![]() They managed to be Puritan at the same time as humane and entertaining, with wicked people coming to dreadful ends. It really has the twisted morality of so many of the delightful 50s horror comics. The ending is nasty enough to satisfy any fan of In The Gloaming. It has a Cannery Row feel, too, with people sitting on stoops, and odd things in jars, and Charlie has the depth and desperation of a Steinbeck hero. It feel like the most natural way the story could be told, the way Steinbeck does. The prose feels effortless, as if there has been no thought put into it. This was my first recent experience with Ray Bradbury, and it was an eye-opener. The thing in the jar, however, has other ideas… Thedy is determined to undermine her husband in whatever he does, and she does her best to destroy the mystique of the thing in the jar. ![]() ![]() Everyone wants to come and stare at the contents of Charlie’s jar.Įveryone, that is, except Charlie’s wife. Charlie, an unhappy man in an unhappy marriage, buys it from a travelling carnival and suddenly becomes as interesting to his neighbours as he has always hoped to be. The jar is about just that – a jar in which there is something pickled. ![]() Yes, I know that all the other reviews have been of small press, British authors of whom you might not have heard, and that Ray Bradbury hardly needs the extra publicity, but this is a tale that has hung around in my head for six months now… ![]()
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