Now and Forever
“Now and Forever” encapsulates into one volume two highly differing yet fascinating pieces of short fiction from one of literature's high masters, Ray Bradbury. ‘Somewhere a Band is Playing' reminds me, oddly enough, of the Twilight Zone episode ‘Walking Distance'; not necessarily in structure but certainly in tone and in the overlying story about one man's yearning for and discovery of eternal youth in a little Arizona town, one filled with deathless tombstones and other mysteries. Bradbury beautifully shows how one man's soul can be so torn between the impossible, everlasting youth, and the less-than-perfect world he has grown to love his whole life.
‘Leviathan ‘99' is a whole different beast, no pun intended, being a far-future, cosmos-sailing adventure inspired directly by Melville's ‘Moby Dick.' The Whale has been replaced with a giant comet and the infamous Captain Ahab is on a suicidal quest to snuff out that particular cosmic entity which he blames for blinding him and will stop at nothing to achieve his aims. The original tribual-esque Queequeg has been replaced with the telepathic Queel, though his character's placement in the overall story arc remains much the same; the narrating crewman Ishmael remains true to his original name. Melville's original story may have been gigantic as the whale he wrote about, but Bradbury's story is fraction of the length yet manages to retain all of Moby Dick's psychological complexity as Bradbury lets his imagination run wild, having particular fun with Ahab's long-winded, dramatic quasi-Shakespearean speeches. His misguided belief that the comet is doomed to crash into the Earth sends the entire crew into the closest reaches of the massive comet, the Cetus 7 starship doomed by Ahab's insanity.
It's a strong duology of storytelling and one that no fan of great literature or Bradbury himself should miss. Even in his late '80s, Bradbury is proving he still has more talent and imagination in his pinky finger than most contemporary authors have in their entire minds.