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Flashes of brilliance followed with periods of mild boredom coming around with a few more flashes topped with moments of "wtf?" and ending with a "Damn, I'm exhausted." Barker sure likes his epic tales, however his shorts seem to resonate a bit more for me. Good, but inconsistent.And about 150 to 200 pages too long...
It's easy to measure the reader's enthusiasm with novels such as this one. Eager, excited, the pages go by fast; on the other hand, when it lags it is extremely... languid. The switching of character's allegiances is a cool trick which Barker has undoubtedly mastered (for no one is entirely good nor entirely evil...as always, its just a matter of selfishness)--also his mythology-making abilities are outstanding. This however, is overdone. I mean, several key characters are spirited away for the
This book is a trip and a half. It is weird and visceral yet I couldn't put it down. The imagery in it is sometimes graphic and downright nasty (there is a scene where one of the main characters is fascinated with a back room sex show in a bar in Mexico where a woman is having sex with a dog... and it describes it in intimate detail) but it keeps your curiosity peaked and keeps you wondering what is going to happen...Well I finished it last night and I gotta say... wow! This Clive Barker guy has...
”These letters had been sent from coast to coast looking for someone to open them, and had found no takers. Finally they’d ended with him: with Randolph Erniest Jaffe, a balding nobody with ambitions never spoken and rage not expressed, whose little knife slit them, and little eyes scanned them, and who--sitting at his crossroads--began to see the private face of the nation.There were love-letters, hate-letters, ransom notes, pleadings, sheets on which men had drawn round their hard-ons, valenti...
“Is there any good news?'' Tesla said.Who ever promised that? Who ever said there'd be good news?”•Well I've news for you, I didn't particularly like this book; this is the kind of book that throws me into a slump.The start of it was full of promise, but after that it got too dense, the characters became forgetful and it just didn't make a lick of sense to me.I've never gotten so lost in my life, like it got to the point where I literally didn't have a clue what was going on.I've been a Barker f...
This book bordered on a religious revelation to me. I absolutely adore the style it is written in and the subject matter tears at the fabric of your understanding of reality. I questioned what I know in a way that harkens back to Plato's 'The Cave'. Is reality real or is it just shadows on the wall inside something bigger than I can understand?Clive Barker has a way of making dark and sinister characters intriguing and not nightmare inducing.
Stories had a way of doing that, in Grillo’s experience. It was his belief that nothing, but nothing, could stay secret, however powerful the forces with interests vested in silence. Conspirators might conspire and thugs attempt to gag but the truth, or an approximation of same, would show itself sooner or later, very often in the unlikeliest form. It was seldom hard facts that revealed the life behind the life. It was rumour, graffiti, strip cartoons and love songs. Jaffe has a tedious job in a...
Second read, 20 years later, still 5 stars.
Even better the second time around. If I could rate it higher, I would. Of course, I believe this is essential reading for horror/dark fantasy fans. I will be revisiting the sequel, Everville, next.
To label The Great and Secret Show a horror novel would be to do it a disservice. "Arty horror" would be closer to the mark but that sounds silly and would still be inadequate. “Dark fantasy” sounds good to me though it deemphasizes the horror aspect of it a little too much, may be it is more phantasm than fantasy. Not that labels really matter, a good book is a good book regardless of whatever label you slap on it. I am only going on about it just to have some kind of intro!To tell you what thi...
How can I best describe The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker, well if you imagine the start being at one end of a swimming pool, and the swimming pool is filled with jelly (or jello to some) made from a cocktail of your favourite alcoholic spirits and liqueurs. And to reach the end you've got to wade through this Olympic sized jelly filled swimming pool, right, so chances are you're going to enjoy a fair portion of it before you get full anyway. There's going to be some enjoyment, mixed in
An epic journey full of beautifully dark events and the characters who shape those events. Barker is such an original. Looking forward to reading the sequel to this before the year is out.
”Mind was in matter, always. That was the revelation of Quiddity. The sea was the crossroads, and from it all possibilities sprang. Before everything, Quiddity. Before life, the dream of life. Before the thing solid, the solid thing dreamt. And mind, dreaming or awake, knew justice, which was therefore as natural as matter, its absence in any exchange deserving of more than a fatalistic shrug.”Behind everything — all of life and non-life — is Quiddity: a metaphysical dream-sea, a sort of collect...
One of the worst books I've ever read. Especially when you consider: 1. I've been a huge fan of Clive Barker since the earliest part of his career.2. I have met and and talked with him briefly on 4 different occasions over the years, thought he was as special a guy as he is a writer, and admit I'd probably give him a slightly more favorable rating because of that.3. I would easily give everything I've previously read of his a 4 or 5 rating and consider most of his books classics in the g
The Great and Secret Show reminds me of the only Tim Powers novel I’ve read, Last Call . And that, for anyone wanting a one-sentence review (contingent upon understanding the nature of my opinion of Last Call), is that.In many ways, coming across a book that doesn’t interest one even though it’s a good book makes writing a review far more difficult than coming across a bad book. But if one truly reads widely—and it’s something I take pride in doing—then it will happen. So what then?I could tr...
This book has just left me feeling so conflicted. I adore Clive Barker’s writing and will read anything he writes. The beginning of this book had me really hyped up. The characters were intriguing, the story was interesting, the pace was just right and I was preparing myself for a new favourite Barker. And then we just hit a wall about halfway through. It felt like everything just ground to a halt and it became excruciating to read because it was just so long winded and unnecessary. So many char...
In an exercise to get in touch with my deceased teenage self, I decided to read one of the books that really got me into reading and, incidentally, writing. Having noted already that as the palate of age matures, the enjoyment of things past lessens, I wanted the familiar nostalgia of a book from my shelf that had my old, perhaps slightly smaller, fingerprints.The first of an incomplete trilogy, The Great and Secret Show is a novel of fantasy, horror, and sex. I must say that part of me was plea...
First published in 1989, 'The Great And Secret Show' formed the first book of 'The Art' proposed trilogy. The novel is a complex weave of storylines, woven together to form this impressive and compelling tale of fantasy that sends you into a world with seemingly no limits. The novel not only opens up the reader's own imagination but brings forward suggestive images and ideas that remain with you for years to come. Barker manages to capture your attention from the start and keep you gripped throu...
A gorgeous, sensuous dream of a novel that is, not surprisingly, about the stuff of dreams. Barker's signature wild mix of fantasy, sex and horror is on full display in this apocalyptic story as is his richly evocative prose. I lost myself in this story for hours on end and even ignored my dog's feeding time twice (sorry, Jake!). This is the kind of virtuoso performance I have come to expect from Barker (and what I expected, and didn't get, from The Scarlet Gospels).I do have to say that I found...
The summer I read this book was the summer I changed my mind about the horror genre. Previously, I had read some subpar Stephen King and some even more subpar Dean Koontz. A friend recommended the Great and Secret Show to me, saying it was like King's The Stand, but better. I skeptically started the book and was immediately glued to the page. Barker mixes dark fantasy and horror elements comprising a concoction that I've never found in any other book. The story is near impossible to explain with...