Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Ray Bradbury

book data

9,997 ratings, 3.92 average rating, 727 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		30%
4		38%
3		23%
2		5%
1		1%

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published

2001 by Book-of-the-Month Club (first published 1962)

details

Hardcover, 293 pages

characters

William Halloway, James Nightshade, Charles Halloway

description

Alternate Cover for ISBN 0965020452

A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, Something Wicked This Way Comes is the memorable story of tw…more

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Sep 25, 2007

Paul rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: novels

I read this when I was an insanely romantic teenager and since then the cruel world has beaten all that nonsense out of my brain with bars of iron and wires of barb, and left me bleeding and barfing in a vile ditch, so I should probably not have plucked my old Corgi paperback of Something Wicked out from my most cobwebbed shelf and thought to wander nostalgically recapturing the wonder and enrapturement I once perceived herein. In those faroff days I wanted to be the smile on the bullet, I wante...more

Like this review? yes (29 people liked it)

14 comments

Jul 09, 2007

Jason Pettus rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Ray Bradbury has never sat comfortably in the world of literature, nor with me; considered a "genre writer" by some and meant as an insult, a "serious writer" by others and meant as a compliment, it seems that I am always going back and forth about his merits in my head too, especially the farther away we get from many of the books' original publication dates. That said, how can you not love Something Wicked This Way Comes, which the older it gets the more can actually be app...more

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Jun 12, 2007

Brooke rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: 2007, classics, horror, own

Read in March, 2007

recommends it for: those reluctant to read classic American lit

Leveling any complaints against Bradbury seems like a literary crime, but I'm afraid I didn't enjoy Something Wicked as much I feel like I should have. The plot was really interesting, and right up my alley - evil carnival comes to town and preys on the unsuspecting citizens. The execution, however, left me wanting more.

The first problem is that the prose is a bit outdated. It's like I ran into with The Haunting of Hill House, it just didn't age well over the last 40-50 years. It's n...more

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3 comments

Jul 17, 2008

J rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in March, 2005

Authors like Salman Rushdie, I’ve written, are unable to write authentically in the vein of good wholesome simple answer philosophy because they write about complicated moral issues, complicated worlds, complicated resolutions. They deal with a very real world with very real difficulties.

Ray Bradbury is a different kettle of fish entirely. For the most part, Bradbury writes of a simpler moral universe, one in which there is starkly defined good and evil and there are people swayed ...more Authors like Salman Rushdie, I’ve written, are unable to write authentically in the vein of good wholesome simple answer philosophy because they write about complicated moral issues, complicated worlds, complicated resolutions. They deal with a very real world with very real difficulties.

Ray Bradbury is a different kettle of fish entirely. For the most part, Bradbury writes of a simpler moral universe, one in which there is starkly defined good and evil and there are people swayed in one direction or the other, sometimes both directions. This is true of the world that people vacillate from one pole to the other, but for most people there are precious few instances in which one meets face to face with Evil or Good in their purest incarnations.

It is precisely this kind of eternal struggle between Good and Evil that makes up a great deal of Bradbury’s justly famous novel Something Wicked This Way Comes. Far more a morality tale than Farenheit 451 or The Martian Chronicles (the two other novels of comparable fame, the former being political, the latter a philosophical sci-fi take on the notions of the Other and man’s essential isolation), Something Wicked distills the world into the two camps. These are represented in embryonic stage by the thirteen year olds Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, and by Will’s father Charles and the proprietor of a sinister traveling circus, Mr. Dark.

What’s good in Bradbury’s world is primarily childhood and the nostalgic view of it the author has, a reductive argument but not an uncommon view especially among writers of Bradbury’s generation. Not that there aren’t bad kids in his worlds, but they are usually run of the mill bullies or mama’s boy snitches. They aren’t bad, really, just misguided. Childhood is freedom and possibility and energy.

Pitted against them is the world of adults with its lack of imagination, its rules and strictures, its shutting down of vibrancy. Most adults aren’t evil, simply tired and small-minded, but it is only adults who are Evil. Yet what’s hidden in nearly all adults is that child in them, that elemental goodness that can be coaxed to rise to the surface and manifest itself in singing, dancing, and running. An adult’s relative scale of goodness is often measured in how often or how easily this can be brought out or if it can show itself in a pinch.

Something Wicked has as its adult hero, Will’s father, married to his much younger wife, lamenting that he is so much older than Will, too old for playing ball and other games. It is axiomatic that he will get in touch with his inner child, that inmost joyfulness before the book’s over and definitely in time for the climax. Will is, of course, then our childhood hero. His best friend Jim is the novel’s victim; wanting desperately to know the secrets of adulthood, he is tempted by Mr. Dark’s circus, most especially by the calliope merry go round. One trip forward on this ride ages you a year; one trip backwards strips you of a year. The story of his temptation is the novel’s tragedy.

To read this book is to feel a very specific nostalgia for childhood in general with its pat dichotomies, but also for a much more innocent childhood. I grew up in a small town (like Green Town in the novel), and I can easily recall when children were far less supervised, far less at risk, when you could slip out unnoticed of your house and run through the night while your parents slept, how you could cross town at a good running clip, breathless with excitement. And not only that, but here Bradbury catches with perfection that undeniable pull to sneak out of your house after dark, the illuminating illicitness of it that somewhere on the road to adulthood disappears. Tonight, I slide outside my house at 3am and it feels like nothing particularly special.

Part of what made it so hard to stick with the novel as written was the excellent film version I saw as a child. Without even closing my eyes, I can still see the spiders in the bed scene, an incident wholly invented for the film, yet clearly a creepy notion that lingered. Whenever Mr. Dark was in a scene, my mind instantly saw Jonathan Pryce; Will’s father’s face could be no one’s but Jason Robards’.

Bradbury’s book remains an enduring classic, though it leaves a great deal of the plot unresolved and not in that cool what-will-happen-next way, but in that did-he-forget-about-Miss-Foley way. And perhaps Bradbury’s story is the most famous evil merry go round tale, but I’ve often wondered why death for a character only ever comes from aging in these stories. Why does a baddie never meet his end by regressing past childhood, past babyhood, back to fetus, then embryo, then blastocyst, to finally separate into component sperm and egg before drying out and crusting away?

As the kind of writer he is, ultimately a sentimentalist, Bradbury manages to somehow beg your indulgence as a reader and get it. He manages the neat trick of showing you what your critical faculties should describe as a big pile of corn, but which somehow you see as through a glass darkly as heaps of gold. I’m not certain how he does it; I was aware before I began listening; I was prepared for it; I fell for it anyway. It’s fundamentally a conjuring act, the best literary sleight of hand going, and I can read the book ten times in a row and miss the moment it happens every time.
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May 29, 2008

Daniel rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: 2008

Read in June, 2008

If only I had read "Something Wicked This Way Comes" when I was 12 or 13 years old, I probably would have loved it and been able to reread it nostalgically. Sadly, I came to Ray Bradbury's book for the first time two decades too late.

"Something Wicked"'s main failing, especially to a reader who prefers his writing on the lean side, is its overly purple prose. (A long monologue by one of the book's main characters about "winter people" and "summer pe...more

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Jul 13, 2007

R. rated it:

(review of isbn 0553280325)

bookshelves: 1974-2002

I read this in the mid-80s, after half-watching the movie version. What caught my ear was Jason Robards saying, "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes."

It's Shakespeare, I now know. But I thought it was just plain ol' folk wisdom when I heard it. Calling evil on the carpet with a bit of rhyme. The old, "I know you're here..." routine.

Evil...hates it when you can front like that.

Still, had to inter-library loan ...more

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Jan 29, 2008

Sandi rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: 2008, fantasy

Owns a copy — Read in May, 2008

This book is every bit as creepy as I remember. Bradbury's prose is exquisite. It mirrors the action in the novel perfectly. I loved the one sentence chapter. I don't think I ever really noticed the character of Charles Holloway when I was a kid, but he really is pretty amazing. He experiences more growth and change than the two boys. While this is supposed to be a coming of age story, the one who really becomes a man is Charlie.

I'm definitely passing this on to my son.
...more

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Mar 28, 2007

Tara rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Favorite Quotes

Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. 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?

A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little about him and...more

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Dec 05, 2008

Doug rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in December, 2008

...his skin stealing the paleness from his bones... old... older... oldest...

This book deserves a review. I read a couple reviews from some yahoo's on goodread. How can you say anything derogatory about bradbury? One critic asked why can't he just write "he walked down the street" without taking 3 paragraghs to say it? My response is: backhand, fronthand, backhand, fronthand. WHAT!!!??? why didn't Page just strum an A, then D, A and D instead of giving us a minute thirty of...more

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3 comments

Oct 10, 2007

Gail rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: scififantasy

Read in January, 2008

I'm going to draw an odd comparison for this one: reading it, I felt much like I did while watching "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". And by that I mean the experience left me admiring of the author (his talent, power of expression) more than the work itself. I could feel that Bradbury had these very powerful images and characters in him, and sometimes the narrative brought them to life, but at other points I had a hard time grasping them. My other gripe is that he doesn't re...more

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Apr 29, 2007

Jeff rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in April, 2007

recommends it for: Fantasy lovers, Mystery lovers

This was my second reading of this book, the first being, apparently, before I started my list way back in 1974, because there is no record of my reading of it. This book is a classic, a must read for anyone who likes Bradbury or the genre in which he writes.

The story is set in a small town in October (Bradbury loves to write in October), upon the advent of a carnival in town, much too late for carnival season. I love stories about carnivals. There is always something mysterious...more

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Apr 20, 2007

Mansoor Qureshi added it (review of isbn 057507874X)

Read in May, 2004

Austin Powers said only two things scare him: nuclear war and carnies, or circus folk. I don't know what it is about the circus that blends so well with dark fantasy and the macabre, but I completely understand Austin's fear of circus folk. That's what makes this such a creepy book.

Something Wicked. . . is about a circus that glides into town silently, in the middle of the night. The ringmaster has the ability to grant people's wishes, but at a terrible price. Two boys discover t...more

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Oct 18, 2007

jeff rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: fiction

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: boys in the process of becoming men forever

So i am on my something-like-7th time reading this book, and every time i read it it gets better and richer. It is a heartbreaker, poking all the soft spots involved in growing up and trying to understand what it is to be a decent man in the world. If there is a problem with this book, it is that it IS a book about men and boys, and the women are very much relegated to the sidelines, little more than archetypes of good people. That being said, so much happens in the week over which the story tak...more

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Sep 12, 2008

Amanda rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in January, 1994

recommended to Amanda by: David S.

Read this on the recommendation of David S. and enjoyed it very much. While I have never been a 12 year old boy (nor have I ever played one on tv) I enjoyed the viewpoint of these boys as they stand on the edge of manhood, facing it with quite a bit of fear and wonder. The older father's fears for his son and sadness for his own lost youth are written about in such a lovely way. And honestly, the scary bits are pretty scary in a quietly menacing way. No splashing gore, but a steadily building s...more

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4 comments

Oct 08, 2007

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: absolute-favorite-books, fiction-modern, horror

one of my all time favorites. i love ray bradbury and the small town atmosphere of the story. the feel of the crisp autumn, and the arrival of the october people. i love the names of "the october people" "jim nightshade" and "cooger & dark's pandemonium shadow show". two young boys investigate and disrupt the strange carnival and its spooky owner mr. dark. they discover unusual goings on and the townspeople find a dark road to their deepest desires. i like stor...more

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Jul 19, 2007

Cendri rated it:

(review of isbn 057507874X)

Read in July, 2002

The fall/winter/horror companion piece, in my view, to Dandelion Wine, one of my all-time favorite books ever. Most people, I'm sure would see it the other way round, as SWtWC is certainly the more famous, and probably, in the end, better</> book, but I first read DW, taught by a fabulous English teacher who loved it, so my world view is colored. I suppose I should actually try to review Something Wicked instead of making this an indirect homage to DW. Oh well. Bradbury is such an eloq...more

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Feb 14, 2009

Jason rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in February, 2009

recommends it for: Fans of Purple Prose and Horror

SOMETHING WICKED is an intriguing book that I read with scrunched eyebrows. The plot is basic, but the language is beyond unusual. Bradbury stacks layer upon layer of odd but necessary metaphorical and mixed imagery to construct this phantasmagorical carnival of fulfilled yet unfulfilled dreams and desires. The October wind takes the form of ice cream as the protagonists, Will and Jim, stand in awe as the black train carrying Dark and Cooger’s Pandemonium Shadow Show chills the air of an unsus...more

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Feb 26, 2010

Alex Forni rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

Read in February, 2010

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 01, 2010

Brigitte rated it:

(review of isbn 0380729407)

bookshelves: ir-reading-books--rick-s-advisory

This book is about two boys who discover a circus. But this is no ordinary circus. It is unreal and not normal. Many events have led the boys to question if this circus is real of magic. One of them is that the circus came to time and set up at a very strange time and season. Basically this book is about how those two boys get sucked into the circus and how they handle it.
There are both internal and external conflicts in this book. One external conflict is the boys vs. the circus. The c...more

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Nov 15, 2009

Graham rated it:

(review of isbn 0380977273)

Read in October, 2009

My review from http://grahamchops.blogspot.com/2009/10/...

If Halloween was a book, it would be Something Wicked by Ray Bradbury.

You've heard the saying "Something wicked this way comes." It's nothing new. In fact, it's from Shakespeare's MacBeth, and is preceded by the line "By the pricking of my thumbs..."

(That line in its entirety appears in the book.)

Anyway, it's about two friends: Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, who are bo...more