[BOOKS OF THE DEAD] Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Books of the Dead Review

Welcome to Books of the Dead. A monthly series by published author and founder of The Readers in the Rue Morgue Book Club Victoria Brown where she deep dives into some her favourite (and not so favourite) authors and books.

Author: Ray Bradbury

Publication Date: 17/09/1962

Synopsis:  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.

Thoughts:

If you’re going to read one book this spooky season, make it Ray Bradbury’s classic ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. Bradbury’s sheer volume of work alone is impressive, publishing numerous novels and hundreds of short stories over his long lifetime, and influencing dozens of authors including Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, and Clive Barker. While he is perhaps best known for his sci-fi work, particularly ‘The Martian Chronicles’ (1950) and ‘The Illustrated Man’, with The New York Times’ Gerald Jonas dubbing him "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream", his dark fantasy novel ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ remains one of the best examples of the genre. 

The novel was heavily influenced by a trip to the circus during his youth in Waukegan, Illinois, which he considered to be one of the most formative events of his life. In a chat with Sam Weller, he recalled,"I was in love with circuses and their mystery: I suppose the most important memory is of Mr. Electrico. On Labor Day weekend, 1932, when I was twelve years old, he came to my hometown with the Dill Brothers…. He was a performer sitting in an electric chair and a stagehand pulled a switch and he was charged with fifty thousand volts of pure electricity. Lightning flashed in his eyes and his hair stood on end. I sat below, in the front row, and he reached down with a flaming sword full of electricity and he tapped me on both shoulders and then the tip of my nose and he cried, “Live, forever!” And I thought, “God, that’s wonderful. How do you do that?” The next day, I had to go to the funeral of one of my favorite uncles. Driving back from the graveyard with my family, I looked down the hill toward the shoreline of Lake Michigan and I saw the tents and the flags of the carnival and I said to my father, “Stop the car,” and he said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “I have to get out.”.

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The novel, the title of which is a reference to ‘Macbeth’, follows two best friends, Will Holloway and Jim Nightshade in 1960s Illinois as they battle with the mysterious Mr. Cooger and Mr. Dark and their travelling carnival the Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show. 

The book’s setting and combination of horror, fantasy, and magical realism makes it one of the best stories to read during the autumnal season. Bradbury’s command over similes and metaphors make you feel like you’re there. He coats his world in so autumnal a lens that you cannot separate it from the season it’s set in. "The colour of a ghost’s sigh" – what a wonderful phrase. His prose is designed to be savoured, enjoyed, felt. You do not fly through this novel; it takes you by the hand and walks you slowly, deliberately, through the tale.

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Exuberant friends exploring a spooky carnival, something so wonderfully specific to that era of America, fills you with a sense of nostalgia for a place many of us have never been. It’s something Bradbury is so gifted at that it’s difficult to decipher just how he does it. He doesn’t just tell you a story, he makes you feel as if you have experienced it. It’s timeless, almost magical.

Perhaps what is most interesting about the novel is its exploration of life and death. Written in Bradbury’s lyrical, poetic prose, the novel prompts the reader to consider youth, old age, and what it means to die through a romantic-tinged sadness and darkness, all themes ever-present during the autumnal Halloween season as we approach a new phase of the year. Will’s father struggles with his age throughout the story, lamenting on his wasted youth which is contrasted with Jim who wants to grow up and be treated like an adult. Many readers can relate to both of them, depending on where they are in their own lives, and this balanced focus on both makes the novel truly one of deep empathy and endlessly relatable. 

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Carnivals often serve as representations of disrupting the status quo, and it does so in this novel in a way that may not appear so obvious. Herein lies Bradbury’s exploration of acceptance. The carnival forces change, but not in the way the antagonists intended – Jim accepts his lot, and so does Will’s father. The carnival is not just a spooky genre trope in this novel; it’s role in the story is sincerely deep and meaningful, and Bradbury explores it in such a romantic, eloquent way that nothing has come close since. 

Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

-Victoria Brown, Author of The Death Ship: Recovering The Bodies of Titanic's Dead

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