensed and sealed in bottles. When the snowflakes fell in winter, grandma took out a bottle of dandelion wine from the cellar - the glorious summer came back to life.
I have never heard of, let alone drank wine made from dandelions, and the life in a small town in the American Midwest in the 1920s is completely unfamiliar to me; but reading about his childhood memories, it is strange that it brings up A tinge of nostalgia—maybe it’s because of those eternal summer days?
"Summer Solstice" always reminds me of the summer of childhood in southern Taiwan a long time ago, although it is not as described by Ray Bradbury: wide grassland and woods, "fire balloons", sweet wine pressed by dandelion flowers ...But when I read it, I miraculously aroused a resonance and sadness that transcended words and objects: the sweetness of family affection, the anxiety of hot summer, the mystery of the night sky, mixed with inexplicable and unknown expectations and losses - that The nostalgia of looking back on a time and space many years later that can never be returned.
The Japanese-style houses in the small towns in southern Taiwan where I grew up, no matter how small they were, most of them had a small courtyard, which was perfect for enjoying the cool air on summer nights. The light wicker chairs in the house could even be moved by children. We moved them to the yard and sat down to light a plate of mosquito repellent incense. Each person had a fan. The adults talked - I can't remember what they said. From time to time, people would drop by. At that time, If you need to make an appointment, someone will add a wicker chair. If you are polite, please sit close to the mosquito repellent incense, hand over a fan, and continue chatting. Of course, the children cannot sit still. Summer vacation is lazy, and adults have relaxed their usual supervision. The children came in and out happily.The older children, especially girls, took advantage of the family to enjoy the cool weather and took a bath first, applying fragrant prickly heat powder. Their bodies were clean and their minds were calm, but they were thinking about the novel they had not finished reading. The yard was too dark to read. But he didn't want to go back to the stuffy room, and there was a small struggle in his heart.
It was in that summer that I read "A Dream of Red Mansions" for the first time at the age of thirteen. At the end of reading, in the vast white snow, Baoyu, covered in gorilla felt, bid farewell to his father and walked towards the vast wilderness... I suddenly felt out of my mind, everything around me became unreal, the summer suddenly receded far, far away, and the white The vast snowy land seems to be right in front of you. The summers that followed were no longer the same as when I was a child.
That kind of experience may be similar to the feeling of that little boy in a foreign country thousands of miles away when he saw the magical "fire balloon" disappearing into the night sky for the first time - so beautiful, so sad, only when he grew up did he realize that It is the nostalgia that comes early in life. (Li Li)
