The Books of Abarat Web Site

Check out author Clive Barker's Abarat web site http://www.thebooksofabarat.com/content4/xbarat99.html which includes a moving map of the islands. The cursor is a ship, and when you click on an island, you "travel" to that island. There's info on the characters, info on Clive Barker, and even an audio interview with him.

Mendelson Shape

So what did you think of the first bad guy in the book, Mendelson Shape? I'm not sure which is scarier, the description of him ("almost fleshless limbs" "spiderish") or the picture. I haven't encountered many scarier images than that of Shape climbing up the tower in pursuit of Candy, singing his horrid little nursery song. Who's the scariest character you've encountered in a book?

More about the doodle

On page 52, Candy "thought of the doodle she'd made on her workbook; the way it had seemed to brighten in her mind's eye, inspiring her limbs to move. It was almost as though the doodle had been a sign, a ticket to this adventure." And then on page 63, we come across the symbol again, on the surface of the turquoise-and-silver ball Candy finds in the tower: "And elegantly engraved on its blue-green surface was a design she knew! There it was, etched into the metal: the doodle she'd drawn so obsessively in her workbook." There's a lot in this book about fate. Clearly, Candy was fated to have this adventure. How do you think the wavy-line doodle fits into this? Was it put there purposely (by someone?) as a clue to help Candy know what to do, a sign for her to follow? Or is it just a detail that is present in certain places, that Candy somehow tunes into?

What do you think the author is trying to tell us with Candy's doodling?

I think the author is trying to tell us Candy is very creative. Instead of thinking and looking at things in a simple way she builds on and makes it more complex and interesting. Noah O.

Destiny

When Candy is trying to decide whether to help John Mischief, to risk drawing the attention of the horrifying Mendelson Shape, she thinks about destiny and fate. "In a curious way it made sense that she was here because she had to be here...Why else, after living all her life in Chickentown, should she be here - in a place she'd never been before - today?" Do you believe in destiny? Is there something in your life or in the life of someone you know personally that makes you believe in fate?

Seashells

Ah, the next clue to what's going to happen: Candy is following some inner urge, walking out of town onto the prairie, leaving behind all of her troubles (her teacher, her alcoholic father, her boring life in Chickentown), and she kicks a seashell. What is the tower doing there, and why are there seashells on the ground?

Doodling

Remember how Candy doodled wavy lines on her notebook? And she kept thinking about them as she was leaving school? I love the description of the lines, and how in her mind they changed from being black lines on gray, recycled paper to being bright, and then moving: "The wavy lines were rolling across the darkness inside her skull, rolling and breaking, the brilliant colors bursting into arabesques of white and silver." What do you think the author is trying to tell us?

New book - Abarat by Clive Barker

This book is the first of author/illustrator Clive Barker's promised four book series: The Books of Abarat. It took him 4 years to complete the original artwork (100 astounding, disturbing paintings) for this book, and the second book, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War, contains another 100 equally bizarre original paintings. I don't want to say much about the plot of the book because I feel that half of the fun is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. But I do want to give those of you who haven't started the book yet a piece of advice: skip the prologue and jump right in to the main part of the book. The prologue will just confuse you and possibly make you think you're going to hate the rest. I promise, it's nothing like the prologue. Clive Barker's genius is his imagination, and he shows it most in his characters. Take for instance the Lord of Midnight, Christopher Carrion. The lower half of his head is surrounded by a translucent collar filled with blue fluid, in which swim bright, flickering forms, which he clearly takes pleasure in, smiling if one of them grazes his face. The shapes? "Carrion had found a way to channel every nightmarish thought and image out of the coils of his brain and bring them into this semiphysical form. He breathed the fluid, the flickering forms ran in and out of his mouth and nostrils, soaking his soul in his own nightmares." Whew! Wait until you see the picture - page 125, by the way. Anyway, it's not really a horror book, despite the grotesque bad guys. The heroine is Candy Quackenbush, who is destined to save the Land of Abarat, an archipelago of 25 islands, each existing in one distinct hour of the day, and one for "the time outside time." That's enough for now. Start reading!