REVIEW: The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker
Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Harper Voyager; (Reissue) edition (1 Oct 2008)
Originally published: 1986
ISBN-10: 0006470653
ISBN-13: 978-0006470656
Reviewer: Cara
Copy: Bought secondhand

From the back of the book:
The classic tale of supernatural obsession that inspired the film Hellraiser, from the critically acclaimed master of darkness.

At last Frank had solved the puzzle of Lemarchand's lacquered box. He now stood on the threshold of a new world of heightened sensation.

In moments the Cenobites - who had dedicated an eternity to the pursuit of sensuality - would come and reveal dark secrets that would transform him forever.

But with the exquisite pleasure would also come pain beyond imagining. To escape his hideous tormentors and return to this world, Frank will need the help of his brother's wife, Julia, the woman who loved him. But most of all he would need blood.

The Hellbound Heart is a novella, and a short one at that, but it packs a lot into it's 128 pages. The synopsis on the back cover sets the scene for a dark exploration of the pursuit of pleasure... and how there is always a price to pay.

The principle players are Frank, his brother Rory, married to Julia, and Kirsty. Frank is a total hedonist, living his life in the pursuit of pleasure, excitement and adventure. On solving the puzzle of the Lemarchand box Frank finds much more than he could ever have imagined, and it is here we are introduced to the Cenobites. For anyone who has seen any of the Hellraiser films, the grotesque imagery of the hierophants of the Order of the Gash will be familiar, although they are only briefly described here. However, Barker uses his skill with words to paint a frightening picture of the ultimate in depravity in a few short paragraphs.

I found both the female characters to be the most interesting. Julia is presented as a beautiful woman who I felt uses her beauty to hide the fact that she has little else to offer the world. She comes across as shallow and almost devoid of emotion, yet after one brief sexual encounter with Frank on the eve of her wedding to his brother she is willing to do anything to ‘rescue’ Frank from the Cenobites. This did not work for me as I found it difficult to accept that Julia would go against all social mores and act in the way she did for someone like Frank. But being bored with her life with Rory and having little else to do other than act the role of dutiful wife, she broke with every moral code to help Frank. It was gratifying to read what happens to her in the end though.

Kirsty, on the other hand, was an enigma. Her relationship to Rory (and thus to Frank) was never clearly defined… was she family, a neighbour or a close friend? The contrast between the two women is marked:

“They had little in common: Julia the sweet, the beautiful, the winner of glances and kisses, and Kirsty the girl with the pale handshake, whose eyes were only ever as bright as Julia’s before or after tears. She had long ago decided that life was unfair.”

I gained the impression that Kirsty had an unrequited love for Rory, which may go some way to explain her actions later in the book. Yet, in the early chapters, she is described as

“a hindrance more than a help; her dreamy, perpetually defeated manner set Julia’s teeth on edge”

Indeed I found her passivity and social awkwardness irritating until she draws on some hitherto unforeseen inner strength in the final denouement, thus redeeming herself in my eyes.

Having seen the film Hellraiser before reading The Hellbound Heart I was surprised at some of the differences. In the screen version Rory becomes Larry and Kirsty is Larry’s daughter. While the movie follows the book fairly closely for the most part, I expected Pinhead to feature as prominently as he did on screen. Instead, he is reduced to one brief appearance:

“Its voice, unlike that of its companion, was light and breathy – the voice of an excited girl. Every inch of its head had been tattooed with an intricate grid, and at every intersection of horizontal and vertical axes a jewelled pin driven through to the bone. Its tongue was similarly decorated” 

As a horror story, The Hellbound Heart could have benefitted from more involvement of the Cenobites, something Clive Barker must have agreed with when working on Hellraiser, given that the Cenobites are much more prominent in the movie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the pace of the book. The Hellbound Heart may be a short novella, but it grips from the outset and the fast action never loses momentum. Clive Barker’s writing is wonderful. He chooses his words skilfully, never losing the plot amidst a mire of overly descriptive prose. Much is left to the reader’s imagination and given the nature of the Cenobites and of Frank’s experience, this is a good thing as it enhances the horror of the story. Certainly I found the short descriptions of Frank’s changing appearance unnerving and Kirsty’s final interaction with The Engineer was very creepy indeed. My only regret was that I had seen the film before reading the book as this meant I already had images of the Cenobites in my head. Being a short but captivating book, The Hellbound Heart is a perfect introduction to Clive Barker and his dark and twisted imagination. Best read with all the lights on though!

Plot: 8
Characters: 8
Style: 8

Rating 8/10