One of my favorite writers is Ray Bradbury--a writer who defies categorization. Last week I read one of his novels (one of four that has been selected as a National Book Award Classic). It's entitled, Something Wicked This Way Comes. It's about two boys who find themselves confronting radical evil when a strange carnival comes to town.
The story evokes memories that most boys have of childhood, the companionship, the adventure. I've probably read more than two hundred Bradbury stories over the last five years, and many of them visit these themes of childhood. Bradbury was one of those writers who accompanied me from the town library--a twice-a-week ritual for me during the summer months when I was in grade school. At the time, I think I read everything that Bradbury wrote, along with lots of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.
Now that I have no friends, reading Bradbury is like discovering that an old friend has returned to town.
But, Lord, I still get scared when I drive by the Saint Malachy carnival every year. It's not the Catholics that scare me, but the corndogs. I always wonder: How long have those puppies been sitting under the warming lamp?
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