I recently read the anthology "October Dreams: A celebration of Halloween" which inludes short stories and favorite halloween memories by a variety of authors.Bradbury's submission,"Heavy Set" seems like a poor choice to me.The story seems at most, vaguely related to the holiday and fails to capture the halloween magic that we all know Bradbury is capable of.I'm not bashing the story,just curious about it's inclusion. Even his essay on "my favorite halloween memory" seems short, solemn and a mabey even a little out of place from an author who excels at essays.The book itself is dedicated to Ray Bradbury and I guess I just expected him to shine so far above the rest in a subject so well within his expertise.

Certainly "The Emissary," "The October Game," "The Next in Line," "The Black Ferris," "Uncle Einar," or even "The Candy Skull" would've been better choices for this particular anthology when it comes to invoking a Halloweenish evocation. Although I love "Heavy-Set," I can't understand how that was chosen for an All-Saint's Eve book, either. Perhaps some of the aforementioned stories have been more widely anthologized ...?

Those would have all been good choices. "Homecoming" is still the best, but, of course, widely anthologized.

Good point about the other widely anthologized stories.It might have been nice for someone new to Bradbury though.I guess a lot of us that frequent this site are familiar with all those anthologies with stories from Bradbury and the "california" authors.

Well, talking about October type of things...

Bradbury has remarked that one of his own favorites, is titled with the name of an other month.... April Witch. I think it first appeared in "The Saturday Evening Post." In fact, lots of his stories appeared there, most all with great illustrations. Forget where it was later anthologized. "And Sailor Home From the Sea" is a masterpiece.

I agree that the selections cited by others would have been more predictable choices. I would probably add "The Coffin", "The Dwarf" and "The Skeleton". These definitely would have been "better" selections that would have been more obviously suited to this kind of anthology.

So why "Heavy Set"? While only Bradbury can answer that (I suppose the editors have some insight on it); a very plausible theory covered already is that the more traditional Bradbury Halloween stories are already well-anthologized. I agree, however, with the counter-argument that other stories are more representative of Bradbury's "October Writings" and this would be a good forum to introduce new horror readers to Bradbury's more traditionally "Halloweeny" stories. In fact, the book is big enough it could have included the entire text of "The Halloween Tree" for that matter.

Sometimes a stretch is acceptable in trying to figure things out. I hope you can bear with me on this one. One of the things about Halloween is that everyone wears a mask. What that does is creates a sense of anonymity that, I think, represents isolation.

It is interesting to me that Heavy Set works so hard on the pumpkins. When I was growing up, we carved pumpkins and took great pride in creating funny, scary, creative, etc., versions. We had a lot of fun doing them. Does it appear to anyone that Heavy Set is having any fun here? Not likely! Then why does he do it? I think it represents the hollowness and isolation that defines his life.

Much of his isolation is self-induced. His mother loves him, but she is rooted in fear, also; and a sense of impotence to do anything for him (or for herself, for that matter!). She is alone (divorced, widowed, never married?) and doesn't seem any better at going outside their little castle of isolation to resolve it than he is. They live there together, alone and in fear and frustration. (The ending of the story portrays that well enough.)

In the other stories -- the more traditional Halloween stories -- the fear, dread and isolation are temporary and tied to specific events. But for Heavy Set and his mother, the isolation, loneliness, fear and anger are ever-present, self-imposed, and it seems unlikely that they will ever get beyond it.

What could be more terrifying than that?

This is a little like the sadness and isolation represented in Bradbury's story "The Dwarf". Another compelling story about lifelong futility against loneliness and isolation.

I think Bradbury sees these as being representative of the kinds of feelings many individuals have. They just quietly live their lives in isolated loneliness and frustration -- lacking the courage, insight, or will to go outside their zones of comfort and make things better.

They are obviously not happy.




[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 09-13-2002).]