COLD HEARTS AND PORNOGRAPHY (Coldheart Canyon - Clive Barker)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Coldheart Canyon - Clive Barker
Date:	08/02/03 (216 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great imagination at times, Fans will read it

Disadvantages: OTT sexual content, Attacks on Hollywood done before

The dividing line between fantasy and horror can be fine. Perhaps drawn together for the most part, it's up to the author to decide how far he/she wants to venture into the genre of their choice.

***Introduction and background***

Coldheart Canyon is a sprawling Clive Barker epic about Hollywood. At 751 pages it was a hefty read which took me a while to negotiate. Barker is an established talent in the writing world. Somewhat wistfully, the quote that launched him into the big league - "Clive Barker is so good that I am quite literally tongue-tied" - is now a burden in the author's eyes despite its accreditation to the ephemeral Steven King. We know that CB is a hugely able man through his hugely impressive CV including major films (Candyman, Hellraiser), his artwork and his run of bestsellers. He has even signed up to an $18million contract giving Disney the rights to exploit his latest book - Abarat. So why poke a finger at a subject that is so well worn?

***The book***

The essence of the story can be illustrated in Barker's introduction "What had originally begun life as an idea for a short satiric stab at Hollywood began to blossom into something larger, lusher and stranger: a fantasia on Hollywood in its not so innocent phase, linked by a sizeable cast and a mythology which I would need to create and explain in very considerable detail."

The story starts out as a simple premise. Todd Pickett is a fading movie star, seemingly drawing on Tom Cruise as the inspiration for the character; Todd is advised to get plastic surgery to extend his career in the superficial world of movies. However, things go wrong and the resulting face job leaves him looking like an outcast from The Phantom of the Opera.

Meanwhile, the reader has been introduced to the twin antagonists, Katya Lupi (real name: Lupescu) and her male entourage - Zeffer. Katya is a movie star from the 1920's with Zeffer h
er doting sponsor. From the opening chapter set in a Romanian monastery, Zeffer purchases The Hunt. Basically, this is a mystical set of tiles with a powerfully alluring section showing all manner of sexual deviance and debauchery. Apparently known as the Devil's Hunt because of its association with Lileth, the Devil's wife, the arrangement projects a supernatural power over all those that come into contact with it. Drawn in by its curious power, The Hunt is moved, lock, stock and barrel to a house in Hollywood, which is situated in Coldheart Canyon.

Having suffered the indignity of a botched operation, Todd holes up in the house in Coldheart Canyon until he can recover enough to face the world. It's here that the two main threads meet as Todd encounters Katya and Zeffer at the house. Bizarrely, both Katya and Zeffer are perfectly preserved even though it's some 80 years or so since they first established themselves in Coldheart Canyon.

The catalyst for the story comes from the head of Pickett's fan club, the overweight and seemingly plain, Tammy Lauper. Tammy is the archetypal obsessive who is totally smitten with all things Todd Pickett whilst her own marriage is sliding onto the rocks. She decides to investigate the rumours about her hero being in residence at Coldheart Canyon (gossip travels fast in the Media saturated world of Hollywood) and track Todd down at the house. She wanders into the bizarre, esoteric world of the Canyon, encountering what seem to be rather savage, half animal, half beasts in the house grounds. This proves to be the start of a descent into madness exploiting the cynicism of the movie world against the dark, unnatural backdrop of the canyon.

The reader is left to ponder why a star of the 1920's, Katya is still in pristine condition? What are the origins of the strange beasts in the grounds? What do the ghosts of dead film stars want from the house? Will Todd remain undiscovered by the Me
dia and what are Katya's motives for courting Todd's affections?

***A critique***

I read the book wondering why CB had gone off the boil a la Stephen King. I'm not sure whether writers like this diversify so far away from the subjects that brought them fame that they end up wallowing around in areas that they simply can't hold their own on. I guess you need to bear in mind that the author started work on this at a difficult time in his life i.e. shortly after the death of his father. His motives for writing it may be founded in cynicism based on local knowledge as he lives in Los Angeles but it does seem that he has rather lost his way of late in endearing the reader with gothic tales of fantasy, straying too far into the realms of outright horror by employing simply too graphic images that possibly belong in pornography rather than horror/fantasy.

This book is technically adept. Those rolling metaphors from The Thief of Always have gone in favour of sentences that take advantage of semi-colons, colons and hyphens to give impetus to the actions. Where you'd expect to find one statement you'll get 3 giving the pages a punchy feel to them that is the writer's strength. Written from the perspective of several of the characters, the author makes it hard to sympathise with anyone notwithstanding the selfless nature of Tammy even if she does appear naïve in her boundless admiration for that cardboard cut out of humanity that is Todd Pickett. The strongest aspect of the story is undoubtedly the dark fairy tale surrounding The Hunt and it's origins. CB is on form with the imagination used to draw both this aspect of the story and it's pivotal focus in the book as a whole.

The chapters build, using subtle sub-plots to bring together the main characters together in a way that appears to take care of any potential loose ends. Todd Pickett is shown to be the self-centred shallow individual that the media as
sume anyway these days even if he is given a chance at some redemption via the death of his dog and the chance to do the right thing towards the climax. Katya is the stereotypical Hollywood bitch from hell. With little or no redeeming features, she plumbs the depths of human gratuitousness with no feelings for anyone she encounters. This black heart is mirrored by the motives of the ghosts of bygone years who crave Katya's secret of eternal youth, which is locked up in The Hunt now based in the basement of the house.

Where barker goes wrong is in both the subject matter and the sexual content in the book. Todd Pickett's character is suitably shallow as are most of the representatives from the Hollywood industry. It's no real surprise that he isn't quite as shallow as first suspected by throwing his character in contrast to the straight-forward but antipathy of glamour, Tammy Lauper. A cynical attack on Hollywood is old news and quite why CB felt the need to go there is a mystery.

Secondly, Katya appears to have no morals. I suspect that either Katya, Hollywood in general or both are the targets for the non-coincidental title of the book. Katya comes to represent the rather sinister embodiment of all of those actors from bygone years that, it seems, would engage in just about any act of sexual congress only limited by the very outreaches of deprivation. This means that the author trawls the very bottom of a very murky pond when it comes to imagining sexual acts usually involving a posse of people.

***Conclusion***

Coldheart Canyon is not one of Barker's best. It can be accused of being superficial and tired but existing fans will find it readable with it getting better as it goes along. The finale is also somewhat predictable with positive religious overtones that are unusual in a Barker story. I have higher hopes for Abarat, which I've just started. This copy cost £6.99 and is available at most good bookst
ores and at Amazon: ISBN 0 - 00 - 651040 - x.

Thanks for reading.

Marandina

Further details available at the excellent http://www.clivebarker.com/

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