Clive Barker’s mature horror novella ‘The Hellbound Heart’, made its debut in 1986 and spawned the cult classic horror film Hellraiser and its subsequent sequels. The book is so short I read it in one sitting and it almost feels like a short story, and this is both the book’s strength and weakness. It’s a strength because it doesn’t waffle on too much and delivers a chilling story in a bite sized chunk, but it’s a weakness because its size limits its ability to ‘flesh’ out the characters and make them three-dimensional. The story is very bleak, and revolves around a hedonist named Frank who travels the world extensively in pursuit of maximum pleasure, and eventually learns of a rumour – ‘from the lips of a fellow derelict’ – of a ‘pleasure dome where those who had exhausted the trivial delights of the human condition might discover a fresh definition of joy.’ It’s said that a handful of maps to this territory had been held by certain people, such as the Marquis De Sade, who had possession of one such map and ‘used it, while imprisoned in the Bastille, to barter with a guard for paper on which to write The 120 Days of Sodom’. Frank finds one of these maps, a puzzle box built by a craftsman called Lemerchand, and solves it in order to summon the Cenobites – demonic beings that rule the realm of pleasure that Frank desperately wants to visit. Frank quickly realises that the Cenobites definition of pleasure is a far cry from his, and actually involves considerable amounts of pain and torture. This makes the allusion to the Marquis De Sade having possession of the map an interesting one, as it implies that he wrote his infamously sadistic book due to his own twisted experiences in the Cenobite’s dimension.
The book then introduces three more characters: Rory, Frank’s polar opposite ‘nice guy’ brother, Julia, his beautiful yet cold wife, and Kirsty, an innocent daydreamer who is secretly in love with Rory. Both Rory and Julia move into the house that Frank used to live in before he mysteriously disappeared, soon after, however, Frank manages to escape the Cenobite’s dimension and lurks in their attic as a scarred and hideous monster, and he needs blood to replenish his damaged body. I won’t give any more away as to do so would be to rob you of finding out yourself, unless of course you’ve seen the film Hellraiser, in which case you already know what happens. It’s impossible not to compare the book to the movie as they are so similar… I think they’re both just as good as each other, but I have a slight preference towards the movie.
The book’s greatest triumph is its poetic prose, which manages to bring unreal situations to life through its painting of descriptions and scenes in vivid detail; it also has a gritty edge to it and describes gore and the fragility of the human body with a surgeon-like precision. Unlike the movie, which is very much a product of the time it was created (the 80s), the novella’s lucid descriptions are essentially timeless. The other element that the book excels in over the movie is the construction of the ending, while the movie takes the more typical action oriented approach to the ending, the novella instead adds layers of tension and presses on it like a tightly wound spring, holding it until its shocking release and epic resolution. I only wish the middle part of the book had been as well told as its end. The beginning of the book – the story of Frank – was also very good, but I feel it should have been explored a bit more. I wanted to learn more about Frank’s experiences in the Schism and how it shaped the monster he had become; even a few flashback paragraphs here and there would’ve been better than nothing. The Hellbound Heart is almost like three mini books in one, and rather than being seamlessly interwoven, they are awkwardly hanging together by bloody hooks and chains. The first book is the story of Frank and the Cenobites, the second book is the clumsy tale of Julia and her longing for Frank, and the third book is the story of Kirsty and the tense climax (that didn’t sound sexual at all).
The other thing that the film wins on is the aesthetic. While the book is very well written, if it weren’t for having seen the movie I doubt I’d have been able to picture a lot of what was going on. Also, the film’s aesthetic was so strong, and so perfectly done, that I couldn’t picture anything but the film while I was reading it. Frankly, I also thought the movie was a bit scarier, mainly because of its portrayal of body horror and its claustrophobic filming techniques. However, seeing as the book came first, I’m going to review it on its own merits and not its weaknesses compared to its film counterpart, so in that case it gets a 4/5 instead of the 3/5 I wanted to give it.
* * * * 4 stars
A Tiny Taste
“You know what I’ve dreamed about,” said Frank. “You can supply the pleasure.”
The thing’s face broke open, its lips curling back: a baboon’s smile. “Not as you understand it,” came the reply.
Frank made to interrupt, but the creature raised a silencing hand.
“There are conditions of the nerve endings,” it said, “the like of which your imagination, however fevered, could not hope to evoke.”
“…yes?”
“Oh yes. Oh most certainly. Your most treasured depravity is child’s play beside the experiences we offer. Will you partake in them?”
Frank looked at their scars and hooks. Again, his tongue was deficient.
“Will you?”
Outside, somewhere near, the world would soon be waking. He had watched it wake from the window of this very room, day after day, stirring itself to another round of fruitless pursuits, and he’d known, that there was nothing left out there to excite him.
“Show me,” he said.