Ray Bradbury's Sincerity

There are stories you remember because of a brilliant character, or an unusual setting, or the twist at the end. I remember Ray Bradbury's story 'The Next in Line' from The October Country because of a single, brilliantly placed word.
                  As it happens I'd probably remember 'The Next in Line' anyway - it has the unusual setting, the great characters, the twist at the end - but this was the story that showed me how language can transform great writing into magic.
                  Ray Bradbury died less than a month ago, and as ever when a great character dies there were plenty of obituaries, quotes, etc. Great people should be remembered after they're gone, but it feels slightly morbid writing about someone because they've died. It's almost like saying 'Look at me, I knew about him too, I read his stuff, I thought he was great.' Maybe it's the age of Facebook and Twitter, and maybe there's nothing wrong with it (I admit I found out that Ray Bradbury was dead on Twitter, and had 'remembered' him on my Facebook account less than an hour later). Either way, in this instance maybe morbidity is appropriate. 'The Next in Line' is a morbid story.
                  We start in a poor Mexican town in the 50s, with a young married couple, Joseph and Marie, on holiday from the States. Marie finds the town macabre, especially after witnessing its custom of displaying the bodies, mummified, in an underground catacomb if the relatives cannot afford to pay a 'graveyard tax'. She becomes so upset that she wants to leave the town immediately, but due to a broken down car the couple are forced to remain an extra night.
                  Aside from the magic word, the brilliance of this piece is in the pace. At the end of the story we learn that Marie is dead. At first this is jarring - there seemed no indication of imminent death on first read. But rereading, it becomes obvious. Bradbury tricks us with the pace, and the character of Marie.
Throughout the story there are many long sections, all of them intimately involving Marie, which have very few full stops, so that the sentences seem to go on forever in a most frantic manner. Amidst these sections, repetition enforces the pace. When Joseph and Marie are in the catacomb, with Joseph giving nicknames to the corpses, such as 'Mr. Grimace and Mr. Gape,' Marie is barely listening, counting the bodies in horror. Then, when she imagines the bodies are screaming, Bradbury writes, 'Click went the camera, and Joseph rolled the film. Click went the camera, and Joseph rolled the film.'
                  These hard, repeated sentences in amidst Marie’s turmoil really emphasise the ghoulish nature of the scene, and show how alienated Joseph is from his wife.
                  At several points throughout the story, Marie says out loud that she is ill, but because of her character, because she just wants to leave the town, we do not take this at face value. It is not until we reread that we can see, Marie’s actions are not the actions of a healthy person. The fast pace mirrors her body breaking down, and at several points she listens to her heart beating, noticing that it sounds louder than normal.
                  And then comes the language. This is a story subtly about a body falling apart, and clearly about a failing relationship. In the penultimate section, Joseph is in the hotel bathroom cleaning his teeth. Marie calls to him from bed, begging him that if she dies in the town, he won't let her be buried there. He refuses to make what he calls a 'ridiculous' promise. And then Bradbury does this (starting with dialogue from Joe):

'                  And besides, if you died, you'd look very pretty in the catacomb standing between Mr. Grimace and Mr. Gape with a sprig of morning-glory in your hair.' And he laughed sincerely.

                  The dialogue tells us plenty about this relationship, but it is the final sentence, and in particular that final word, which grip the reader and tell us everything we need to know about how far apart these people are, and how blind Joseph is to his wife's plight.
In the final scene, Joseph is driving away from the town, finally. He glances beside him and from his eyes the reader sees the black band around his wrist, and the empty passenger seat. Marie has died, and she is not leaving Mexico.
                  One of Ray Bradbury's greatest qualities as a human being, and as a teacher (figuratively speaking - he didn't agree with Creative Writing courses!) is his sincerity. He knew he was very, very good, and didn't feel the need to pretend otherwise. He couldn't read War and Peace or Proust or James Joyce, and again he didn't feel the need to pretend otherwise. He spoke truthfully, unashamedly, and this turned what could have been arrogance into humour. He was hilarious. He was a teller of haunting and beautiful anecdotes, and it's no wonder he wrote the way he did. Here's his interview in the Paris Review - you'll see what I mean:
Paris Review Interview: Ray Bradbury