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Literature / The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury

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"The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury" is a short story by Neil Gaiman. It was written for Ray Bradbury's birthday.

"I am forgetting things, and it scares me." So our Unreliable Narrator tells us about a world where people take your things and rifle through them at apartments. Yet he can recall bits and pieces of a science fiction author that once feared the words would vanish, that people would burn them.

Tropes for this story include:

  • Ambiguous Situation: Did Ray's stories really disappear from the world? If so, is it due to the narrator forgetting him and as a result, Ray's books vanished? Is the narrator's forgetfulness a serious form of amnesia or a response to trauma?
  • Brick Joke: The narrator references a story where a man with no prayer book recites the alphabet because he knows no prayers but God knows everything and thus will fill in the words. At the end of the story, they start reciting the alphabet.
  • Deal with the Devil: Inverted; the narrator offers to make a deal with God to bring back Ray Bradbury, including his name for anything. This includes the narrator's life.
  • Gaslighting: Referenced by the narrator; they say that at a place where he stayed, the other guests took their things, including his radio and candles.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Due to the narrator forgetting things, it's hard to believe anything they say.


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