The stone reached high above the immense landscape that spread out below, and it threw off fissures like lightning bolts, through which brightness poured. His descriptions of the underworld often recall the grotesque tableaus of Hieronymus Bosch, but are at other times weirdly hushed and lyrical: “The sky contained neither sun, nor stars, which was predictable enough, but what it did contain was a stone the size of a small planet. Martin’s, $26.99), he belts it out as rapturously as an Irish tenor crooning “Danny Boy.” Better than half the action of “The Scarlet Gospels” takes place in hell, where Barker is clearly very much at home. Clive Barker knows the tune, and in his new novel, THE SCARLET GOSPELS (St. For some writers, though, the damned soul does sometimes clap its hands and sing. That, of course, is what contemporary horror actually is, most of the time. Without it, horror fiction would be a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick or, perhaps, a ragged, bloody, roughly handled zombie action figure for gullible children. It seems Clive Barker has applied the sharpest razor of all to his own text, apparently reducing the wordcount by half.I would have liked to have read that book, and be disappointed by something that was audacious and rich and powerful and sprawling rather than enjoy the book that I read.The Scarlet Gospels that is, is a brilliant book, but I long for the book that it might have been.Thank God for evil. These elements - which are the ones that I looked forward to experiencing the most - are missing. In interviews and conversation the author let slip tantalising details - a conversation with Jesus a viking cemetery the holy grail in a tin mine a confrontation between a 12 year old Harry and the Hell Priest at school a dog that accompanied the protagonists into Hell. By that metric, The Scarlet Gospels is good book, a great book, full of the dark horror and baroque detail and bizarre inventiveness that Clive Barker is known for.The chief disappointment of the book is not what it is (which, in case it's not clear, I enjoyed very much), but in what the book might have been.
A book is what's delivered, what you buy and hold in your hands and consume.
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