15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Barker answers the question: Why are we here?, September 13, 1996
By A Customer
In books like Weaveworld and Imajica, Clive Barker created
new a new mythology and reinvented the religious parable,
respectively. Now, in his most ambitious and creatively
daring book thus far, Barker departs from the tried and true
of the world of dark fantasy and delves deeper into the human
condition than he has previously explored. As admitted by the
author, Sacrament contains just enough autobiographical detail
to allow his readers further insight into his philosophies, which
this time around are far more reality-based and less abstract than
previous ventures. In telling the story of Will Rabjohns, a
famous wildlife photographer who has gained recognition through
capturing dark images of nature at its most disturbing and violent,
Barker relates a parable on the value of life, human and otherwise.
The antagonist of the story, Jacob Steep, is representative of
human nature at its most distructive. As a creature that has learned
to be a man by watching men, he carries the belief that man holds
dominion over beasts to the point that he has created a mission for himself
to destroy the last of every species of creature on the earth, to know God
by playing God. At the same time, Will Rabjohns personifies both the
good and bad in human nature: while he eventually discovers the
value of all life and the connections involved in the cycles of birth,life,
and death, at the same time he experiences the same bloodlust
as Steep when he is young and it is this same type of lust for violence
that drives him to the corners of the world to capture his photographic
images. Another, even deeper layer runs through the book as Will watches
friends and loved ones in his adopted home of San Francisco fall to the
twin curses of disease and excess.
Ultimately, Sacrament is a moving, intelligent, and deeply satisfying
novel of hope, renewal, and enlightenment.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good, if not quite wonderful, February 20, 2000
I bought "Sacrament" a few years ago when it first came out in hardcover (at a bookstore in the mall in Pennsylvania where George Romero filmed "Dawn of the Dead"). I thought it would be cool to have a Clive Barker book that had breathed that air. But for some reason, I never read the book until just recently. I had read everything Clive Barker had written up to then and have now read all of his books except for "Galilee," which I plan to read soon.
"Sacrament" is a good book, and at times a very good book (there are occasional flashes of brilliance), but it never quite achieves the imaginative momentum to crest the "wonderful book" horizon as "Weaveworld," "Damnation Game" or some of the "Books of Blood" did.
I really enjoyed reading this book, but felt that the narrative meandered at times and the book probably could have been about 100 pages shorter. Barker does grapple with some deep and moving themes, however, and this book is definitely worth the read.
The protagonist, Will Rabjohns, a nature photographer, obsessed since childhood with bearing witness to the terrible end of things, is a well-drawn character that will illicit the reader's empathy and involvement in the story. Will must come to terms with what it means to be a living (and therefore mortal) creature in the world. He also comes to appreciate the pain and joy that come from realizing that we are responible for the creation of our own selves.
An entertaining and thought-provoking book. More grounded in the spiritual dilemmas of our world than many of Barker's other excellent fantasy tales.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Read..., September 11, 2004
Sacrament is the least read of Clive Barker's novels. It apparently only sold half the usual number of his books, and there is one simple reason for this: the protagonist is gay. In this day and age it is a real shame that readers have been put off by such an unimportant detail...
The story concerns Will Rabjohns, a wildlife photographer who is attacked by a grizzly bear and left in a coma. During months of unconsciousness he goes dreaming of his childhood in Yorkshire, where he met two enigmatic characters, Jacob Steep and Rosa McGee, who have lived for centuries in ignorance of what they are or how they came about, and have strange ideas about what the world is and their role in it. Will re-discovers how Steep shaped his life, and on waking from his coma is drawn back into contact with him again, as Steep goes about his murderous crusade. Steep, you see, has a perverse desire to make certain species of animals extint and hunts them with a satanic glee...
This, of course, is just the barest bones of the story. As ever with Barker's books there is a world of content on these bones: his sharply realised characters, his natural sense of pace, his prose approaches perfection here, his ability to tell his story with original, unpredictable scenes, and the nuggets of philosophy that his work always contains. It is in this last capacity that Barker has excelled himself with this novel. The nature of God, existence, life and death are examined with an intelligent, well-considered insight that I have never encountered before in any media anywhere else, including Barker's own. If that makes the book sound like a tough read, it isn't at all. Barker has an instinct for description that makes reading his stuff effortless; you don't so much read it as see it, and you glide through the pages so quickly.
For anyone whose mind is sharper than the average turnip, and can't help but wonder occasionally about whether or not there's a God and what life is for etc this is a book for you. It doesn't pretend to supply answers, of course, but throws up so many possibilities, and so many words of wisdom, that you absolutely come away with the parameters of your own mind stretched. I can safely say that you've never read a book like this before. There's nobody out there that mingles reality and fantasy like Barker, and gives a sense of there being more to the world than meets the eye.
If you're looking for a book with real weight, real imagination and intelligence, get your paws on this before you yourself become extint...
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