![]() ![]() The stories, for the most part, had been previously published rather than being written specifically for the book, and there is no particular unifying theme. ![]() When the tattooed man falls asleep, the narrator studies him, and recounts the stories told by the moving pictures through the book. He then explains why they drive others away: after a certain hour, the illustrations, tattooed on him by an old witch, come to life and tell stories. ![]() The tattooed man reveals his illustrations, and briefly tells the tale of their creation. The trick played in The Illustrated Man is closely akin to that used in The Martian Chronicles, in which a number of stories are tied together by one loose narrative, in this case, that of a tattooed wanderer who meets the narrator, who is camping during a walking tour of Wisconsin. And I think that I may have traced the root of my aversion down… to Ray Bradbury’s 1951 classic, The Illustrated Man. They make me vaguely uneasy when I see them in the wild. Despite their proliferation among certain strata of society, and their historical root (I’ve read that upper class late Victorian ladies used to get them, including Winston Churchill’s mother, who had a “discrete snake” tattooed on one wrist), I think I’ll be happier in the distant future not having ever had one. I’ve never really seen the point in them. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury (HarperCollins UK, 2008) ![]()
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