SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury - coming of age, temptation, knowledge and whimsical/awkward language

My opinion was changed after our Montrose Great Books discussion last night (July 2, 2009) at Houston Freed-Montrose Library. Twenty one people attended our discussion of SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury which was led by yours truly (Alice) as a substitute for Cassie who had a last minute work commitment.

Before the discussion, my opinion was rather negative because I thought the main characters were unoriginal. After hearing so many people express how much they liked the book, I wasn't quite so negative.

After giving brief information about the author's background, I started the discussion with a question about the relationship between two of the main characters, Charles Halloway, the father and Will, his son. What was their relationship like, why did Will ask himself in the book "why this woman was so happy and this man so sad" referring to his parents? After comments were made about the father's introversion and personal observations by attendees about similar relationships they have observed, I asked about the part where Charles Halloway is awake at 3am when the carnival arrives and is setting up and he thinks "men in middle age, they know that hour well" but "women never wake then". Some in the group disagreed but others thought it was a reflection of the time when the book was written (1962) and that women were more isolated then from the seriousness of the world. Of course, we talked about how this wasn't really true since women had numerous serious concerns if they had children. I would summarize by commenting that the book WAS sexist but as someone said, that doesn't make it not true.

Next, I asked about the relationship between Will who was born one minute before midnight on October 30th and Jim Nightshade who was born one minute after midnight on October 31st as we are told in the prologue. Their birthdates were meant to indicate that Will was basically ahead of Jim in maturity and good judgement; that Jim tried to catch up with Will but for numerous reasons, one being his family background where he was the only surviving child of a single parent, was unable to have the good sense that Will reflected. According to Will on page 48, "I talk, Jim runs" which summarizes pretty well their relationship, at least in the beginning of the book.

We talked about the lightening-rod salesman and what was meant by all the action about whether or not Jim Nightshade installed a lightening-rod on his house, whether he would remove it, when he removed it, etc. It was commented that the storm as predicted by the salesman was actually the carnival or could said to have been stopped by the carnival and the majestic way the tents were put up using and draining the storm clouds in the sky. And it was also commented that Jim Nightshade was drawn into the power (my words) of the carnival because he wasn't protected by the lightening rod.

What I concluded at this point as a result of numerous contributions from the group was that Jim was weakened by his attraction to the carnival; that he became more and more mesmerized thus damaging his friendship with Will and most importantly of all, risking his own future life possibly becoming a victim of the carnival and Mr. Dark, who was the proprietor of the carnival.

As regards "being mesmerized", we talked about this state as part of being "trapped" by Mr. Dark. In the case of the lightening-rod salesman, the trap was THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD inside a slab of ice in an empty store. In the case of Miss Foley, a lonely teacher, she was enticed and subsequently trapped as a result of viewing a little girl in the MIRROR MAZE; the little girl being a replica of herself at a much much younger age. In the case of Jim Nightshade, he was tempted using the possibility of getting older, something he desperately wanted.

We spent a fair amount of time discussing whether the carnival was evil. There is a monologue by the father, Charles, where he talks about what is good and what is bad including comments about the Devil. Specifically, he says "really knowing is good", "not knowing or refusing to know is bad or immoral" and that Mr. Dark is "not the Devil but a type of creature that has learned to live off souls, not the souls themselves" and "the carnival gorges on fear and pain (page 202) and "uses Death as a threat". (page 205) In my opinion, this monologue was rather "heavy handed" for an author, basically saying to us, "here is the main point of this story since I don't think you can figure it out yourself". The points are interesting but really great writing doesn't resort to this kind of "heavy handedness".

Knowedge as represented by the library is a "good thing" and was a "character" in the book - something everyone agreed about, at least everyone who was verbal anyway. Though one member asked how did the library or knowledge really help them conquer Mr. Dark. My answer though I'm not sure I convinced anyone is that it helped the father become skeptical once he did the research on carnivals using the library and his skepticism helped him see the little boy in the end for what he was, trying to hamper the father's saving the life of Jim. Guess I've written too much at this point so that makes me a "spoiler". Apologies to anyone who didn't want to know the ending. I thought the ending had a very nice high level of suspense, kind of surprising given that some of the book dragged too much in my opinion.

There is much I haven't included in this summary that we talked about. In particular, we discussed the "Mirror Maze" at length, the section of the book that specifically addresses "love" and also the description by the father of "autumn people".

One attendee commented that they didn't think the sins were major enough to warrant the "sinners" becoming victims of the carnival. Our response was that those who became victims were not "punished" in relation to the seriousness of their crimes or sins but instead by their own lack of strength and lack of ability to avoid the temptations which held out an easier life or one without "winter chills". As the father says "Since when did you think being good meant being happy"(page 134).

Another attendee helped us by describing how the tone of the book migrates from light-hearted childhood to a serious darkness of growing up and facing issues such as aging, fear, death.

There were numerous comments about the writing style and what I thought was awkward lanaguage, something we discussed at the end of the discussion. This is how my opinion changed from the beginning of the discussion til the end. Many of the attendees strongly defended the writing style and genuinely enjoyed the language which was described as whimsical by some. These comments caused me to make a note to go back and read parts of the book again.

This is one of those great things about discussions - that you get feedback about a book from a different point of view causing you to re-think and consequently enjoy the book or at least understand the book at a deeper level. There were others besides myself who were critical of the book, by the way.

Looking forward to our next discussion of MAINSTREET by Sinclair Lewis on August 6, 2009 at 6pm at Houston Freed-Montrose Library. See http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/ for further details about our group.