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Book Review – “Mr B Gone”, Clive Barker

by David Brookes

Clive Barker took a break from horror for a while. He wrote some awesome fantasy novels, including Weaveworld and Imajica, which are profoundly effective in what they set out to accomplish. He wrote two volumes in a series of books for younger adults with three more on the way, and a couple of films. For a Master of Horror, there were a few years there where he rarely touched the visceral darkness that made his name with publications like “The Hellbound Heart” and the “Books of Blood”.

“Mister B. Gone” is marketed as a triumphant return to Barker’s particular style of uneasy, bloody horror. The premise is simple: within the pages of the neat little hardback the readers holds, a demon is imprisoned and talking to them. You, as the reader, are alternately coerced, seduced and threatened by the demon. Its sole concern? That you burn the book and forget it ever existed.

It’s a compelling idea and certainly makes the first ten pages entertaining and refreshingly original. Not since Mark Z Danielewski’s “This is not for you” has a reader been so determined to read further. On this occasion, you merely want to learn a bit more about this silver-tongued devil trapped between the pages. He reveals his name – Jakabok Botch – and that he was once chased by his abusive father right out of the highest level of hell and to the “Surface World”, where he isn’t well received by 14th Century humanity. He reluctantly provides pieces of his story, which is in turn humorous and repulsive – he is a demon, after all. Eventually his tale leads to a clash of events involving the creation of a wonderful new machine, and the conflict between demonic and celestial beings to decide who should control it.

Although the novel is an amusing, brief diversion, it unfortunately fails on a number of points. The primary hook of the story – that of Mister B. compelling the reader to end its life by burning the book that holds him – soon becomes a tiresome repetition of phrases and part of a predictable structure that really serves only to slow down the true story. It never really stops being amusing, but the reader will quite likely feel like using the book’s nifty little bookmark-ribbon and taking a break every time Mister B. abruptly halts the story to once again complain about the reader’s stubbornness.

That’s another problem. It’s amusing, perhaps too amusing. That’s the big problem with marketing a novel as being of the horror genre: if it’s not scary, or at least gruesome, then you’re going to get a lot of pissed-off horror fans. Sadly this is the case this time. There are brief moments of bloodiness, but the protagonist deals with them in such a flippant manner – why should a denizen of Hell give a stuff if he fill his bath with the blood of babies? – that any glimpses of horrific acts fail to register. The tone of the novel is simply too light, and although the quality and style of the narrative is smooth and of a high standard, the tone lets the book down.

The characters and their relationships suffer from the brevity of the book, resulting in the reader caring little, if at all, about the actors in the story. Even the protagonist, who eventually describes his childhood and every emotional, significant or traumatic event since, is not quite three-dimensional and rarely manages to elicit any kind of emotional response from the reader. The characters intermingle in uncertain, sexually-ambiguous relationships that are reminiscent of Anne Rice’s work, but even though Barker has established himself as a strong emotive writer, he still never quite succeeds in getting the point across with this one.

The fact that I read the book in three sittings means that there must be something decent there, something that retains interest, but I can’t put my finger on it. The conclusion to Mister B.’s story is much built up, but is only satisfactory compared to the type of staggering denouements we’re used to in such works as “Imajica”. Are we expecting too much? Or is it just too much to ask to get at least a little fright from our horror fiction? It’s not a bad novel, and it’s very well presented. It’s only a shame that it doesn’t live up to expectations.
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David Brookes is an author from Sheffield, England. His first novel “Half Discovered Wings” was published Autumn 2009. His site is www.spinninglizard.co.uk
Article Source: GoArticles
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Chill to the Horror of Clive Barker at Barnes & Noble
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