Must Read: Something Wicked This Way Comes

It’s October, so here in the northeast that means it’s fall, and that means Halloween is coming, and “oooOOOoooo” (ghost noise), and don’t you just want to curl up with a quality seasonal read, pour a warm drink into a sturdy mug, and get under you and your dog’s mutual favorite blanket?

But, what’s that you say—you don’t want anything too scary?!

I’ve got you covered. This recommendation is just a little bit scary, but it’s only as scary as daily life itself. If you chose life today, and you did if you’re reading this, you can handle this book too.

Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes is an all-American coming-of-age classic. Yes, it’s often placed in the horror/fantasy genre. But, even if you’re not a horror person, let me pitch you on giving it a chance this fall, because Something Wicked is a full-on celebration of life, living, and being alive.

Here is my YouTube review, with—BONUS—some extra (written) details below to try and hook you:

On the Shakespearean title: It’s a line uttered by a witch in Macbeth. The original line goes, “By the pricking of my thumbs / something wicked this way comes.”

This Macbeth idea, “Someday you’ll be king,” alongside this Bradbury concept, “Someday you’ll be an adult,” can be seen as rhyming prophecies here. Evil madness gets to be the option of interest in your future. How will you choose to embrace your power when you know not all paths are good? There’s a weight of responsibility in those lines. Shakespeare would have been proud of their repurposing.

On the dedication, to… Gene Kelly?!: There’s more backstory here, but Gene Kelly is famous for bucking genre trends in musical theater, dance, and Hollywood during the 1940s and and 1950s. Kelly’s work was influential on Bradbury and vice versa.

Bradbury started working the core Something Wicked story in 1945. Kelly got a draft of it in 1955 and wanted to make it into a movie, but he couldn’t get proper buy-in, despite continuing to try for years. Kelly encouraged Bradbury to not quit working the story out. It took Bradbury until 1962 to get the work finished, as a novel, and ultimately published for the world to read.

Despite all the time to create the masterpiece (17 years!?!), that dedication means a ton to me. In the same way Kelly broke a popular narrative (re: how people dance on screen) with a new and arguably more popular counter-narrative (I mean, Singing in the Rain, alone, come on), Bradbury wrote just enough within genre definitions to be categorized, but with just enough extra creativity to be genre defiant. There are no shallow trope-isms in either of their works, even when they’re paying (rebellious) homage.

The (too many to discuss all of) incredible contrasts and metaphors:

There’s the famous Munger-quoting-Jacobi line of “Invert, always invert.” It applies to so much more than math and theorems, and Bradbury is up there with the great artists for how he applies inversions as contrasts within stories. It’s all about tension and resolution.

Now there’s the obvious old-versus-young, alive-versus-dead, and good-versus-evil stuff in this story. BUT, Bradbury knows how to stack, mix, and match these like few other authors. He’s got that mix of popular and underground like few others ever can attain.

A couple of favorite examples:

Mr. Halloway laughed, once, almost with pain, and a strange wild sadness shook his head. “How long has this gone on? No, don’t tell. I did it, too, your age.”

Laughter, pain, sadness, length/time duration, speaking, silence, time anchored on age…

“Death makes everything else sad. But death itself only scares. If there wasn’t death, all the other things wouldn’t get tainted.” And, Will thought, here comes the carnival, Death like a rattle in one hand, Life like candy in the other; shake one to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water. Here comes the side show, both hands full!

Death, sadness, fear, tainted discoloring, carnival, toys, life, candy, desire, side-shows, fullness…

I could type this one out, but I want you to feel the physical book and wonder what happens on the next page (don’t mind my marks):

Do we stay bad? Do we change? Do we tell the stories about ourselves, and our kids, and our communities that genuinely help us make healthy choices as we move forward into the future?

Can we handle being afraid from time to time? Can we remember to laugh?

I hope so. No, I know so. Books like this are proof. Books like this are reminders. The fall isn’t the end, it’s a step away from summer and a step towards the next spring. The fears are embedded. The smiles are options.

Did you order the book yet?

Don’t even get me started about the critical takes in the newest (2006ish) edition at the end. After you read the story, you get Jonathan R. Eller’s background explanation, Russell Kirk, Stephen King, Brian Sibley, Ted Gioia, Seth Grahame-Smith, and Margaret Atwood professing their love and perspectives too. Get the new version is what I’m saying.

“God bless the moon.”

Happy Halloween out there. If you get to check out the book, or if you already know it, please, let me know what you think! I love talking about this one.

h/t to my buddy Kenny who brought this up as one of his favorite books to reread. I had vague memories of it from middle school. In my head, at the time, it wasn’t Goosebumps or Edgar Allen Poe, and not that I didn’t like it, but it was one I breezed through that became a hazy memory. Thanks to his pitch, I can now say this might be one of my favorite books too. I’ve read it twice in the past year or so since he recommended it alone! Pure magic.

ps. I haven’t been able to bring myself to rewatch the Disney version yet, but I can still see the boardwalk in my mind.