Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a American fantasy film directed by Jack Clayton and produced by Walt Disney Productions from a screenplay.
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October has always been, for me, a both glorious and frightening time of year.


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The trees turn their most beautiful colors and a true sense of mystery clings to the air as the winds get colder and all of the animals, including us humans, prepare for the unknown winter ahead. This explosion of color, where pumpkins turned their brightest orange and leaves turned their most vibrant shades of flame including red, was the epitome of death: A final flame and then gone.

We remembered those before us who made the world a better place through their good actions. Next came All Souls Day, when we recalled those we knew who had since departed and during which we prayed for our own souls and the souls of others around us. Frightening in every way to a young boy and to adults; this was an annual recognition of this mystery that we call life. No one has ever captured this fright, this mystery, and this hope like Ray Bradbury. Through the symbolism of the autumn leaves, the cold breeze, the coming of winter and the potential death of the impending storms that would ultimately bring a harsh and maybe life ending cold and snows, Ray Bradbury sums up in Something Wicked This Way Comes everything that ran through my imagination as a boy — fear and hope — and still today that stirs in me as autumn moves into winter and we all are reminded of our tentative existence on this earth.

Bradbury reminds us that good and evil exist simultaneously outside of us and within us and is not so easily discerned as we might hope each to be. Inside of us, our imaginations can trap us either within the good around us, or the evil of our desires. His true vocation is that of spinning yarns, some fanciful, others morbid, and yet others laced with an undeniable sense of hope. Rick McVey Jim Nightshade: Barrett Guyton Will Halloway: Sean Maximo Campos Mr.

Andrew Hampton Livingston Mr. I wanted to tell him that I had forgiven him for weak dialogue and character development, because, well, you know. I'm sure this is when he would have invited me for coffee. Alas, I did not have my opportunity. And it took me a long time to get over my disappointment. I determined I would continue to honor Mr. Bradbury from afar, by reading and rereading his works, and I've devoured many of them. Something Wicked This Way Comes was a new one for me. You've done it again. As usual, dialogue and character development just aren't the strong parts of his stories, but Mr.

Bradbury was a wordsmith, an inventor, a man of ideas. And, he was a philosopher who possessed an uncanny knack of nailing the human condition: Oh God, midnight's not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two's not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's hope, for dawn's just under the horizon. But three, now, Christ, 3am!

Doctors say the body's at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You're the nearest to dead you'll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open. God, if you had strength to rouse up, you'd slaughter your half-dreams with buckshot!

But no, you lie pinned to a deep well-bottom that's burned dry. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with its idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead—And wasn't it true, had he read it somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3am than at any other time? Sep 12, Trudi rated it it was ok Shelves: I hate when this happens. I should have loved the shit out of this book.

It's Bradbury , it's vintage horror, it's Stephen King recommended, it's a coming-of-age tale about young boys and a creepy carnival, and it's been on my reading list for years. This book and I should have hit it off like gangbusters. The chemistry should have been overwhelming and indisputable. But we got off to an awkward start. I kept putting it down and picking up other things. Finally, with the day off work, I too Sigh. Finally, with the day off work, I took it in hand this afternoon with a desire to just dive in and -- for better or worse -- finish the damn thing.

Alas, it was for the worse. No doubt, some of the writing is charmed and gorgeous. Bradbury's descriptions of the library in particular are wonderful. But the rest for me To me, no one writes children especially boys like King. He can catch, like lightning in a bottle every time, the way kids talk, think and act. I didn't experience that here. Jim and Will feel too archetypical of all boys rather than boys genuine to their unique story.

Will is childish on one hand, and too mature on the other. And I don't know The mirror maze was sort of interesting, as was the carousel, but nothing ever felt really creepy and perilous. I can only conclude the book didn't fail me; I failed it. View all 15 comments. I guess in a lot of ways this is like noticing the absence of Indian food from a French cuisine cookbook, because why would anyone expect otherwise? Something Wicked is the story of two kids scrambling to be a day, a month, a year older, and an aging parent reflecting on the nostalgia of his youth and perhaps wishing to shave a few years off his own accumulated tree rings.

In fact, the very title of this novel harks back to the opening scene of Macbeth , in which a witch in which a witch! Deep forests, dark caves, dim churches, half-lit libraries were all the same, they tuned you down, they dampened your ardour, they brought you to murmurs and soft cries for fear of raising up phantom twins of your voice which might haunt corridors long after your passage. The imagery of the phantom twin as metaphor for an echo is pretty brilliant here, and Bradbury repeats this feat throughout the book.

It probably also helped, with regard to timing, that I read this book in October, as the story takes place in the same month, for the descriptive voice seemed to lend an extra layer of reality to the story. I could not imagine someone clocking me over the head, boxing my ears, and slapping my face as a forceful means of conjuring a smile. I bet you would not be very happy if someone were to do that to you, right? Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. View all 16 comments. Oct 11, Justin rated it it was amazing. Oh, Ray Bradbury, you've done it again, man.

I read Fahrenheit again recently and decided to give this one another read as well. Now I have to read Dandelion Wine again and then read The Martian Chronicles and then basically everything, short stories, whatever. I think you're in my current list of top five favorite authors ever, Ray. You've been there all along, I just haven't really said it out loud or typed it or Besides, it's not like it matters anyway.

You've got much more prest Oh, Ray Bradbury, you've done it again, man. You've got much more prestigious awards and recognition. You don't need some rambling, bearded fartknocker with a Goodreads account to remind you how wonderful you are. But, I just wanted you to know where you stand so that selfishly I could put it out there.

This book is beautiful. Is it a story really? Is it a poem? Could it be written any better? Can I name my next kid Jim Nightshade? These are all important questions. Charles Halloway elevated this book to five stars for me. Gee whiz, I could read an entire book of just Charles Halloway monologues.

Every time it was his turn to talk, I automatically slowed down, my eyes taking their time dancing across the words, breathing them in nice and easy. It was like my brain and my eyes had a quick meeting and were all like, "Hey! Halloway's gonna roll on here about death for a paragraph or two. We're gonna relax for a minute and let you soak it in, man. We are your eyes and your brain. Have we ever let you down before? But I would just read it now if I were you and I were reading this review and I hadn't read this book before.

I would immediately track down a copy of this and take my time reading it, letting the words pick me up and blow me away like the leaves on a crisp October evening. Wait, first I would read Fahrenheit If you haven't read that book yet, I mean seriously. What have you been doing with your life? Then, you can come to this one and fall in love all over again. Like, man I loved reading about Guy and all that book burning stuff, and here I am loving this dark carnival story with two boys and a dad and a bunch of dark, scary people.

Reading is just so gee darn awesome, isn't it? Watch out for the Dark Carnival. Nothing good happens at 3am. View all 6 comments.

Movie Trailer - 1983 - Something Wicked This Way Comes

Aug 23, Eric rated it it was ok Recommended to Eric by: I had an incredibly hard time reading this book, especially considering it's a page linear story about an evil circus coming to a small town. I think it's because -- unlike Fahrenheit -- Bradbury overwrote this book to the point of it being dense poetry rather than prose.

The dialogue is sparse and stilted, and the descriptions are never-ending, and hard to follow. Reading the opening chapter, the language excited me. I falsely assumed it was just being used to set the mood and would tape I had an incredibly hard time reading this book, especially considering it's a page linear story about an evil circus coming to a small town. I falsely assumed it was just being used to set the mood and would taper off in due course, but it never ended. I wanted to scream at the book: Let the story through! It was indeed a time between, one second their thoughts all brambled airedale, the next all silken slumbering cat.

It was a time to go to bed, yet still they lingered reluctant as boys to give over and wander in wide circles to pillow and night thoughts. It was a time to say much but not all. It was a time after first discoveries but not last ones. It was wanting to know everything and wanting to know nothing. It was the new sweetness of men starting to talk as they must talk. It was the possible bitterness of revelation. And another example, this one during an action sequence: Then the arrow, a long hour it seemed in flight, razored a small vent in the balloon.

Rapidly the shaft sank as if cutting a vast green cheese. The surface slit itself further in a wide ripping smile across the entire surface of the gigantic pear, as the blind Witch gabbled, moaned, blistered her lips, shrieked in protest, and Will hung fast, hands gripped to wicker, kicking legs, as the balloon wailed whiffled, guzzled, mourned its own swift gaseous death, as dungeon air raved out, as dragon breath gushed forth and the bag, thus driven, retreated up.

By the final third of the book, I was skimming entire paragraphs just to get through the book. Sadly, an interesting premise is lost somewhere in this mess. I am looking forward to reading the graphic novel adaptation, to see if a medium shift can cure the problem created by the bloated prose. View all 14 comments. Sep 01, Susan Budd rated it it was amazing Shelves: And I think I know why. This is an October book. The autumn of my life. For I was in the spring of my life when I first read it, and a thirty-something on my second reading, but I am in middle age now, so I know why a tear slides down Mr.

I know what Miss Foley sees in the mirror maze. Now, in my autumn, I hear the call of the calliope. Strangely enough, what I most remembered from my earlier readings—and remembered fondly—were the scenes of Mr. Halloway in the library. Now, in my autumn, I can finally relate to the boys, the thirteen year olds. For this is a nostalgic book. Yet there is something about the atmosphere of the book that speaks to me across generational and geographical lines. And his thirteen year olds are the embodiment of all the hopes and fears of adolescence.

Jim, too eager to be grown. And Will, afraid his friend will leave him behind. Where once I was drawn to the quiet library haunted by Mr. Holloway, this time I ran through the night, pulse-racing, thirteen year old legs pumping, young lungs relishing the crisp October air, reveling in the strength and bright freedom of youth. Nostalgia is not for the young.

Not for the Wills and Jims of the world. And someday it will be for you. One of my favorite "semi-horror" reads. I suppose it could be called "horror" but it doesn't fit neatly into the mold. Like a lot of Bradbury's work the smell of late summer and early fall permeates this volume. The point of view is that of a boy on the brink of manhood as he gets to know more about certain concepts of "good and evil" than he ever really wanted to. I grew up on a farm within walking distance of a small very small town and this work hits home with me.

There are books that can b One of my favorite "semi-horror" reads. There are books that can become or are iconic. While I don't think this one has reached that point with the general reading public I think it might deserve to. It holds a special place in my library and my "reading history". It reached right down and touched something, possibly because I could feel the nostalgia ruffling through the volume and wafting out of the book with each turn of a page.

October with it's mixture of melancholy and fun for children, riding on the edge of a dying summer and setting on the cusp of a holiday season leading us into Thanksgiving and then Christmas At least it was for my generation, the one before and the one just after. Is it that way still?


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Not as much I fear. Will children of the 90s or s or s have the same capacity for wonder and fantasy as the children of the 40s, 50s, and 60s or even the 70s and 80s? I guess we'll see. The traveling carnivals that traveled from town to town and showed up at county fairs of my own youth that set the background for this tale with their mysterious denizens, noisy rides, lights that filled the night while leaving pockets of darkness are almost gone. The barkers and their "side shows", the fixed games of "chance" are passing, a thing of a bygone era.

Some of that is probably good As you join Jim and Will here and delve into the dark and sinister world of Mr. Dark and the Autumn people I suspect you'll see some corollaries to life, but I can't be sure of that. A lot will depend on your own past View all 21 comments. May 10, Lou rated it it was amazing Shelves: The Dark carnival is coming to town. Two boys and a father are the towns only hope. If only out of fear you stay home and not go down to the fair ground tonight for the dark man awaits.

Two buddies, boys, they live next to each other and can see each others bedroom window when needed. Friends born two minutes apart, one 1min before midnight October 30th, and the other 1min after midnight, October 31st, Halloween. I loved the father son relationship in this story between Will and his father Charle The Dark carnival is coming to town. I loved the father son relationship in this story between Will and his father Charles Halloway.

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His father has a level of understanding boys and there needs, he acknowledges his sons growing up testing the waters of limitations in his obedience. A darkly poetic story with an elegant prose style, Page-turning and evoking great sense place and nostalgia. When you visit a maze or hall of mirrors again after reading this you will be reflecting back to this dark carnival that you have paid visit to by way of Ray Bradbury.

A timeless story that is high up many readers lists of all time reads and that holds significant inspiration in writers pursuit in writing a story for the masses.


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    7. As I finished re-reading it I can't help thinking I be paying a visit again to this treasure trove of weirdness, mystery and darkness involving weird characters of the carnival, two youthful buddies and a father. This one keeps you turning the pages with the fate of two friends in mind. Ray Bradbury says in his afterword He made a new world. I finished a novel, with Mr. Electro at its centre, changed from a kind Christian mystic into an unfailing evil Cooger and Cooger an Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show.

    For that backward ride, a carousel, of a carnival is driven probably by dark feelings, fear and anger. Excerpts that I had to take note of But this was like old movies, the silent theatre haunted with black-and-white ghosts, silvery mouths opening to let moonlight smoke out, gestures made in silence so hushed you could hear the wind fizz the hair on your cheeks. Waited for someone, anyone to wade along the grassy surf. The great tents filled like bellows. They softly issued forth exhalations of air that smelled like ancient yellow beasts.

    But only the moon looked in at the hollow dark, the deep caverns. Outside, night beasts hung in midgallop on a carousel. Beyond lay fathoms of Mirror Maze which house a multifold series of empty vanities one wave on another, still, serene, silvered with age, white with time.

    Any shadow, at the entrance, might stir reverberations the Olof of fright, unravel deep-buried moons. If a man stood there would he see himself unfolded away a billion times to eternity? Would a billion images look back, each face and the face after and the face after that old, older, oldest? Would he find himself lost in a fine dust away off deep down there, not fifty but sixty, not sixty but seventy, not seventy but eighty, ninety, ninety-nine years old?

    The maze did not ask. The maze did not tell. It simply stood and waited like a great arctic floe. Why did the train come at that hour? For, he thought, it's a special hour. Women never wake then, do they? They sleep the sleep of babes and children. But men in middle age? They know that hour well. Oh God, midnights not bad, you wake and go back to sleep, one or two's not bad, you toss but sleep again. Five or six in the morning, there's hope, for dawns just under the horizon.

    But three, now, Christ, three A. The moon rolls by to look at you down there, with it's idiot face. It's a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead-And wasn't it true, had he read it somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A. M than at any other time? And how do I know it's backside first? He hugged the limb, tried to catch the tune, then hum it forward in his head. But the brass bells, the drums, hammered his chest, revved his heart so he felt his pulse reverse, his blood turn back in perverse thrusts through all his flesh, so he was nearly shaken free to fall, so all he did was clutch, hang pale, and drink the sight of the backward-turning machine and Mr Dark, alert at the controls, on the sidelines.

    It was Jim who first noticed the new thing happening, for he kicked Will, once, Will looked over, and Jim nodded frantically at the man in the machine as he came around the next time. Mr Cooger's face was melting like pink wax. His hands were becoming dolls hands. His bones sank away beneath his clothes; his clothes then shrank down to fit his dwindling frame. His face flickered going, and each time around he melted more.

    Will saw Jim's head shift, circling, The carousel wheeled, a great back-drifting lunar dream, the horse thrusting, the music in-grasped after, while Mr Coogar, as simple as shadows, as simple as light, as simple as time, got younger. Pastor Newgate Philips, I think. Read it as a boy. How does it go again? He liked his lips. He did remember 'For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem Star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and son on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer.

    For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? Does blood stir their veins? What ticks in their head? What speaks from their mouth? What sees from their eye? What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. In guts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles- breaks.

    Such as the autumn people. Women live off gossip, and what's gossip but swap of headaches, sour spit, arthritic bones, ruptured and mended flesh, indiscretions, storms of madness, calms after the storms? If some people didn't have something juicy to chew on, their choppers would prolapse, theirs souls with them. Multiply their pleasure at funerals, their chuckling through breakfast obituaries, add all the cat-fight marriages where folks spend careers ripping skin off each other and patching it back upside around, add quack doctors slicing persons to read their guts like tea leaves, square the whole dynamite factory by ten quadrillion, and you got the black candlepower of this one carnival.

    They're a billion times itchier for pain, sorrow, and sickness than the average man. We salt our lives with other peoples sins. Our flesh to us tastes sweet. But the carnival doesn't care if it stinks by moonlight instead of sun, so long as it gorges on fear and pain. That's the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream from real or imagined wounds.

    The carnival sucks that gas, ignites it, and chugs along its way. Somewhere hidden, Jim thought: Somewhere hidden, Will thought: Oct 03, J. To me, no other author delivers so much energy and emotion with just a word or two than Bradbury. He was definitely one of our national treasures and this is his most magical book. Jun 15, Dirk Grobbelaar rated it it was amazing Shelves: Not a review, really - just some thoughts.

    Darkness in literature: Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes

    By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Other than being a rather creepy story, this novel is also a lament for the passage of time and the ending of things. Consider Jim Nightshade, who at the age of thirteen, has decided not to ever have children: This passage resonated incredibly strongly with me. It is also pretty creepy: A bad thing happened at sunset. Bad things do happen in this story. How do you hear it, how are you warned? The ear, does it hear? But the hairs on the back of your neck, and the peach-fuzz in your ears, they do, and the hair along your arms sings like grasshopper legs frictioned and trembling with strange music.

    Something Wicked is a very, very good story, and written beautifully. The exact nature of the Carnival is somewhat obscure. It seems to be vested in mysticism and the occult, but it remains open to interpretation. The Autumn People theory is fantastic! Suffice to say, the whole thing remains suitably sinister… The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain.

    Something Wicked This Way Comes

    View all 5 comments. Aug 05, Anton rated it did not like it. This book is infuriating. The prose is ponderous, self-indulgent and nonsensical, at every opportunity taking turns of phrase so purple and baffling, that I can only understand them as symptomatic of a woefully adolescent conception of what "poetic" or "serious" prose would look like. I'd insert an example but really I can't face opening the book again to look for one. Probably connected to that, Bradbury's child characters talk and think like world weary 80 year olds.

    I can't remember the las This book is infuriating. I can't remember the last time I stopped reading a book because it sucked: This book I threw down after page 60 with something approaching rage. Here's a passage from the novel I plucked at random from one of the other reviews on Goodreads no offense to that person or to the bazillion other readers who apparently worship this book: They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity. They live inside the gift, know power, accept, and need not mention it.

    Why speak of time when you are Time, and shape the universal moments, as they pass, into warmth and action? I, however, can't help but see it is as a perfect specimen of the nonsense gibberish that passes for "profound" writing in this novel and in this case it's a fairly essentializing and sexist bit of nonsense as well.

    View all 11 comments. The story is also an adorable panegyric about a small-town childhood and male bonding which had me in tears at several points. Oh, wow, why can't more fathers understand how familial sentiment is rewarding and beautiful, especially between a father and his son? Age is barely a barrier between a boy and his f 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' is a glorious read, a smooth creation of poetic prose mixed together so wonderfully I was as delighted as if I had bitten into a honey-filled buttery scone. Age is barely a barrier between a boy and his father, if a father remembers and encourages the explorations and thrills of discovery for a boy reaching out into the world, yet stands near enough to safely catch his eager child while he is running blindly into a future of tests and trials.

    I have to take a moment here, gentle reader. My eyes are again clear. Born one minute apart, one on the night before Halloween and the other on Halloween, the two boys have spent every spare minute of their lives together, exploring the mysteries hidden in every natural cranny and wild space around town. They will be fourteen in days. Will is enjoying every moment of his life but thinks about things carefully, while Jim chaffs at needing to wait to grow up, impulsive, barely able to wait for his adventures to begin. The boys run, eager to see the show arrive by train!

    But things are very odd right at the start. For one thing, the circus arrives in the dead of night and as they watch, the tents seem to set themselves up almost without human agency! There are men moving about, but in total silence. An eery wind blows a creepy balloon about as well as the tents - and then the wind disappears, along with the men and the balloon. Things are very weird about this circus, but after meeting the peculiar people in the carnival in the following days, the kids soon know it is evil.

    After they notice some of their neighbors have disappeared or seem to have been transformed into creatures, several of the circus' folk come after them, apparently meaning to do them harm. Who can they tell? Who will believe them? Frantic, they finally explain things to Will's father, Charles Halloway. He is the library's janitor and a very good man, wise to the ways of boys. Well-read, he believes them. But can the three of them rescue the missing townspeople and save themselves? As the scary threats become obvious attacks, the trio search books about ancient magic and black witchcraft.

    Will any of it help them? Examples of Bradbury's miraculous wordplay: They stoke a furnace all of their lives, sweat their lips, shine their eyes and start it all in the crib. The wails of a lifetime were gathered in it from other nights in other slumbering years; the howl of moon-drenched 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!

    The flourished drums, the old-womanish shriek of calliope, the shadow drift of creatures far stranger than he, did not witch the Indian's yellow hawk-fierce gaze. Still, the drums did tilt churches and plummet forth mobs of boys curious and eager for any change mild or wild, so, as the church bells stopped up their silver and iron rain, pew-stiffened crowds became relaxed parade crowds as the carnival, a promotion of brass, a flush of velvet, all lion-pacing, mammoth-shuffling, flag-fluttered by.

    View all 9 comments. Readers in the mood for a very flowery narrative. Something Wicked This Way Comes is a dark fantasy tale of the upheaval that a strange carnival of souls causes when they arrive in a small, unnamed town. It delves into heavy themes of regret, longing for lost years, and the desire for maturity and escape from one's lot in the world. You see, the Carnival, ran by Coogar and Dark, feeds on all the wretched, negative emotions that the humans they prey on exude. They will find much sustenance in this Midwestern town.

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    Our main characters in this stor Something Wicked This Way Comes is a dark fantasy tale of the upheaval that a strange carnival of souls causes when they arrive in a small, unnamed town. Our main characters in this story are two 13 year-old boys, Jim and Will. They have been friends forever, but their friendship will be tried as Jim finds it increasingly difficult to resist the allure of the carnival and the sinister offer it can make its visitor. And their lives are put in jeopardy when they stumble on the very real threat that its merry go round poses.

    I liked the lessons in this story, about the importance of treasuring the now, instead of longing futilely for the past or the future. Jim's father, Charles Halloway is a man in his 50s who is feeling his age deeply. He married slightly older than most, when he was 39, and his wife seems to be a bit younger than he, and is content in ways he is not. Halloway longs for lost youth. In contrast, Jim longs to be older, so he can escape from his single mother's clinging, stifling embrace.

    Both will have to face their hollow desires head on if they want to survive the threat of the carnival. Other lessons that this story teaches of are loyalty, and the strong, powerful bonds of family and friendship. The first plays out through Jim and Will's enduring friendship, their intense bond, which helps to protect them and gives them the ability to fight the malevolence of Mr. With the second, we see the boys rely on Will's father, a seemingly unlikely hero, for their protection.

    I appreciated that although Halloway might seem like a frail knight in shining armor, he shows true heroism and fortitude against Dark.

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    By means of his bookish ways and his thoughtful personality, he discovers and exploits the fatal flaw that Dark and his sinister folk hold close to their dark hearts. Unfortunately, I didn't find listening to this story as good an experience as I would have hoped for. It felt a little bit overwritten for an audiobook read. There was excessive use of imagery, similie and metaphor for my tastes.

    Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel) - Wikipedia

    Normally, I love the use of these literary devices, albeit a bit more sparingly. Since I am a very moody reader, it could have been that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I listened. But I found the extended descriptions that didn't seem to further the plot as expediently as I hoped, rather tedious.

    That is not to say that I didn't like some aspects. Bradbury uses words beautifully, spurring the imagination fruitfully. I just wished that the story was a bit more straightforward. I have the feeling that this book would read a lot better than it served as a listening experience. I do think this story is a nice way to start out the fall season, to get a reader ready for Halloween and the spooky month of October. There were some spooky moments, and the evil of Dark, Coogar, and the Dust Witch give this story a very sinister vibe.

    Also, its look at the darker aspects of very human nature. I appreciated it from that standpoint. As I mentioned earlier in this review, the message is very good. As a person who sometimes feels her age deeply, I can appreciate Bradbury's gentle warning that humans can put too much stock in how old and how young they are and lose out on enjoying and experiencing every day, the Now.

    I needed that reminder. So that's for the good with this story. I am and always will be a reader who enjoys and admires Ray Bradbury. He inspires me as a writer. I think he has a very good imagination and quite a way with words and phrases. I just know now that I should save him for when I'm in the mood for that expansive, flowery language, and a story that relies heavily on allusion and imagery, instead of concise storytelling. Also, I think my yen for the short story medium is very much appeased by his type of writing, so I am glad that I do have several of his short story volumes to read in my book collection.

    I will definitely attempt to read another one of his novels one day. Maybe not on audio, though. Don't read this on audio if you don't care for expansive description and flowery language. This a book best experienced on paper. View all 13 comments. Sep 25, Paul rated it really liked it Shelves: It tells the story of Jim and Will two boys who live next door to each other and who are almost The Carnival comes to town; only this is no ordinary carnival and there is something sinister about it. It contains a wonderful collection of characters: