Until this year, I never appreciated the prose, depiction of evil with its ensuing horror, nor the theme of this masterpiece. This book was chosen by my local library book club. This was also required reading at my school back in the 1970's. I have to say I hated this book so much at a tween, I never forgot this forced dive into literature. Being a weak reader at the time, there were many paragraphs that I didn't understand. Fifty-five years later, I still remembered the nonsensical mirror maze which drove people mad. I did write my required book report, and I suppose I passed the class. So, last month, with a great dragging of feet, I checked it out of the library and started the read.
Wow! What a well written book! The prose read like poetry. Sometimes, one does have to read a paragraph slowly to understand the beauty and depth of the idea conveyed.
The story is about the evil circus coming to the hometown of two tween friends, Will and Jim. With the help of Will's father, Charles, they battle and conquer the dark carnival of creatures who feed on man's fears, self-centered attributes and anxieties.
The character development is phenomenal; the circus creatures could have belonged in the most horrible of Steven King's stories. This was definitely a five stars out of five stars book.
Bradbury's point is that for evil to have power, the person under attack must cooperate though negative attributes such as fear, pride, or vanity.
I would highly recommend this as a book club discussion book. However, at our book club meeting, the reviews were mixed. A few people had difficulty with understanding some of the paragraphs. Some did not appreciate fantasy or horror. One determined reader read a graphic novel version of this book instead of the book. Another reader followed their opinion of the book with a short review of the film, which I just HAVE to see now.
"We salt our lives with other people's sins. Our flesh to us tastes sweet. but the carnival doesn't care if it stinks by moonlight instead of sun, so long as it gorges on fear and pain." Ray Bradbury.
