Billed as Clive Barker’s return to his horror roots, the slim novel Mister B. Gone is an odd experiment from the master of dark fantasy, a respite from the ambitious world-building he’s concentrated on in the last decade or so. And while it’s refreshing to see Barker narrow his focus and simplify his plotting, Mister B. Gone is mostly a failed experiment, a cute idea stretched thin even at fewer than 250 pages, and, contrary to the billing on the dust jacket, not really much of a horror novel at all.
It’s the story of minor demon Jakabok Botch, known to his friends as Mister B., who escapes from Hell’s Ninth Circle and wanders around the human world for a bit in the 14th and 15th centuries. Eventually, Mister B. meets up with Johannes Gutenberg and witnesses the birth of the printing press, along the way committing numerous ludicrous atrocities in which he seems only mildly invested. Barker, too, seems only mildly invested in the narrative, which turns on a silly conceit that begins with the novel’s first sentence: “Burn this book,” commands narrator Mister B., and throughout the story he periodically pauses to once again implore the reader to set fire to the pages that, in the novel’s world, contain his actual physical essence.
With pages designed to look aged and distressed, Mister B. Gone is a little too in love with its metatextual wankery, which never really evolves beyond the narrator’s repeated pleas for release. It’s Barker making a joke, mostly, both building up and then laughingly knocking down the idea that words and books are inherently powerful and mysterious. Mister B. is literally embodied in the sentences of the book, he tells us, but he also dismisses the value of words, wondering how they can be worth anything if there is an endless supply of them.
Likewise, the presence of the printing press as the novel’s MacGuffin, a device so important that the emissaries of both Heaven and Hell are physically fighting over it, both exaggerates and dismisses its significance. This device will change the world, Mister B.’s demon mentor tells him, but the angels and devils merely quibble over who gets to control the content of newspapers and encyclopedias. This tension between the trivial and the world-changing comes to a head at the story’s climax, but rather than explore it in depth, Barker spends most of his time detailing the grotesque physical manifestations of the denizens of the afterlife, and allowing Mister B. to whine at length about his miserable fate.
As far as the novel being Barker’s return to horror, while many of the acts committed by the main character are indeed horrific, there’s nothing remotely scary or even creepy about the story. Mister B. is a goofy, cartoonish figure, his actions so stylized and exaggerated that they’re only good for gallows humor, not chills or frights. Having such a gross, devilish character as a narrator does allow Barker the chance for some nice turns of phrase (“Easy as tying a knot in a baby’s tongue,” says Mister B. about a particularly simple task), but Mister B.’s ain’t-I-a-stinker tone is more wearying than endearing after a few dozen pages.
Perhaps what’s most disappointing about Mister B. Gone is that, after crafting entire intricate, bizarre worlds in novels like Imajica, The Great and Secret Show and his recent Abarat series for young adults, Barker here presents a very pedestrian view of heaven and hell, with Mister B. offering up the supposed revelation that the two sides actually collaborate in secret, with neither looking out for the true interests of humanity. Religious leaders are predictably vulgar and corrupt, and Mister B.’s screeds against humanity are tired and clichéd. Yes, we are the true demons, torturing ourselves far more than supernatural forces ever could. If that’s the most that Barker can offer by returning to his roots, he’s probably better off spending all his time in elaborate fantasies.
Mister B. Gone
**1/2
Clive Barker
HarperCollins, $24.95
We’re Thankful ...
... That even our four-day weekend won’t leave time for Joel Osteen’s Become a Better You.