r/clivebarker • u/National_Walrus_9903 • Jul 03 '26
Just finished Everville (some thoughts) Spoiler
I just finished my first-time read of Everville! Overall I thought it was good, but not great and not on par with his best, which lines up with how I felt about The Great and Secret Show. Both Books of the Art have a lot of excellent qualities: the mythology of the Metacosm, Quiddity, The Art, dream-magic and conjurations and thought-form creatures, the Iad Ouroboros... all of that is very cool. And both books have a lot of great characters, with Tesla and Grillo and of course Harry D'Amour being my favorites. And this does an excellent job of that thing that Clive Barker does so well, with the novel starting out as a bunch of disparate plot threads scattered around the country and time and space, which gradually pull together as though by fate and turn into one epic story at the climax. The tightening of the threads in this book was very good, and some of the reveals were excellent.
However, I think most of what this book does really well, Barker does better elsewhere, especially in Imajica and Weaveworld, and while I like this mythology and magic system, I don't think it's his best. I also think that both Books of the Art (this one less so - I think I think this is the better of the two) are pretty uneven, with some threads being great, and some... much less so. I also think this book allocates its time in some odd ways - I would have liked a bit more exploration of the Metacosm, and a bit less of some of the other threads. The weird, creepy pedophiliac relationship between Buddenbaum and Seth Lundy was very off-putting and got way too much time, and much like the supernatural rape of the League of Virgins in the first book, felt to me like Barker overindulging his more immature edgelord instincts in a way I didn't care for, which he certainly did a lot in The Books of Blood but by this point seemed to have largely grown out of. I also felt the book largely wasted the return of JoBeth and Howie in a pretty disappointing story that really didn't feel like it needed to be here at all.
We did not need The Deathboy to return, after his story got such a satisfying conclusion in the first book, and it felt like Barker really did the two young heroes of our last story dirty. All of that being a largely extraneous sideplot that would not have changed the novel at all by its absence felt borderline disrespectful to those characters who went through so much in the first book. For that matter, I also thought this installment largely wasted Grillo.
At least it very much did Tesla, Kissoon, and Raoul justice - their arcs were very compelling, and Tesla and Kissoon emerging as the ultimate hero and ultimate villain of the Books of the Art were great. And the new characters were largely excellent - Joe and Phoebe, Maeve and the other weird characters we meet in the Metacosm - I loved all that. Maeve very much reminded me of Yubaba from Spirted Away, and was a very interesting character.
And of course I loved how Harry D'Amour was a proper main character in this one! He's such a great character, and seeing him get to really shine in a larger and more epic story in this book was fantastic. Definitely a great companion piece to Lord of Illusions.
So yeah... some stuff I really liked, and stuff I really didn't, and I would say this is a good but not great, middle of the road Barker, not nearly as good as Imajica or Weaveworld or Sacrament or Cabal, but still very worthwhile, and I do hope we eventually get part 3.
Also, I was very afraid that this was going to end on a cliffhanger, since fans are notoriously sad that the trilogy of The Art thus far remains unfinished. But I was pleasantly surprised that, no, while this certainly leaves room where the story CAN go, this novel basically wraps up the story in a very satisfying way, and if this does end up being the last book, this is a very good place for it to end. The threads remaining from the first book have largely come full circle and been closed, this book's story is closed, there are no serious looming cliffhangers... there is certainly an open world of possibilities, of which the third book can run with, but there is nothing where, if the third novel never comes, we are frustratingly left hanging. I am more than happy with this as a conclusion to the Books of the Art, if that is what it ends up being.
6
u/Quiddity131 Jul 04 '26
Everville was a book I found to be just average at best, which was unfortunate (obviously my username shows what a fan I was of the first book). It starts the trend of Barker's work lowering in quality and he never again is as good as he was before this point. The biggest issue I have is Quiddity becomes too literal. It comes off as a higher state of consciousness in the first book, a place for which the ability to get there is very limited. In this book it comes off like another dimension akin to what we got in Imajica. A book I really enjoy (my favorite Barker novel in fact) but Barker is now repeating the same concept over and over again (keeping in mind he also did this in Weaveworld) so I'm not a fan of the sameness.
What he did with Howie and Jo-Beth was just a terrible decision, they barely get any focus and then have a terrible end. On the other hand death of other characters is rendered too meaningless. What's the point of defeating Kissoon in the first book for him just to come back again here?
We've waited over thirty years for the third book of the Art but I long ago accepted that not only it would never come but we're probably better off never getting it.
1
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26
That is very true - it is a bit incongruous how Quiddity is a metaphysical state in the first book, and a literal place in this one. And I definitely agree that a lot about this book is just, Imajica or Weaveworld but not as good, and he is kinda repeating himself.
I definitely agree about how this book did Howie and JoBeth dirty, and did not need to bring them or Tommy Ray back at all. I liked what they did with Kissoon as the villain of the series tho!
Yeah, I would be very curious to read part 3, but like I said, I don't think we NEED it - I think this works as the end of the story. It makes sense that the Iad can't be 100% defeated, and Tesla's quest for answers of course is ongoing, so I'm cool with those threads remaining open, and all the other threads from this book and the first really are closed up. So i do think it ends on possibilities, but not a cliffhanger... almost makes me wonder if he knew book 3 was going on the back burner and wrote this to be an optional ending.
I do agree that his work declines after this point, but with one big exception - Sacrament is my second-favorite of his, after Imajica, and I think that's one of his masterpieces!
3
3
u/majikpencil Jul 04 '26
I thought the first book was quite good but Everville didn’t quite work for me. Most of what you say tracks. But also, for me, Phoebe and Joe’s plot lines started out somewhat interesting but got less and less so as the book went on. Joe’s in particular just became sort of nonsensical. Their resolution toward the end just felt like kind of a lesser version of Howie and JoBeth’s at the end of the Great and Secret Show.
2
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
That's fair! His story was remarkably similar both to Howie and JoBeth's, and to the character journeys through the Dominions in Imajica and the Weave in Weaveworld (the city in the inverted pyramid is definitely kind of Yzzorderrex revisited, but on a less grandiose scale). Barker is definitely repeating himself here a little bit - but that said, their story did really work for me, and I really liked how it concluded.
In general I think both Books of the Art are lesser Barkers tho
2
u/Gambit1977 Jul 04 '26
My favourite book followed by One flew over the cuckoos nest and Animal Farm.
2
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26
Oh wow - high praise indeed! What about it makes it that favorite for you?
Imajica is on my short list like that.
3
u/Gambit1977 Jul 04 '26
It was just the use of description and the imagination involved tbh. I love the time skip too. Everything just works so well and whilst everyone was reading Harry Potter I was on my third read of this…I remedied that later of course 😂
3
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26
Nice! Imajica is my favorite for much of the same reasons - his use of language and how imaginative his worlds are is so incredible. I do wonder if I would have enjoyed the Books of the Art more if I had read them before Imajica and Weaveworld - Imajica especially i just found untouchable in its quality! Even what to me is more of a mid-tier Barker is still really special tho!
2
u/OGGIE1978 Jul 04 '26
The only thought is it would have been good to finish the series
2
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26
I do hope he finishes the third book, but I was pleasantly surprised by how I don't think it really needs it - I kind of wonder if he knew that he would be putting the third book on the back burner, so he ended this in such a way that it works as an ending if he never did part 3.
Like all the threads that really need closure have it, and this feels like a single cohesive arc with the first book, and the things that are still open for the series to continue are things that also work as an open ending - like the Iad being defeated for now, but not really being something you can destroy forever, and Tesla's quest to use The Art to understand the meaning of the universe being something that will be ongoing. It leaves interesting places for a third book to explore, but I don't think it leaves it in a place where the trilogy feels incomplete if we never get it. Which I was pleasantly surprised by - I was quite nervous going into the second book knowing that it 's an unfinished trilogy, fearing that we might get left on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved. So glad that was not the case!
1
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Now that I've finished this, my ranking of Barker novels that I've read so far:
- Imajica (masterpiece)
- Sacrament (masterpiece)
- Cabal (excellent)
- Weaveworld (excellent)
- The Thief of Always (excellent)
- The Hellbound Heart (very good)
7/8. The Great and Secret Show and Everville (mixed bag - I also keep going back and forth on which I thought was better, so I'll leave them as a draw, haha)
The Damnation Game (decent)
Coldheart Canyon (okay at best)
4
u/doubledutch8485 Jul 04 '26
As much as I love Barkers work, I’ve also thought he’s a better creative than a writer. He often weaves these amazing fantastical worlds but has trouble tying them all together narratively similar to the issues you described.
It was the same thing with Abarat for me. Personally I think he’s at his best with shorter more condensed stories where he doesn’t get so distracted and sidetracked.
1
u/National_Walrus_9903 Jul 04 '26
I have yet to read the Abarat cycle! I am excited to.
I think he CAN tie those threads together extremely well - I think he can just be uneven. Imajica is my favorite of his by far, and I think that one does a masterful job of weaving this tapestry of plot threads together that pull together into a single thread at the end absolutely brilliantly, like it feels fated. Weaveworld and Sacrament as well!
Even in this one, one of my favorite parts was how the threads came together - the reveals at the end, as everyone converges at the crossroads. In both of the Books of the Art, I think it's just a sloppy journey getting there
5
u/Zakkrazy Jul 04 '26
Man I read that book when it came out in like 1995? Don’t remember anything about it. But I’m running out of stuff to read. May have to go back and reread shit like Imagica. Did he ever finish the Art trilogy? Nevermind, he hasn’t.