By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
(Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1)
My Halloween reads for SFFWorld this year start with a so-called classic. (No, that’s not Shakespeare’s Macbeth.)
Something Wicked This Way Comes is perhaps Ray Bradbury’s second-most famous novel. (I reviewed the first, Fahrenheit 451, back here. *) Something Wicked… is though perhaps Bradbury’s most out-and-out horror fantasy, a story that combines an elegiac longing for a nostalgic past with some downright creepy moments.
I have said before how much I enjoy Bradbury’s shorter stories. There’s less flex and more directness there and as a result to me have a more immediate impact. Something Wicked… is perhaps the other extreme of Bradbury’s writing. It is slower-paced, takes its time setting out its stall and evokes prose that borderlines poetry, something not really given too much space in a shorter form.
The story in its simplest form is fairly straight-forward. A creepy circus arrives in a small mid-Western town in the 1930’s. Led by Mr. Dark, the circus’s inhabitants have strange effects on the town, mostly experienced in the novel through two 13-year old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, as well as Will’s father and Miss Foley, the boy’s schoolteacher.
The influence on Stephen King is very clear to me. This picture-book imagining of small-town America in, say the 1930’s is idealistically quaint, with its clock tower, village green and gaslights. As a result, little description is given or needed of Green Town, so iconic is its setting. (Steven Spielberg and George Lucas fans may also appreciate this.)
In this setting, Bradbury tells us of the characters’ hopes, dreams and fears. Much of this is through lengthy, very talky sections of dialogue. For example, here’s Mr Halloway’s ruminations on 3 o’clock in the morning:
“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, three A.M.! 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 somewhere, more people in hospitals die at 3 A.M. than at any other time…:”(page 58.)
This poetic prose does slow down the plot enormously, but I suspect that readers are not really here for a complex plot. Its short chapters tend to keep things moving.
We are also reminded at times that this is a book from the 1960’s, with its now-dated cultural references. There’s adults smoking without thought or care, for example; there’s even a Tobacconists, and just to add further cultural issues there’s a wooden Red Indian statue near the door of the tobacconists. As a picture of Bradbury’s youth though I am sure that this will have been typical of the time, even though frowned upon today.
And then there’s Bradbury’s idea of putting women on a pedestal:
“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? How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever.” (page 58.)
Is this an attempt to glorify women, to sanctify their presence, or does it just read as a man’s view of something rather cringy in the 21st century? I believe the former, although I can see why some might think the latter. It is true that there’s barely a woman in sight in this book, although again this may be Bradbury writing to his readership of the time, who would have been predominantly young males.
What still works for me are the characters that could still evoke nightmares, even with their decidedly un-PC names and characteristics – the Witch, the Dwarf, the Dust Witch, the Skeleton Man and others. This includes, of course, the ringmaster, Mr. Dark himself, who with his tattoos shows Bradbury’s return to a character seen before, of sorts – a version of The Illustrated Man, whose tattoos come to life. The original Illustrated Man story and fix-up novel by Bradbury was published in 1951.
“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 so 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? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. 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. They frenzy forth. In gusts 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 are the autumn people. Beware of them.” (page 192)
The scary moments are still deliciously creepy. The use of mirrors at the fair is still dramatic and memorable; I last saw it used in the Jordan Peele movie Us (2019).
Most of all though, on rereading I am reminded that the book is often about opposites – light and dark, young and old. The two young characters, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway are boys about to become adults and wanting to, trying to understand the adult world, whilst the adults – Will’s father Charles, Miss Foley, their teacher, for example – seem to want to become younger and return to a more innocent time for them. The ruminations on what it is to be old and getting older, as well as the innocence of youth, perhaps make more sense now that I am older. (As I am now older than Charles Halloway, it was amusing and interesting to hear of his descriptions and thoughts of being old.) Bradbury, by the way, was a mere 42 when this was published.
In short, Something Wicked… shows Bradbury at his florid best, illustrating the best and worst of his prose. For that reason, I am sure some will love it, whilst others will probably like it less for exactly the same reason.
I am pleased I reread it.
Something Wicked… can still chill, but modern readers may be inspired or intimidated by its tendency to overdramatise speech. As perhaps to be expected, some details and cultural references are of a time and dated quite badly. Bradbury’s imagining of an elegiac past, based in part on his own childhood, I understand, may resonate with both young and old, however.
In summary, for those still unsure, my advice would still be to try it. It is fairly short, and deftly crafted. If you love it, then there’s plenty more where this came from. The so-called ‘Dark Disney’ film version, if you can get to see it, is also still worth a look, and I did go and rewatch it after rereading this.**
If you find Something Wicked… not to your tastes, then I would suggest that you try some of his other, perhaps shorter work which is less overworked.
*I count The Martian Chronicles by the way as a set of collected stories rather than a novel.
**My review of the Disney film of the book from 1983 is HERE.
© 2025 Mark Yon
Paperback | Gollancz
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES by Ray Bradbury
October 2015 | 288 pages
First published: 1962 (Simon & Schuster)
ISBN: 978147 3212 046
