This was a Did Not Finish, on account of I hated it.
Hokay, so, The October Country. This is a collection of Bradbury short stories, and the first one is about a dwarf (it’s called, inventively, “The Dwarf”) who is a regular at a carnival with a house of mirrors where there’s a room where he can see himself as tall, and of course that’s all he wants to do and isn’t it so self-evident that it’s grotesque and he’s grotesque and he couldn’t possibly be lovable or find any value in his life or any other activity that brings him joy or fulfillment, and just, I regret not putting this book down there.
The next one is “The Next In Line” and it’s set in Mexico and credit where credit is due it is creepy but also the central conflict is a wife being taken zero seriously by a husband ass dickbag fuck and just LEAVE THE HORROR TOWN OF CORPSES Jesus people.
The next story is “The Watchful Poker Chip of H. Matisse”, non-entity, a guy is boring and then he does interesting stuff but the narrator is like he’s FOOLING people by doing all this interesting stuff but he’s still secretly BORING how INTERESTING what IRONY and I have five layers of beef with every step in that reasoning chain and also who cares, not me, next.
“Skeleton” starts on page 72 and I peaced out of this book on page 76 because that’s enough thank you.
So.
Ray Bradbury, I salute you, I had a modest appreciation for Fahrenheit 451, and every time I’ve tried to read another thing you wrote it’s been carny horseshit that makes me feel slimy for engaging. I’m done with a capital Fuck You on behalf of the dignity of humans, marginalized or otherwise. Something Wicked This Way Comes also blows, glad I read 3 1/4 out of 19 of these stories so I could get that Hot Take off my chest with how many compunctions?
Counting on my fingers here.
I’m coming out with zero. None compunctions.
I drank a half bottle of rose before writing this review please excuse the swears, I 100% mean them.