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RYO Review: Abarat by Clive Barker
I have found that there are certain things one can expect when reading a Clive Barker novel. Mr. Barker is not only an author, but an artist as well and he brings this artistic eye to his writings. His descriptions of scenes and characters are designed to create an artists’ picture in the readers mind. I have found this to be especially true in his Young Adult novel Abarat: The First Book Of Hours. Mr. Barker’s best skill is the visuals his writings create. He is able to breathe life into the creatures of The Abarat with this skill.
The heroine of our story is Candy Quackenbush, a young woman growing up in the Minnesota town of Chickentown. After getting in trouble for a project she did for a hated teacher, Candy feels compelled to run away from school. She finds herself in the middle of the prairie. There she meets the amazing John Mischief and his seven brothers, eight brothers on one body, and Mendelson Shape, an evil creature chasing John and his brothers. In the events that follow Candy calls forth the magical “Sea of Izabella” And thus begins Candy’s adventures in Abarat.
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
“The doorway was even now opening to pleasures no more than a handful of humans had ever known existed, much less tasted—pleasures which would redefine the parameters of sensation, which would release him from the dull round of desire, seduction and disappointment that had dogged him from late adolescence.”
It’s not often one picks up a modern splatterpunk book and finds within it a morality tale, especially a tale so opposed to the moral atmosphere of the day. At least, I assume this doesn’t happen often, since The Hellbound Heart is the only splatterpunk story I can ever remember reading. The quote above is about the novella’s antagonist Frank, a hedonist who has spent all of his adult life in search of the most extreme pleasures. One can only enjoy so many drugs and prostitutes before the pleasure becomes dull and repetitive, so Frank seeks out new avenues through the occult. He hears of the Lament Configuration, a puzzle box which, if opened, will open a door to the world of the Cenobites, a perverse religious order dedicated to unworldly pleasure. After performing numerous favors for unsavory individuals, he finally gains possession of the box, and brings it home to England to open it. Unfortunately for Frank, when the Cenobites finally appear, their mutilated bodies indicate that their “pleasure” is actually found in pain, that they are demonic sadomasochists who intend to subject Frank to an eternity of flesh-destroying fun. The rest of the story follows his brother’s family and social circle as Frank attempts to return to Earth by corrupting those he left behind.
