Клайв Баркер – The Great and Secret Show (страница 1)
CLIVE BARKER
THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW
The First Book of the Art
Harper
First published in Great Britain by William Collins & Sons 1989
Copyright © Clive Barker 1989
Clive Barker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollins
Source ISBN: 9780006179085
Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007382958
Version: 2016-12-29
INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM FOR THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW
‘In part a tale of terrors, rooted in recognisable suburbia, and in part a mythical saga, romping through various layers of consciousness. You never know quite where you stand or whether at key moments you are intended to feel cosmically enlightened or just palpably spooked. It is often claimed for horror that it draws on the primal in our responses but, as moments like this show, the best stories can owe their force to something nearer the contemporary surface.’
‘A mixture of sex, Armageddon and Hollywood … ingenious and compelling.’
‘A social visionary. He crafts intricately designed hellscapes … a writer unbound by the traditional restrictions of the horror genre. Barker’s vision is at once startling and seductive. A finely tuned, dark allegory and a painful parody of our most cherished religious longings. Barker has initiated an exciting fictional exploration of the ramifications of our mythologies. He is at his best here … a true master at work.’
‘This enthralling fable … the headlong progress of Randolph Jaffe from lost-letter sorter to evil master of unreality pulls the reader along in its ghost-ridden slipstream.’
‘Trying to describe Clive Barker’s writing is like trying to nail smoke to a wall. Almost singlehandedly, he’s reshaping horror stories into something quite different – mystic fables for the modem age. An astonishing book, combining leaps of the imagination with Zen mysticism and psychology.’
‘The best thing he has ever written … pure narrative simplicity… what wonders are in store as he develops his themes?’
‘He has forged a singular style of “fantastical” fiction, blending bizarre eroticism and gruesome horror into wild tales of supernatural exploration … emphasizes ideas over gore with provocative and apocalyptic vision … dazzling skill.’
‘Acute and fluent, Barker’s novel is fantasy, or horror, or science-fantasy, or everything together.’
‘Memorable characters, careening, converging plots, a precise, ironic, measured style … Barker’s a showman.’
‘Clive Barker, polymath among goremeisters … the novel has moments of visionary nastiness, and Barker has certainly learned how to develop and maintain a coherent narrative structure over the extended length of a fantasy blockbuster.’
‘Gripping, ambitious, a very imaginative work …’
‘Barker has evolved into something more than just another horror writer … a never-ending fantasy joyride.’
‘Fantastic stuff … Barker writes extremely well.’
CONTENTS