Talk:The Pedestrian

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Phrasing

The last line of the plot summary "And that's the end of his life", make it sound like he dies? -- Chs2048 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:50, 4 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the year back to 2053

I typed "The Pedestrian" bradbury into Google. Here are the results. Most of the links aren't helpful, but the second is what appears to be the text of the story, which says in the first paragraph, "he was alone in this world of 2053 A.D., or as good as alone". The fourth link is what appears to be the text of the story, which says in the first paragraph, "he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone". No information on the date in the rest of the first page of results. Third link on page 2 says, ""The Pedestrian" is a short story where Ray Bradbury tells us about Leonard, a guy who lives in any given city in the year 2053" I see that you provided a quote...but no source was provided for the quote. I'm going to change the year back to 2053. --Onorem 23:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're correct -- I have an old print edition. It's 2053. Antandrus (talk) 17:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something is going on here. I am looking at a copy of the book Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451 edited by Donn Albright and Jon Eller. It includes an anthology of some of Bradbury's work. In its version of "The Pedestrian" it uses "in this world of A.D. 2131" and "Ever since a year ago, 2130...". This is clearly not some typo but an intended change. The question becomes of whom and why. This is a recent book from 2006, so presumably it was Bradbury himself who wanted to push the events further into the future to preserve relevance. The article may need to note this change. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:17, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wait a minute. I found a PDF-file index to the August 7, 1953 issue of The Reporter and in its byline for the story (which starts on page 39) says, "A jaundiced view of the world of AD. 2131". This is consistent with what is published in Match to Flame. So apparently in the initial publication of "The Pedestrian" the year was 2131 too. I now don't think Bradbury changed anything. The question becomes, where did the 2053 year originate? I note that Bradbury's work "The Fireman", which "The Pedestrian" helped inspire, is set in 2052. Seems non-coincidentally close. Perhaps somebody mixed something up at some point between the two stories? Jason Quinn (talk) 17:56, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Solved. According to The Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University's notes on "The Pedestrian", Bradbury changed the year in revisions for The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953):

253.8 A.D. 2131,] In revising for The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953), Bradbury reset the date of the story to a century after first publication—2052 A.D. This created a contradiction later in the tale, where the date of “last year’s election” had also been reset to 2052. The error carried over into Twice Twenty-Two (1966), but Doubleday’s Young Adult editors were more vigilant in preparing “The Pedestrian” for inclusion in S Is for Space (1966). For this volume (and the 1990 edition of Classsic Sories 2), the date at this point was correctly recalibrated to read 2053.

and

255.18–19 a year ago, 2130,] In all subsequent versions of the story, Bradbury reset the date of this event (one year in the past of the main action) to 2052 A.D.

It's unclear to me what year is the "correct" year given all this. I'm a personal stickler for considering the original the definitive work and treating changes as something to be noted in the article. I will have to ponder this. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the year to the original 2131, along with an expounded footnote explaining the variety of time settings to be found. Returning to this issue with fresh eyes, I now believe it right decision. The 2006 publication of Match to Flame which reused the original time setting is an important part of this reasoning as it means that there would be three different years likely to be found in the books in current reader's hands and that includes the original year. The expounded footnote hopefully clarifies the issue enough to prevent students assigned to read the story from changing the year willy-nilly. If anybody objects, we can of course discuss this further. Courtesy pings: Onorem, Antandrus. Cheers, Jason Quinn (talk) 06:50, 21 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The date was changed back a few days later, without changing the footnote to match, so for the last five years this part of the article has not made sense. I'm going to revert that change. If someone disagrees they should discuss it here. 90.155.73.34 (talk) 11:53, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]