It was hard to get thru this, but I had many distractions. I feel like I've started one of these off this way before.. Stupid nursing school.
Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway. Neighbors, best friends, 13 year old boys, lightning rod purchasers. These carefree boys first meet a traveling salesman who gives a warning that the coming days are going to be as unlucky as their ages. He gifts them a lightning rod woven thru with spells and charms to ward off not only natural lightning, but the more metaphorical storm they are bound to get caught up in on this mid October evening. The circus is coming to town, and that is bad news.
The boys quickly recognize that something is just not right with the supposed entertainers as they spy on them while they set up shop. The curiosity, daring and invincibility of pubescence gets the best of them as they investigate and it is quickly known to the devious Mr Dark that someone knows their evil secret.
They fend off some assaults on their own, but in the end, can't do it all alone. The mopey-yet-intrepid Charles Halloway - Will's dad - is eventually enlisted as well.
The writing is WONDERFUL. Almost too wonderful. You can almost say that Ray wrote a 230-odd page poem. It is beautiful. It is whimsical to the extreme. Flowing, imaginative, rambling - yet still on track. The character's grasp on reality seems as tight as that of a child reaching for the brass ring on a merry-go-round.
This is one book that I need to buy and keep as opposed to borrowing from the library. I can easily see picking it up and reading a few pages here and there just to get a dose of that spooky Bradbury flavor..
p191
For those beings, fall is the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond.
Where do they come from/ The dust.
Where do they go to? The grave.
Does blood stir in their veins? No: the night wind.
What tickles in their head? The worm.
What speaks from their mouth? The toad.
What sees from their eye? The snake.
What hears with their ears? The abyss between the stars.
They sift the human form for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles - breaks.
Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.
