“Fearful Symmetry:” Clive Barker Discusses the Art of Fantasy
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James Blasingame “Fearful Symmetry:” Clive Barker Discusses the Art of Fantasy n artfully dressed man with a larger-than-life paintings, moving on youthful countenance (is he to text and often arriving on the A thirty-five or maybe forty- movie screen. Since founding a small five?) seems to be hosting two people theater group in London as a young for coffee in the Omni Severin Hotel man, Mr. Barker has gone on to write coffee shop at the 2004 NCTE and produce some of the most Convention in Indianapolis. He opens successful and artful horror movies doors for his two guests, smiles, stops of modern times, as well as a to pick up the water bottle dropped seemingly inexhaustible stream of by a twenty-something elementary fantasy novels and stories for young teacher in the hotel lobby (“Miss, I and old alike which continue to think this is yours.”) His comfortable, translate to the cinema. colorful clothing (decorated denim Playwright, painter, horror jacket and jeans, pastel cotton shirt novelist, graphic novelist, fantasy with artwork) suggests he might be a novelist, movie director, short story studio artist who left fame and fortune behind (the author, dog lover, husband and father, Clive Barker is commercial world can go to hell!) and turned high a remarkable man who can quote from Samuel Taylor school art teacher, or he might be one of those actors Coleridge, William Blake and William Wordsworth, as who has reached a point of success where all preten well as Peter Pan, as he carries on a conversation that sion has been abandoned as unneeded. An accent that plumbs the depths of the human subconscious, says, “London, maybe,” places his origin nowhere quantum physics and how fantasy fiction touches the near Indiana, and the gravel in his voice suggests iron human psyche. under the art. Photos of Clive on his website, many of which “Hello, I’m Clive.” were taken by his partner, David Armstrong, show, Clive Barker: featured speaker at the 2004 ALAN among other things, the creator of Pinhead and the Workshop, thanks to Michael Cart, ALAN president, other Cenubites himself laughing and covered up in a and Josette Kurey of HarperCollins, among others. pile of large, friendly dogs, residents of the Barker By sheer volume alone, Clive Barker’s accomplish household, and a loving and devoted father talking ments are mammoth, to say nothing of the genius and and laughing with his daughter, Nicole. passion he has poured into each project, projects even Clive’s young adult projects, such as Thief of Michelangelo might have found daunting in scope: Always (which Publishers Weekly describes as a “tale multi-dimensional marathons—starting in Clive’s that manages to be both cute and horrifying”) and the powerful imagination, moving through sketches to four volumes in the Abarat series (about which, 26 THE ALAN REVIEW Winter 2005 Booklist reviewer Sally Estes says, think it just hits the psyche like “The multilayered adventure story By sheer volume alone, a ton of bricks and you can’t not only embraces the lands of Oz, help it. Wonderland, and Narnia but also Clive Barker’s accomplish offers a wink and a nod to Aldous CB: That’s a big question. My Huxley’s Brave New World. More ments are mammoth, to feeling is the kind of fiction than 100 full-color paintings by say nothing of the genius we’re both interested in, Barker are appropriately quirky, whether it’s for young people or grotesque, and campy, effectively and passion he has adults, is the kind of fiction that capturing and expanding on the works on lots of levels. The first nuances of the tale”), might better poured into each project, piece of Blake I ever read was be categorized as fantasy appropri- projects even “Tiger, Tiger.” “Tiger, tiger ate for readers of all ages, and burning bright/ In the forest of although he is obviously not a Michelangelo might have the night/ What immortal hand secondary English teacher trained in or eye/ Could frame thy fearful the Louise Rosenblatt school, he found daunting in scope: symmetry.” I didn’t have a clue intuitively recognizes that the age multi-dimensional mara what that meant when I first and experience of the reader of a heard it. But its music was book or the viewer of a play provide thons—starting in Clive’s immensely eloquent. I had it by for diverse experiences with the heart, you know, and I’ve had it text. Professional reviews, as well as powerful imagination, by heart ever since—I’m 52 online reader comments about these years old now, so that’s 44 moving through sketches books, provide comparisons to a years. What has happened is nearly canonical list of authors, to larger-than-life paint- that I have decoded those lines including but not limited to Poe, different ways as I’ve grown Tolkein, Alduous Huxley, Blake, ings, moving on to text older. I think the great thing Coleridge, as well as cinematic about “the fantastic” is that it geniuses like Ridley Scott and Alfred and often arriving on the provides you with a kind of Hitchcock. In the following inter- movie screen. fiction which means one thing view, Mr. Barker provides his own when you’re one age and remarkable insights into the opera- something perhaps completely tion of fantasy in the human imagination. different when you grow older. Another great example for me is “Peter Pan.” JB: Your work, set in a modern context, of course, For a long time, the Royal Shakespeare Company quite possibly resembles the work of William Blake did a Christmas production of “Peter Pan.” It was a and Samuel Taylor Coleridge more than it re- very straight forward, very eloquent version which sembles the work of your contemporaries. Like included portions of J. M. Barrie’s original play, Blake and Coleridge, you delve deeply into the portions of Barrie’s letters and portions of The Little subconscious, the spiritual and the scientific, but White Bird, which was the first reincarnation of it’s the kind of science that we speculate on, like “Peter Pan” that appeared in novel form. I saw the quantum physics. The kind of science in which all show many times; sometimes I took children, and the rules we know are violated . and it’s kind of sometimes I was with adults. Something very scary. interesting happened at the end of that show. Wendy dies, and her daughter Margaret takes over, CB: Yes, true, right. as you’ll recall from the story. And sometimes Peter comes over and sometimes Peter doesn’t. Eventu- JB: Does it take a certain kind of mind in the reader or ally he forgets. At the end of the show, the last lines the viewer to understand your work or do you of the play were something like, “and thus it will go 27 THE ALAN REVIEW Winter 2005 on as long as children are gay and innocent and as the author to ask those questions along with heartless.” Tied with that image was a completely you. I’m not guaranteeing any answers, but I will dark and inhospitable stage and high, high up can completely fill my fiction with as much eloquence be seen the figure of Peter looping the loop, a about those questions as I possible can. The sealed system in other words, one in which he questions that we ask at fifteen and fifty-two are could never break out. He would be a boy forever, very different. looping the loop, looping the loop. When the lights came up, a very interesting JB: Adults and young people can have very different thing was happening: all the adults were crying, perceptions of the same work of fantasy, as you and all the children were smiling. The story had have explained. So then, is there a difference in the delivered two completely different messages. The ease with which a young person can access your message that adults perceived matched their work and the ease with which an adult can do it? experience of life, which is that things get lost and Does the adult have to turn loose of too many are never found again, that you can’t always have pretenses and agreed-on views of reality and so on? happy endings. That is quite contrary to the child’s experience. The child is saying “Hey, Peter is up CB: Well, there’s a subset answer to that. The first is there looping the loop” but the adult is saying that I write two kinds of fiction. I write adult “Peter is up there looping the loop; that’s all he can fiction, and the adult fiction has three things that do.” are not in the fiction for children. It has cuss words, Sorry about the long explanation, but it’s it has sexuality or manifested sexuality of some such a powerful example of what I am trying to do kind; there will be sex scenes or erotic scenes and in telling stories that work on these many levels. probably the violence will be described more For example, if somebody wants to come to Abarat brutally. or Weaveworld or Imajica with a curiosity about the Those are the only differences. I don’t put any darker aspect, shall we say, the more soul tugging part of my brain on hold when I am writing a piece aspects of life, then I hope I have some . I’m not of fiction for young readers. Why would I? I have a saying I have some answers but I have some daughter.