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A review by angethology
The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
5.0
"Pleasure was pain there, and vice versa. And he knew it well enough to call it home."
Embarking on a journey of hedonism, Frank Cotton solves a magnetic puzzle in his desperate attempt to experience something more than just temporal pleasure. And he got what he asked for, but it's not quite what he envisaged. The Hellbound Heart shows you what it's like to have your senses assailed and overwhelmed, and what happens when you overindulge to the point of boredom and complacency.
Clive Barker depicts this really well, and I love the way he utilizes body horror to draw the ambiguous line between pleasure and pain; it's grisly, impactful, menacingly sensual, and paints a vivid image that throws you into a dangerous realm, but from a safe distance as a reader. Trying to outshine every single previous adventure with a new one only minimizes happiness: "Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself." It's a dangerous game to treat life itself as a competition that you fail to triumph over again and again — and this is where Kirsty and Frank differ in their schism initially. But pleasure and pain are interwoven and in some cases, inseparable; highs are achieved easier when you've gone through your lows, and even Kirsty undergoes this thrill at some point, whether out of spite or revenge.
I love the evocative and mesmerizing writing style (you can say that it easily hooks you in), it feels that no holds are barred but is simultaneously far from being over the top, and I'm glad it's become such an important part of queer horror. I'll definitely read more of Barker's work now.
Embarking on a journey of hedonism, Frank Cotton solves a magnetic puzzle in his desperate attempt to experience something more than just temporal pleasure. And he got what he asked for, but it's not quite what he envisaged. The Hellbound Heart shows you what it's like to have your senses assailed and overwhelmed, and what happens when you overindulge to the point of boredom and complacency.
Clive Barker depicts this really well, and I love the way he utilizes body horror to draw the ambiguous line between pleasure and pain; it's grisly, impactful, menacingly sensual, and paints a vivid image that throws you into a dangerous realm, but from a safe distance as a reader. Trying to outshine every single previous adventure with a new one only minimizes happiness: "Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition, to save it from itself." It's a dangerous game to treat life itself as a competition that you fail to triumph over again and again — and this is where Kirsty and Frank differ in their schism initially. But pleasure and pain are interwoven and in some cases, inseparable; highs are achieved easier when you've gone through your lows, and even Kirsty undergoes this thrill at some point, whether out of spite or revenge.
I love the evocative and mesmerizing writing style (you can say that it easily hooks you in), it feels that no holds are barred but is simultaneously far from being over the top, and I'm glad it's become such an important part of queer horror. I'll definitely read more of Barker's work now.