1992 novel by Ray Bradbury
Green Shadows, White Whale
is a
1992
novel by
Ray Bradbury
. It gives a fictionalized account of his journey to
Ireland
in 1953-1954 to write a
screen adaptation of the novel
Moby-Dick
with director
John Huston
. Bradbury has said
[
where?
]
he wrote it after reading actress
Katharine Hepburn
's account of filming
The African Queen
with Huston in Africa. The title itself is a play on
Peter Viertel
's novel
White Hunter, Black Heart
, which is also about Huston.
Bradbury considers
Green Shadows
to be the culmination of thirty-five years of short stories, poems, and plays that were inspired by his stay in Ireland.
[
citation needed
]
As with most of his previous short-story collections, including
The Illustrated Man
and
The Martian Chronicles
, many of the short stories were originally published elsewhere and modified slightly for publication in the novel.
[1]
Plot
[
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]
The narrator, an unnamed writer, is sent to
Dublin
,
Ireland
to coproduce a film adaptation of
Moby Dick
with a director whose first name is given as "John". The narrator checks in at the
Royal Hibernian Hotel
in Dublin before leaving for Heeber Finn's Pub in
Kilcock
, where he converses with several local characters.
The narrator meets with his director, John, and John's wife, Ricki. At dinner, John tells a story about his and his wife's trip to Spain, which ends with the couple arguing. The narrator flashes back to when he was buying his travel copy of
Moby Dick
and a woman warned him not to go to Ireland because the director was a monster.
The remainder of the novel consists of a series of unrelated short stories, most containing surreal and fantastic elements, inspired by Irish customs and culture. Meanwhile, the narrator works for weeks on what he refers to as "the Whale" through the rain in Ireland. In the last chapter, the narrator shows John the finished script. John is impressed and says that he should take the ferry to England. The narrator tells the people in Finn's pub what he's found out about Ireland and says goodbye to them. As he leaves, he sees the hills as green.
Literary significance and criticism
[
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]
Green Shadows, White Whale
received mixed reviews at its debut. Some critics gave the work high praise:
Publishers Weekly
said it was a "lighthearted, beguiling autobiographical novel", concluding, "Bradbury's prose is as vibrant and distinctive as the landscape in which these delightful tales are set."
Kirkus Reviews
called it "Bradbury's triumph. He has never written better."
Others found it to fall short because of its stilted diction and stereotypical characters and plots.
The New York Times
found it "Somewhere between homage and hokum … a cartoon that might be offensive if it weren't so affectionate."
[2]
The
Los Angeles Times
said it was "a charming, delicate story" of Bradbury's memories, and what they mean to him, "and if at times the words seem hushed, muted in their reverence for history, the cast of characters … keeps the story from sliding headlong into wistfulness."
[3]
David Soyka of the SF Site labeled the novel as a "disappointment" because of its cliched plots and lack of coherency of the stories' themes.
[1]
The Chicago Tribune
criticized Bradbury's "tin ear" for dialogue, complaining that "All of his Irish characters talk like
Barry Fitzgerald
reciting
Sean O'Casey
to a busload of tourists from
Tulsa
."
[4]
References
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]
External links
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]
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Novels
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Short stories
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Collections
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Plays
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Adaptations
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Miscellaneous
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Characters
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Related
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