Review of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want my three-star rating to make it seem as though I didn't like the book. I did, and, since I follow Goodreads' rating system, three stars does, in fact, mean "I liked it," so I hope that seeing a three-star rating doesn't turn anybody off to Something Wicked This Way Comes, because it is worth the read.



I feel like this is one of those books that I'm going to have to read multiple times to really absorb everything. On a first read, the drive to figure out what's going on and to get to the resolution of it all meant that I didn't want to stop and take the time to really savour the language, and I think that that's something you really have to do with this book. Reading it for the first time, the highly poetic language was beautiful, and some of Bradbury's descriptions really hit home with me (like his description of the feeling of knowing that the first snow of the year has just fallen outside your bedroom window, even though you haven't looked through the window yet--a Canadian girl knows that feeling very well), but, every now and then, I would run into a sentence that I just couldn't comprehend no matter how many times I read it. It was jarring, and it kind of spoiled the feeling of getting into the story. Suddenly, I became very much aware that I was reading words on paper, and that the words didn't make sense. At some points, I found myself skimming when I saw a long, descriptive paragraph, because I just wanted to move on with the story. I'm hoping that, now that I know what happens, I can pick it up for a second time and really think about each of the images that Bradbury crafts.

Speaking of language, the dialogue was one thing that made this book lose quite a few points in my rating. The dialogue between Jim and Will kept spoiling the creepy atmosphere for me because I couldn't stop hearing everything they said in Goofy's voice ("Gorsh, Jim!"). Also, a lot of the time, what they were saying didn't really add anything to the scene. There's a lot of instances of them mostly just saying "Oh, oh, oh no, oh, oh!" Furthermore, I found that what they said often made them seem younger, less intelligent, and more naive than their actions did. Will's father makes an important, deeply philosophical and moving speech about the temptation of the carousel, and the boys pretty much reply with, "Gorsh, Dad, can't say we got any of that! No sirree!" and "Wow, mister, you sure do talk a lot!"


Jeepers, mister!

This is when you already know that (view spoiler on Goodreads)[Jim understands what the carousel does and is already thinking of riding it to make himself older. (hide spoiler)] You can tell that Jim--who, after all, is supposed to be the "darker side" of the duo--is grasping the gravity of the situation a bit more than Will is, but his reaction still doesn't seem to fit with what we know he's thinking.

Continuing with my problems with the dialogue, I didn't love how Charles Halloway suddenly seemed to grasp the meaning and methods of the carnival and poured it all out in a big lecture to the boys. His speech was moving, sure, but it just didn't seem very plausible that he would look in a few books, suddenly understand what was going on, and promptly be able to wax philosophical about it in a beautiful speech. The ideas in said speech are very good and thought-provoking; I just thought the delivery was a little lacking in realism.

[This bit contains something rather spoiler-y! Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read a single word involving the ending of this book!] Finally, I have to agree with some other reviews that I've read: the ending really, really pushed the "good triumphs over evil" idea. I mean, we're supposed to believe that (view spoiler on Goodreads)[Cooger and Dark have been running their show since long before anybody in this story was born, and you're going to tell me that laughter would have defeated them? Not one person has ever laughed at the carnival before? Granted, Bradbury slips in a hint that, even if the carnival's leaders were defeated, the carousel endures, and some poor souls might make use of it until they become the new leaders of the carnival, and the show goes on. That, of course, brings up another question: are the carousel and the train just going to sit outside Green Town forever? Shouldn't Charles Halloway and the two boys do something more than just break the control box? It seems a lot like they're just leaving a bomb sitting there for someone to find. (hide spoiler)]

With all of that said, I still very much enjoyed this book. Given that it's October now, the leaves are changing, it's getting dark earlier, and the Halloween mood is upon us. Because of this, it was easy for me to picture myself running through the night with Jim and Will, through pools of yellow streetlamp light on small town sidewalks and through tall grass in the moonlight. The mirror maze and the carousel spoke to and saddened me. (view spoiler on Goodreads) Mr. Dark was genuinely creepy, with his strange tattoos, and I loved the scenes in which (view spoiler on Goodreads) I also loved the scene involving Will and the Witch. It was nice to see Will acting on his own, proving that he wasn't just Jim's pathetic sidekick.

In that vein, I liked the relationship between Jim and Will. Will's thoughts about his friendship with Jim and the leader-follower relationship that that entails apply to just about any young person at any time. Will my friend someday get bored of being around me? What happens when we grow up? Will we still be friends? Will's thoughts, the thoughts of a boy who can't imagine not being best friends with someone, no matter how old they get or what happens in their lives, will definitely strike a chord with adults who remember the joys of best-friendship, as well as with any young person beginning the doubt the chances that their friendship will endure forever.

So, in all, Something Wicked This Way Comes explored some great themes. Aging, guilt, friendship, love, mortality... they're all in there, and they're wrapped up in a nice, spooky, Halloween-ish atmosphere. I definitely recommend this book to people looking for something good to read in October, and I intend to give it a couple more reads, someday, to see if I can really appreciate the highly poetic language that ended up being a stumbling block from time to time.