T.E. W. (terez93) reviewed on 7/29/2019 + 323 more book reviews

This is a story about how thoroughly awful humans are. As the author states, "We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things," and, throughout, that's what they do. It's certainly not a very rosy portrait of the future - time will tell whether Bradbury's characterization is an accurate one. Spoiler alert, though: it ain't lookin' good. I think I would replace the "war" account, which occurs at the end of the novel, with "environmental catastrophe and global collapse," and the premise of this book falls well within the ballpark.

This collection of essentially a tapestry of short stories fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, and relates the account of the human settlement of Mars, from the first, failed beginnings, to tentative colonization, and subsequent collapse and abandonment to return to Earth for "The War," which initially seemed an eventuality that everyone was trying to escape from. According to B., the Martians have learned to engage in an enviable state of work-life balance, which has eschewed over-civilization in favor of living contentedly in the present, embracing what he describes as the "animalistic."

That term is not a pejorative, but rather, it describes a harmonious balance of science, religion nd artistic expression. For Martians, who have outstripped their human counterparts in the process of evolution (some even electing to leave physical bodies behind and to become globing orbs of blue-light energy, existing in perfect harmony and symbiance with their environment, without love, hate, jealousy, greed, envy or strife), life itself is enough. Their majestic cities are described as serene and beautiful: at least, until human invaders show up.

As one might expect, humans over the few decades they inhabit the red planet (whose descriptions are admittedly an alt-universe of science fiction), thoroughly foul the nest, killing off the native inhabitants and then themselves in a race to the bottom. Even when it seems that they have escaped what appears to be total annihilation on Earth, at the first wind that that will occur (in the form of a visible explosion which wipes out the continent of Australia), humans almost compulsively flock back to their doomed homeland in droves, leaving only a few lost souls to inhabit the vacant, crumbling cities made of wood and dust.

The essence of fate and futility is strong in this novel, specifically that anything humans attempt is doomed to failure in the long run, because of our tragic true nature, which is fixated on destruction, and seemingly, self-immolation. A curious species, indeed. Overall, it's a deep exploration of the nature of man; time alone will tell whether we can transcend this state to move to the next step of development, as the Martians seem to have done.

-----------Notable Passages------------

When I was a kid my folks took me to visit Mexico City. I'll always remember the way my father acted-loud and big. And my mother didn't like the people because they were dark and didn't wash enough. And my sister wouldn't talk to most of them. I was the only one really liked it. And I can see my mother and father coming to Mars and acting the same way here.

Anything that's strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn't have Chicago plumbing, it's nonsense.

Their cities are good. They knew how to blend art into their living. It's always been a thing apart for Americans. Art was something you kept in the crazy son's room upstairs. Art was something you took in Sunday doses, mixed with religion, perhaps.

They knew yow to live with nature and get along with nature. They didn't try too hard to be all men and no animal. That's the mistake we made when Darwin showed up. We embraced him and Huxley and Freud, all smiles. And then we discovered Darwin and our religions didn't mix.... We tried to budge Darwin and Huxley and Freud. They wouldn't move very well. So, like idiots, we tried knocking down religion. We succeeded pretty well. We lost our faith and went around wondering what life was for. If art was no more than a frustrated outflinging of desire, if religion was no more than self-delusion, what good was life? Faith had always given us answers to all things. But it went down the drain with Freud and Darwin. We were and still are a lost people.

Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible. The Martians realized that they asked the question 'Why live at all?' at the height of some period of war and despair, when there was no answer. But once the civilization had calmed, quieted and wars ceased, the question became senseless in a new way. Life was now good and needed no arguments.

They quit trying too hard to destroy everything, to humble everything. They blended religion and art and science because, at base, science s no more than an investigation of a miracle we can never explain, and art is an interpretation of that miracle. They never let science crush the aesthetic and the beautiful. It's all simply a matter of degree. An Earth Man thinks: 'In that picture, color does not exist, really. A scientist can prove that the color is only the way the cells are placed in a certain material to reflect light. Therefore, color is not really an actual part of things I happen to see.' A Martian, far cleverer, would say, 'This is a fine picture. It came from the hand and the mind of a man inspired. Its idea and its color are from life. This thing is good.'

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