The end of the wickedness

I wish I posted more as I read... this is something I must work on. It might come from reading so many books at the same time. I don't know.

Anyway, yesterday I finished Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. I think towards the end I was getting as impatient as I was at the beginning, waiting for the story to end. Personally, I liked Fahrenheit 451 better. That could be because of my enjoyment of Utopia/Dystopia type novels. I will admit, however, that on the heels of seeing the movie The Strangers, this definitely didn't help me sleep at night.

The lesson: don't fear old age and death, and don't want to grow up prematurely. That's what enticed the people to come to the carnival and ride the "free rides". But nothing is free. Didn't they know that? Isn't that something everyone knows? "There's no such thing as a free lunch." At least Will and Charles Halloway got the resolution they were looking for. Bradbury does well at setting up their estrangement at the beginning, using Charles's age as a reason. Everything comes full circle. Charles comes to terms with his age, and strengthens his relationship with his son, using his knowledge of the library and research. What I think is interesting about that particular character is that he didn't recognize that he could have bridged the gap with his son by talking to him about the books that he was reading. Common ground. But who am I to judge?

This one is a solid 7, I think.

Something Faster This Way Comes

In retrospect, I forgot to mention that this book is broken up into three parts: Part I, Arrivals; Part II, Pursuits; and Part III, Departures. Since my last reflection, we have found some action. It's interesting to note that Bradbury writes very short chapters in this book, possibly as a way of propelling the reader from one situation into the next. The beginning was mainly exposition--introduction of characters, tendencies, to get us wondering about this out of place carnival.

Since then, we've discovered that the carousel changes the ages of the riders, older or younger, depending upon which way it's running. Age seems to be the recurring symbol throughout the novel so far... The carousel runs backwards and makes people younger, Will threatens Jim with "I'll remember this when" (he's older). The school teacher, Ms. Foley was entranced with herself in the mirror, younger. This is, possibly, what trapped the other woman in the ice, which Charles Halloway found as a puddle on his way home. The only reason I offer this as conjecture is that the mirrors have been previously compared to ice; people felt cold coming out of the maze of mirrors.

The one thing I'm having trouble making out at this point is the reading but not reading, seeing but not seeing, and hearing but not hearing. I think my confusion occurs in the diction. Bradbury chooses to say "seeing but not seeing" instead of saying "looking but not seeing." I don't know if he was going for something specific with the repetition of the words, or if he was simply trying to imply that no one was really paying attention to what was going on around them and I'm reading too much into it. The distinction is not as obvious as in Faulkner's Light in August where he distinguishes by saying a character is thinking something, thinking something else that appears in italics. So I don't know. Perhaps with further reading the understanding will come.

Interestingly, with all this seeing but not seeing, people only briefly questioned the lateness of the carnival, then went blindly on to "enjoy" it. And how many people, like Will, Jim and Miss Foley, took home cards for a free turn on the carousel when it's "fixed"? And what exactly happened to that woman in the ice? Was she real or simply a temptation indudged by the man peddling lightening rods for a storm that didn't come? Of course the storm the lightning-rod-man predicted could be metaphoric, representing the invasion of the carnival.

And in keeping with the discussion of figurative language, at the end of Chapter 13, where the mirror maze is discussed, and Charles Halloway is seeing but choosing not to see the puddle of water on the floor the maze is waiting "for so much as a bird to come look, see, and fly away shrieking. But no bird came" (56). Single bird. Not flock of birds. A flock of birds flying away is symbolic of danger. A single bird, however, is a positive symbol. Here, the lack of the single bird suggests an ominous sense of danger.

Next time: Part II, Pursuit.

Something Slowly This Way Comes

I started Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes sometime early in the first semester, got 15 pages in and stopped. It just didn't grab my attention right off the bat like Fahrenheit 451 did, which interested me since all over the book, people sang the praises of this "incomparable masterwork." And I, no more than three chapters in, failed to see the brilliance in the piece.

Laundry day rolled around, and not feeling like studying religious text, grabbed Something Wicked This Way Comes off the shelf. I have to admit that there are a few things that drew me to this book in the first place (in no particular order): I loved Fahrenheit 451, the book appears on at least one of my book lists, and the song from one of the Harry Potter movies. Sad, I know.

Needless to say, I'm now about nine chapters in, and still not much has happened. We meet the two main characters, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. We know that Will feels sort of estranged and possibly ashamed of his father, who is a janitor at the public library. Will refers to him initially as an "old man" but the tone does not suggest he says this in jest. We find out later that Will was born when his father was 40, and Will's mother is often mistaken for his father's daughter. We know that Jim Nightshade lives with only his mother, is one of three children but the only one still alive, and that his father was abusive. He is enthralled by the fanciful - e.g. the "theatre" on an out of the way street whose plays involve people stripping, then touching each other.

My questions so far:

1. What is going to come of the lightning rod that Will and Jim put on top of Jim's house?
2. Why did Will's dad crumple up the flyer for the carnival, then throw it in the fire?
3. Echoing Will's question: Why didn't Will's father come completely clean about the carnival to his mother? What does he have to hide?
4. What was the "ice" in the sawhorses in the empty shop where Charles Halloway stood transfixed?
5. Will Jim loose the lightning rod, thus charring his house and his mother?