Talk:Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)

Untitled

Something's fishy with part of this article, and I don't have the know-how to fix the formatting...

Hard to teach it

I am having the hardest time trying to get my students to get into the book. But I am plowing through the complaints and the hardship. I believe that this book has a good story line but the students haven't given it a chance. [User:Koavf] 6 January 2006

Okay, what age are your students? [User:67.52.216.4] 31 March 2006

Perhaps if you ran the Disney movie for them, they might be more interested. It's a shame that a good book can't stand on its own, but you do what you have to do. — Walloon 18:43, 31 March 2006 (UTC) (P.S. Don't forget to sign your posts with a dash and four tildas "~". That automatically puts your user name and the date/time on your posts.)

Cover art

Let's have a vote about which cover to display in this article: the cover by Joe Mugnaini, or the more recent paperback. I'll start off with a vote for that wonderful painting by Mugnaini. The way he works so many different perspectives — the distant train and bridge seen in profile, the startling thrust of the tower, the observant medium distance view of the neighborhood with that shadow approaching on the lower right. How he integrates the title and author into the artwork. And I seriously want a weather vane like like that on my house! — Walloon 19:54, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Will and Jim's age

I'm correcting Will and Jim's age from twelve to "on the verge of fourteen." From the Prologue:

One year Halloween came on October 24, three hours after midnight.

At that time, James Nightshade of 97 Oak Street was thirteen years eleven months, twenty-three days old. Next door, William Halloway was thirteen years, eleven months, and twenty-four days old. Both touched toward fourteen; it almost trembled in their hands.

— Walloon 08:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Marking on Jim's Roof and Will's Lure of the Witch

I'm correcting the part of the plot summary which says that the Witch in the ballon left marks on both the boys' roofs. This is incorrect. She only marked the roof of Jim's house.

Also, I have corrected the part of the plot summary which says that Will lured the Witch to an abandoned warehouse. I was actually just an abandoned house.

-Adam157.142.202.115 16:51, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Structure of the novel

In this section under Themes, I've edited the last sentence to have it describe Will more accurately. The previous version of the sentence set up an absolute contrast between Will always resisting evil vs. his friend Jim, who is repeatedly tempted to succumb to evil's wiles. The description of Jim is relatively accurate, but I've changed the clause about Will to acknowledge that in the novel Will has many crises of faith that he's doing the right thing. (Otherwise, the drama would be much less interesting.) Thus: "Jim represents good that is always on the verge of giving into temptation, while Will, though he has crises and doubts, is the part of us that resists giving in." Pschmid1 18:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pschmid1 (talk • contribs)

Literary significance

I've edited the last paragraph of this section to mention Neil Gaiman, not just Stephen King, as an important writer influenced by Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Also added a footnote citing Gaiman's eloquent statement about Bradbury's influence, published in June 2012 after Bradbury's death. Pschmid1 19:15, 19 August 2012 (UTC) Here below are the changes. The footnote has a link to Gaiman's tribute on the Guardian website; hope that's ok. Here below is the new paragraph.

Something Wicked has influenced several fantasy and horror authors, the most prominent being Neil Gaiman and Stephen King. Gaiman paid eloquent tribute to Bradbury's influence on him and many others in The Guardian in 2012, after Bradbury's death . Gaiman's novel American Gods can be read as a tribute to and attempt to surpass many of the "dark carnival" themes in Bradbury's work. The motif of ordinary people up against sinister, supernatural forces appears in many of King's works, including It and Dreamcatcher. King also discusses the Bradbury novel quite extensively in his non-fiction book Danse Macabre. Pschmid1 19:49, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

References

Copyright?

Should a link to the English version on a Russian website really be here? — 75.66.172.38 02:08, 28 June 2007) (UTC)

The novel is out of copyright and in the public domain in Russia because Russia's predecessor the Soviet Union was not a signatory to a multilateral, international copyright treaty until 1973; see Copyright law of the Soviet Union. However, the Wikipedia servers are in the U.S. — Walloon 18:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Whether it is PD in Russia is disputed, see Copyright law of the Russian Federation#Amendments of the 1993 Copyright law. But that's entirely besides the point. Bradbury's novel is also PD in Afghanistan. So what? It may or may not be PD in Russia. So what? The work is copyrighted in the UK and in the U.S., and most other countries of the Berne Convention. Lupo 11:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Lupo, that was my point. — Walloon 18:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Somethingwickedfirstedition2.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Charmed?

OK, I never read this book or anything. I came across it because Patrick Rothfuss mentioned it in an interview, and I remember the pilot episode of the TV show Charmed was named similarly. Then I saw that Halloway's one of the main characters' name. So just wondering if there's any connection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.242.244.122 (talk) 21:38, 9 April 2008 (UTC) i am allso jewish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.13.78.150 (talk) 16:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Both of them riff off Shakepeare's line from Macbeth: By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. It's a line from one of the three witches. RossPatterson (talk) 03:00, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Dust Witch

At the end of the third paragraph, there is a line about the Dust Witch: "The night the Dust Witch comes in her balloon to find Jim and Will, but Will outsmarts her and destroys her balloon." This is the first we hear of her in the article, and it's a poor introduction. The line is written as if we've already been introduced to her. I'd correct it, but it's been years since I read the book, and I don't know enough about the scene to make it sound right, and still be accurate. 170.145.0.100 (talk) 18:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I learned from Wikipedia's page on Something Wicked the movie that the Dust Witch was played by Pam Grier. Cool! Pschmid1 19:32, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

novel in pop culture

i removed two lines in this section as there is no way of telling whether they come from the original shakespeare, rather than the ray bradbury novel, and i think the former more likely.--Mongreilf (talk) 11:02, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Harry Potter Reference

I noticed that the very last sentence of the article mentions that in one of the Harry Potter movies, Professor Flitwick leads the Hogwarts chorus in a rendition of "Something Wicked This Way Comes." The song is based off the line from Hamlet, not the Bradbury book. The song in question was a play on the Shakespeare line, spoken by one of the three witches in Hamlet. I propose we remove that line. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.139.112.146 (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

This comment above makes no sense, and neither does this person's edit removing the Harry Potter reference from the Wikipedia page on Bradbury's Something Wicked novel. The line in question that gives Bradbury his title is from Macbeth, not Hamlet, and it's Macbeth that has 3 witches, not Hamlet. By the way, the moment in the Harry Potter books when Professor Flitwick leads the Hogwarts chorus in the song "Something Wicked This Way Comes" may be a little tribute by J.K. Rowling to Bradbury, not just to her beloved Shakespeare. Certainly Bradbury's influence on Rowlings is a subject worth more exploration, given the importance of both these authors. For this reason I propose that we RESTORE the Harry Potter Reference to the Wikipedia page on this novel. What do others think? Pschmid1 19:23, 19 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pschmid1 (talk • contribs)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Something Wicked This Way Comes (novel)/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Assessed as B-Class largely on the weight of referencing which is good. An important SF novel from Major author so High. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 11:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 11:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 06:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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Something Wicked This Way Comes (1972)

How come in adaptations there's no mention of the very first adaption of the book into a "movie," namely from 1972..?!: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2174151/reference

198.161.203.4 (talk) 18:47, 27 December 2018 (UTC)