Quote:
Originally Posted by bfisher
I had the opposite reaction at some points. Tom, with his mother in the Ravine, seems to have a too-adult inner dialogue.
|
OK, I can see that. I was thinking mostly of the boys' words and actions, especially in the sneaker episode and the Tarot Witch episode.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenG
Actually, this part (or perhaps the original short story) was reprinted in the Alfred Hitchcock anthology Stories for Late at Night. It ended where Lavinia hears someone clearing their throat.
|
Aha! I knew I could spot a Hitchcockian story! Lavinia's story reminded me of an episode with Constance Ford as a housewife scared of a neighborhood strangler--it was quite different but it had a similar feeling, and ended with her realizing the strangler was already in her apartment.
Having to continue it with that silliness of Lavinia somehow stabbing him off-screen--how could she manage to overpower a strangler behind her?--detracted from the power of that episode.
Bradbury wrote one of the creepiest Hitchcock TV episodes, called "The Jar." It gave me nighmares when I first saw it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BenG
I wonder if Bradbury was deliberately undercutting the nostalgia.
|
Maybe, but I would have preferred less sentiment in the first place, and more of an even-handed approach to the good and the bad. It felt like there was a disconnect between the wallow in nostalgia and the quite depressing events described. I think the book would have been better with a first-person adult narrator looking back on the summer and offering perspective and context from a distance of years.