| Author | Message | ||
     Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Currently re-reading Something wicked this way Comes. My god, how could I have forgotten how great this book is. The use of language and imagery is masterly to say the very least. It's a book I didn't engage with much when I first bought it aged 13 but two years later I devoured it. This time round I'm loving it even more. Bradbury would have been in his mid 40's when he wrote this and you could argue that it's an idealised version of childhood (at the start) but who cares. How can you not love prose like "So there they go, Jim running slower to stay with Will, Will running faster to stay with Jim, Jim breaking two windows in a broken house because Will's along, Will breaking one window instead of none, because Jim's watching. God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other." or "Like all boys, they never walked anywhere, but named a goal and lit for it, scissors and elbows." | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.255.159 |
You know, I've been meaning to read this for quite a while, Weber. Maybe it's time.... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
A great book. Luckily I read it before I saw the film. Bradbury understands the soul of the pre-adolescent boy in ways no-one else can; in effect the adult reader is feeling a boy all over again. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.252.120 |
...in effect the adult reader is feeling a boy all over again.  | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
What's interesting is that in the movie version, for which Bradbury produced the screenplay, he decided he'd made a mistake in the novel and only later, come the writing of the screenplay, realised the real and secret hero of the book was Will's father, hence the different start with the narration in the movie. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.236.222 |
Jason Robards was great as Will's father, and he was always the main hero to me. No, it's just that imho they picked the wrong actor for Mr Dark. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
I wasn't struck with the book as a kid (what's the big deal about being a kid, after all?  ) but now, read a couple of years back, it was like i'd been handed a different book altogether. It's fantastic - possibly Mr B's best thing. Mid forties, eh? Hmm... | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.209.220.3 |
The Dust Witch is a great character, but Will's father is the real deal. Now I'm a dad, the story has more resonance. I've never seen the film though. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.114.136 |
Yup - becoming a parent changed it for me, too. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I thought Jonathan Price (Pryce?) was excellent as Mr Dark in the film. Slight revision on my previous comments, the children in the book, especially Jim, are striving for the imagined perfection of adulthood whilst the adult characters are yearning for the imagined/remembered/idealised perfection of childhood. The contrasts are perfectly handled and the erosion of the boys' friendship is almost heartbreaking |