Month: November 2022

Green Town 2:
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury

Genre: Coming of Age, Horror, Halloween
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Original Publication Date: 9.17.1962
Pages: 314

One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – A Review (Part 3)

Part 2: Departures

The end game begins with the two boys completely under the influence of Mr Dark. They are frogmarched through town, as if they’re being shown off, and they are unable to do anything but comply. They are taken to the carnival where Mr Dark gathers the crowd for one last trick of the night – the infamous bullet trick. He asks for a volunteer to fire the weapon. There are seemingly no takers… then Will’s father steps forward.

It’s a wonderful moment. I almost felt like cheering. And now we come to the face-off. With the help of the crowd, Will’s father manages to free Will from the carnival’s clutches long enough to get him by his side to help aim the weapon. It’s a wonderfully tense scene, and we can almost see Mr Dar begin to sweat. Things aren’t quite going his way. And things get worse for the carnival. Using the crowd’s laughter, Will’s father takes his shot… and kills the Dust Witch.

The dad and Will flee into the mirror maze to search for Jim, another wonderfully tense little scene where Dad looks to son and son looks to Dad and they see they are mirror images of each other.

“And then, at last, he gave the maze, the mirrors, and all Time ahead, Beyond, Around, Above, Behind, Beneath or squandered inside himself, the only answer possible.”

Dad laughs, and the maze trembles. He takes note, and laughs again, the spell of the carnival finally broken.

The mirror maze collapses in shards and fragments. Jim is not among them; he is running in the dark as the carnival closes down, with both the autumn people and Dad and Will looking for him.

They find Jim at the carousel. Jim takes the ride into his future, still under the carnival’s influence, but is stopped and thrown off by Will’s love for her, leaving Jim in a stupor on the grass with Will watching over him while Dad heads for a final confrontation with Mr Dark.

It all comes down to this; a father standing between the boys and the darkness.

Mr Dark has disguised himself as another boy, but Dad sees through him, sees his fears. He hugs the boys close, the power of love starving the dark. The boy succumbs, the carnival falls with him… but Jim is still in a death-like trance.

But Dad knows what is needed. Joy and laughter will bring the boy back; he gets Will to join him in capering and singing and dancing. The power of their love and joy brings Jim back to them.

“They yanked Jim. Jim flew. Jim came down dancing.”

The carnival has fallen to ruin around them. Only the carousel remains, a last temptation for all three of them. They turn their backs on it, and make for home.

“Then, as the moon watched, the three of them together left the wilderness behind and walked into the town.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this reading, and I hope you’ve enjoyed my real-time walk through it.

I’m older now than Will’s dad in the book, and it’s a different experience reading it now than it was when I was Will’s age. The nostalgia factor is strong now, and Will’s dad’s thoughts on aging and death resonate strongly. But as ever with Bradbury, it’s the magic that’s the thing, magic that brings back youth.

And I feel young again.

Boo-ology: William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than twenty five novels published in the genre, and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies. When he is not writing, he plays guitar, drinks beer, and dreams of forture and glory.

Website
Goodreads

Green Town 2:
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury

Genre: Coming of Age, Horror, Halloween
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Original Publication Date: 9.17.1962
Pages: 314

One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – A Review (Part 2)

Part 2: Pursuits

Part 2 opens with Ms Foley, who is clearly now under the carnival’s spell. She reports the two boys to the police for attempting to burgle her, and neglects to mention the nephew who clearly isn’t her nephew. Will and Jim get into trouble, but even then Jim seems more concerned with the carousel, and the possibilities of instantly becoming a grown up. Will tries to explain to his father, but stops when he realizes he would be leading the man into Mr Dark’s net. This is something the boys must face alone, even if Will is becoming more and more worried about losing Jim entirely. The interplay between stolid, sensible Will and Jim’s wild side is masterfully done. When I was a lad reading this, I knew I was most definitely a Will, even while I knew a part of me would always want to be a Jim. I had a friend who was definitely a Jim. He passed away last year, still running ahead without me, and reading this now brought it all back to me. Bradbury, nostalgia, and emotion… a heady mixture for a boy at any age.

“Here comes the carnival. Death like a rattle in one hand, life like candy in the other. Shake one to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water. Here comes the side show, both hands full.”

That same night, or rather, in the early hours of the morning, the boys wake up to find that one of the carnival’s denizens, the Dust Witch, is searching for them, hovering silently over the town in a hot air balloon. Once again Bradbury paints us a quick word picture of her, and once again we are immediately terrified. He’s got his hooks deep in us now. Will, showing us a bravery even beyond what we knew was in him, lures the witch to a deserted house and, in a brilliantly taut scene, dispatches the balloon with an arrow, driving her away.

“Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night.”

The next day Will and Jim meet a frightened young girl. It is only later that they realise it is Ms Foley, made young again by the carousel, but by then it is too late… they cannot find her, and the carnival, via a parade, has come right into the center of town, looking for them. The boys must hide.

They take position under a grille in the sidewalk, only to be discovered by Will’s father. But things get complicated when Mr Dark arrives to question the man about the boys. Mr Holloway shows remarkable calm in the face of the Tattooed man’s insistence, and refuses to betray the boys to him. The Dust Witch arrives to complicate matters, but Mr Holloway banishes her simply by blowing cigar smoke in her face. Now aware that something is indeed awry in the town, Mr Holloway tells the boys to stay hidden then meet him at the library later.

In just the past twenty pages or so, both elder and younger Holloway have shown their mettle, revealing inner strengths. But it is Jim we’re getting most worried about at this point, the one of the pair who now seems somewhat younger than the other. Act 2 is about to come to a head, and we’re not sure yet where it’s going.

Our three heroes meet later in the library, where Will’s father tells them that he has discovered that the same carnival, and the same people, have been coming to town for a very long time. They are about to discuss how they might fight this menace when they are interrupted. The boys hide again as the father confronts Mr Dark. We get a terrifying set of scenes where Mr Dark overwhelms the father, breaking his fingers in the process, finds the boys, and sends the Dust Witch to kill the father. At this point it seems that Mr Dark has won completely.

Then the whole book turns on a single pivot. Will’s father laughs at the absurdity of things as the Witch tries to stop his heart… and the laughter causes her to pause, so he laughs again, loud and hard, and the Witch quails away from him. He has found the tool he needs to give them a fighting chance.

The witch flees, and Will’s father, nursing a broken hand, heads out into the night to search for the boys.

At the end of Act 2, we are left in despair, with the boys in the hands of Mr Dark. But there’s hope. Will’s father has proved his mettle again, and we are now all rooting for him as we head for the final confrontation.

Boo-ology: William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than twenty five novels published in the genre, and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies. When he is not writing, he plays guitar, drinks beer, and dreams of forture and glory.

Website
Goodreads

Green Town 2:
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Ray Bradbury

Genre: Coming of Age, Horror, Halloween
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Original Publication Date: 9.17.1962
Pages: 314

One of Ray Bradbury’s best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.

Something Wicked This Way Comes – A Review (Part 1)

“There are times when we’re all autumn people.”

This is a book I have lived with for most of my reading life.

I first came across it in a small town library at home in the West of Scotland. I think I was about 13, the same age as the boys, and it immediately resonated with me… not because of the small town Americana, which seemed too different from my industrial town Scottish upbringing, but because of the boys. It’s a book about friendship, but not just about friendship. It’s a book about growing up, but not just about growing up. And it’s a book about good, and evil, and magic.

But it’s not just about those things.

Above all else, it’s a book about life, and joy, and hope. And that’s why I’ve found myself drawn back to it again and again over the intervening years, particularly when dark clouds gather in my soul.

The book splits naturally into three main sections, and I’ll deal with them in turn but first, Bradbury’s own prologue introduces the boys in his usual poetic but economical fashion.

“Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands. And that was the October week when they grew up overnight, and were never so young any more.”

Part 1: Arrivals

We’re first interested to the boys, Will and Jim, through the eyes of a travelling lightning rod salesman. In a series of trademark word pictures, Bradbury paints us the boys lying on the grass outside their houses, then has the salesman take center stage to ominously refer to a coming storm. He even gives Jim a ‘magical’ lightning rod to stave it off, but the dies have been cast; we’ve already been set up for the coming of something that will, like a thunderclap, change the boys’ lives irrevocably. It’s a remarkable, very short, first chapter, but it has already done its job. I’m, once again, hooked and off and away to adventure with the lads.

Our next arrival is seen through the eyes of the lads when they visit the local library. Will’s dad, Charles Holloway, is the janitor there, but more than that, he knows all the books immediately. He has become a father late in life, and, in these early stages at least, appears to cut a rather sad and lonely figure among the shelves. There is some chatter between the three of them of black and white hats, more foreshadowing of things to come but with such style we hardly notice among the magical prose and the sounds of music in the wind before the coming storm.

There’s a smell of licorice and cotton candy in the air as the town closes down for the night. The boys are running for home, hoping the storm will come and they’ll see the lightning rod in action. We start to get intimations of their characters. Will is the serious one, Jim’s more patient, always wanting to see more, more of the town’s theatre folk in action, more of danger, more of life. At the same time Will’s father catches sight of another arrival, the first cart of a Travelling Show, one that stirs old bittersweet memories in him from his own boyhood. We’re only 30 or so pages into it but Bradley’s way with emotions linked to nostalgia is already tugging at our heartstrings.

Our next arrival is the train bringing the carnival. The passage describing its whistle has always stuck with me.

“The wails of a lifetime were gathered in it from other nights in other slumbering years; the howl of moon-dreamed dogs, the seep of river-cold winds through January porch screens which stopped the blood, a thousand fire sirens weeping, or worse! the outgone shreds of breath, the protests of a billion people dead or dying, not wanting to be dead, their groans, their sighs, burst over the earth!”

Damn, I wish I could write a paragraph like that, just once.

The boys cannot contain themselves. They escape from home in the early hours of the morning and head for the carnival. And it is here the temptations begin. The first to be tempted is Miss Foley, one of the boys’ teachers. We get the first real hint of the darkness to come as she is almost swallowed by the mirror maze while chasing a younger version of herself. The boys save her, but Will is horrified, while Jim appears strangely fascinated.

The boys find the discarded bag of the lightning rod salesman from earlier, and return to the carnival in search of him. We get our next arrival, and the most important one, when they meet an illustrated man, Mr Dark. Jim is immediately both fascinated and scared, but ignores Will’s entreaties to go home. They stay, and watch the merry-go-round run backwards, and an old man, Mr Cooger, becomes a boy. They follow the new boy, who tries to pretend he is Mr Foley’s nephew, but when confronted, runs back to the carnival.

We get another of Bradbury’s wonderful scenes as the merry-go-round goes forward again. Mr Cooger gets older again, then Will knocks the switch, sending it into fast forward, causing Mr Cooger to age a hundred years in a few seconds. The boys flee again to fetch the police, but on return to the carnival they are met with Mr Cooger in a new guise as Mr Electrico. Mr Dark charms the police force and offers the boys free tickets to the rides.

But much of the charm of the carnival has gone for them.

They want to go home.

So, the first act is done, the players have been revealed, and the stakes laid down. We’re starting to see how this might go, and we’re getting worried for the state of the boys’ friendship, given Jim’s impetuous nature. There’s more strange magic to come; it has saturated the air in the small town, and Bradbury has us squirming on his hook.

It’s already a tour-de-force, and I’m delighted to be along for the ride (s).

Boo-ology: William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with more than twenty five novels published in the genre, and over 300 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies. When he is not writing, he plays guitar, drinks beer, and dreams of forture and glory.

Website
Goodreads