I recently finished Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. I'd heard of it before, of course, but never came across it. Then at some point I was looking through a list of classic books in English, all those Dreisers, Salingers, Keyeses and Kerouacs. Suddenly I saw Bradbury there and grabbed it right away without looking into it. Probably because of the association with science fiction, which I was crazy about as a kid, and which I still read every now and then.
It turned out, though, that there's no science fiction in Dandelion Wine at all. And if I had to describe the genre somehow, I'd say it's a novel with elements of magical realism. Such an elusive kind of magical realism that it's not always clear where the magic is. In the miracle of life, or in the eyes of the 12-year-old boy living it.
I've always liked the very idea of the genre, but its most classic representative, One Hundred Years of Solitude, ruined it all for me long ago. That book confidently holds first place in my top list of the most pointless, merciless and unloved. I'd even say it occupies the whole list, since I don't know if there's anything in second place or below.
But Dandelion Wine isn't boring like that at all, even though nobody eats dirt in it and nobody gets shot by a firing squad. It's just different. And in terms of putting into words how a 12-year-old child sees the magic of his life, its pure impressions, the miracles in everyday events, the book is a brilliant success.
What I especially liked is that all these vivid images need vivid words and turns of phrase. So the idea of reading it in English came in very handy. For enriching your vocabulary with expressions you'll never see at tech meetings, dailies and code reviews, the book is very good. If you ever need to describe hills and trees, fields and ravines, little houses and rails running off into the distance, all while lying in thick grass with a straw in your mouth, it will definitely come in handy.
Overall, the book is good as a work of literature. But it's not a page-turner, and in retrospect I probably wouldn't have read it. As it is, I read it by chance and don't regret it.