The sublime voyage. (Galilee - Clive Barker)

Member Name: Bryn Pearson

Product:	Galilee - Clive Barker
Date:	30/08/01 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: stunnign, breath taking work

Disadvantages: if you were lookign for horror, you won't like it at all.

I would like to begin by saying that I consider Clive Barker to be a supurb and often misunderstood writer. To define him simply as a 'horror" writer is to miss the grandure, beauty and sheer power of his work. For ever horror or grotesque thing, there is equal and stunnig beauty to be found. His is a world of incomparable intensity, where everything is painted in rich colours.

Over the years, Clive Barker has gradually inched his way further and further out of the horror niche and I think he is fast escaping from the bonds of genre. Those who have been following his work may well have noticed the changes.

Galillee is a stunning piece of work, from the sumptuous cover to the last, captivating word it is an incredible book and I found it impossible to put down. Less violent than most of Barker's work, it still contains flashes of the horrible. There is much in the way of vision in this text, the sense of the numinous pervades the writing, and it seems that an incredible revelation can only be a hairsbreadth away.

The narrator of the book is one Edmund Maddox Barbarossa. He is disabled as a result of an accident that killed his wife and may have killed his father. He is only half Barbarossa, but is endowed with a strange gift for seeing what befalls others. He is the ultimate voyer, but shares his insight with care.

The Barbarossa family personify much of the wonder that Barker has strived after in other texts, but at the same time they are soiled by the world, and very much a part of it. They are both quarrelsome people and almost deities. Their lives (unusually long) are touched by sorrow and distater, but they continue.

The Gearys are a powerful, monied family with some strange hold over the Barbarossas, especially the eponymous Galillee. When an innocent young lass, Rachel Pallenberg marries one of the Gearys, she enters into their mysteries and begins to learn of this second family. It is through her that
much of the plot is explored.

This is a fascinating tale that wanders through history, is laden with powerful romane and emotion, and has a few twists and turns along the way. I found it utterly compelling. The rest of the plot is not that easy to talk about (Barker plots seldom are)and it would be a shame to spoil it, so I shall keep quiet.

An absolute must read for Barker fans. I would also suggest that if you like unconventional literature, you might want to cast your prejudices aside and give this author a go - he really is something rather special and its about time the world started taking him seriously.

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