Mister B. Gone
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Mister B. Gone is a short novel by Clive Barker. Mister B. Gone was released in the UK , 23 October 2007, retailing at £15.00, and will be available to US readers 30 October 2007 for $24.95.[1].
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins by immediately breaking the fourth wall, telling the reader to "Burn this book!" It is revealed that the narrator is some sort of presence trapped within the novel. The presence understands that the reader isn't going to burn the book without hearing some sort of story, and so it begins to tell its tale.
The narrator reveals himself as a lesser demon named Jakabok Botch, who lived a traumatized childhood in Hell, especially due to his brutish, physically-abusive demon of a father. To prevent himself from losing his mind, Jakabok decides to write violent, hate-filled papers in which he commits torture and patricide. Eventually, his mother comes across these papers, and confronts Jakabok, telling him that she wishes he was never born. She commands that he burn the papers immediately, and Jakabok reluctantly obeys.
While watching the papers burn, Jakabok is approached by his father, who kicks him into the fire. He emerges from the flames, severely burnt and disfigured. Fearing further abuse, Jakabok seizes a knife and flees, eventually coming across a peculiar sight: raw steak and beer, hanging as though it is on a fishing wire. The sight causes Jakabok's pursuing father to forget about inflicting pain on his son, approaching the free meal. It is revealed that the steak and beer is hanging from fishing wire, and Jakabok and his father are caught in the trap. They are "reeled" out of Hell. While ascending, Jakabok's father asks for his son's forgiveness, just before Jakabok cuts through the wire holding his father. As his father fatally falls back into Hell, Jakabok is dragged into the realm of the living.
Emerging, Jakabok finds himself in the 15th century, under the captivity of a corrupt priest and his partners. They begin to "judge Jakabok's worth," when he decides to run off into the forest. He approaches a young girl - one of the partners' daughters - in the midst of unholy ground, which is covered in demonic gore. He instantly falls in love, and asks if she would like to run off with him. She defies him, and so he smacks her face into the burning cauldron which she is working by. The priests' partners, who had been chasing him, see the girl and are distracted as Jakabok runs off.
Jakabok then encounters a naked couple in the grass. Jakabok is forced to kill the hostile male counterpart, taking his clothes. He wanders into a crowd trying to blend in as a peasant, but his inhuman feet give his disguise away. As the crowd approaches to massacre him, a pair of soldiers decide to take him away to be judged by an Archbishop. While being escorted away, one of the men kills the other. After horrendously slaughtering the crowd, the man reveals himself to Jakabok - now referred to as "Mister B." - as a powerful demon known as Quintoon.
Quintoon and Mister B. head off, and for the next one hundred years cause a great deal of calamity in the countryside. Eventually, the two find themselves in disagreement of each other, and separate after Quintoon threatens Jakabok. Jakabok takes refuge in the German town of Mainz, where he believes Quintoon has headed to, in order to reconcile his differences.
He stumbles across a German man and his company - including the Archbishop and Quintoon - who claims to possess a secret so powerful that it could rock the foundations of even Heaven and Hell. However, a large battle soon erupts between the celestial and the infernal, solely over the secret. The German man is killed, his wife revealed to be an angel. Jakabok takes cover, but when he emerges he discovers the conflict has ended, and no evidence that it has ever happened.
Jakabok enters a room in which he sees the angels and demons conversing over the secret, where the Archbishop reveals himself to be a demon. They spot Jakabok, who they believe is a nuisance. Instead of destroying him, they turn his very essence into words, and embed him onto paper.
At this point, Jakabok - after several persuading attempts throughout the story - threatens the reader one final time to burn the book and set him free. After realizing that the reader is heartless and cold, he gives up on asking. He decides to stop telling the story, and instead chooses to wait for another person to open the book and obey his demands to set the book ablaze. After all, he concludes, "words know how to wait."
[edit] Quotes from the author
Clive Barker: "It’s also about a demon, it’s just a very different kind of book. It’s in the first person; I’m writing in the voice of Jakabok. Jakabok is 'a minor divil’ he calls himself, but he’s actually a vicious little bastard and he’s talking to us and giving us the inside skinny on what it is to be a demon."[2]
Clive Barker: "The book works: it scares the bejesus out of people but it also entertains people and, I mean, you’re in the company of this individual who is really the dark half of me and, you know, it’s not a coincidence that I chose ‘B’ for his second name… "This guy Botch is an egotist, all he wants to say is ‘I suffer and now I’m going to tell you how I suffer and you’re going to get me out of my suffering or pay the price’... "This guy is horribly, physically disfigured, I won’t give you the circumstances of how. There isn’t much of his conventional devilry left because, well, he’s been in a very bad fire and I won’t go any further than that, but it does leave him, you know, we’re not talking about a sleek, slick demon here, we’re talking about someone who could pass among human beings though he would pass shunned: the way we would cross the road (I’m not saying we would… well, we might...) if he came towards us and his face had been burned off and he looked like he might have once been human, we’d certainly be a little anxious around him. And Botch passes for human because he’s burned…."[3]
Clive Barker: " I mean, this book, "Mister B. Gone," this book suggests that the novel you have in your hand, literally this thing in your hand, is possessed. The book you've got. The voice out of this book will address you directly for the full length of the book. It's a 70,000 word book and not for one moment are you not aware that this thing is reading the sweat marks you're leaving on the page and analyzing their content to see how scared you are or how best to work you. And nor does he even attempt to--it's a demon--nor does it even attempt to dissuade you that it's doing so. It says "If I really want to, I could make you hate yourself and with this book turn you all bloody." My editor, actually, having read the first few pages went to St. Patrick's, said a few prayers, then went back to read the rest. I thought, "I must be doing something right." [Laughs.]" [4]
[edit] References
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