I've written about Clive Barker in bits and pieces before, but I've never felt that I've done his work any kind of justice or said anything new or profound about him. He's my favorite living writer, and maybe that makes it difficult to write objectively about his creative output, which has meant so much to me over the years.

But maybe that's the tack to take here. Columns, blogs, and essays about the dark and disturbing qualities of Clive's work are never hard to come by, but what's often—perhaps easily—overlooked is that the novels, short stories, movies, comics, and artwork of Clive Barker are deeply human in the end. It may be one of his greatest miracles as an artist, this uncanny deftness when it comes to mining through previously unimagined worlds of darkness, misery, magic, and greed until he's reached deep inside of us to reveal things about our inner lives that we might not have had the courage to acknowledge otherwise. Clive simply goes all the way.

So let's begin with the books. Reading a Clive Barker story is an experience like no other. Even his most ardent admirers are wise to pick up a newly published volume with something like trepidation, for his imagination is unlikely to find its boundary this side of the grave. All you really know entering into one of his story-lands is that you're in for an engulfing journey. It will likely have as many frights as wonders, and you'll never see them coming. You know how sometimes the cover art for a novel grabs you by the throat and makes you long for some kind of contact with the world it depicts? If so, you're probably also very familiar with the feeling of disappointment that often sets in when you realize the prose within never quite lives up to the image on the front. It never quite takes you there. Clive's words, on the other hand, go to the image, and beyond. Every time.

The comparison that begs to be made is with Charles Dickens, of all people. Now, I can see your faces twisting up into knots of incredulity. It's very unbecoming, so please relax and allow me to explain myself. Dickens was the better writer of the two (note he's dead, not living; I'm not contradicting myself here), and their approaches couldn't be more different. Yet there's an overflowing of the imagination present in both men's work that can be found in few other literary crannies. Yet neither of them ever fails to contain their richly imagined creations within a compelling narrative—an entertaining story. This would be enough for most readers, and writers, but not for these two. The works of Dickens and Barker aren't content to dazzle. They must also reveal. Dickens did this with painstaking attention to the minutest details of his time. Barker telescopes out and operates on a timeless, mythological scale.

That's not to say Dickens's stories aren't timeless, of course, but they are seldom without deep roots to Victorian London. He employed both the loathsome realities and the charms of his surroundings as a springboard into the universal. Clive, on the other hand, often starts with the larger picture of existence. And I mean starts. Go ahead, pull one of his novels off the shelf and read the opening paragraph. Chances are it kicks off big. Let's use Imajica as an example:

It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course—thousands in fact—but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.

We are instantly transported to the wilds of legend, myth, and most importantly ... story.

There are at least two broad styles of prose adopted in the writing of terrifying fiction, it seems to me. Clive's is possesed of the ornate and thoughtful turn of phrase put to the service of taking his readers on a kind of dream journey. Then there are folks like Dean Koontz, Thomas Harris, and Brian Lumley, whose words hew a bit closer to the bone, perhaps, and lend themselves to a very fleet reading experience. I'm enormously fond of both camps, and numerous variations. It's not only because Clive writes in one way and not another that I'm so drawn to his tales. Nor is it simply the subject matter he tackles that lures me in. There's only one word I can think of for what I'm driving at: genius. And Clive's got it.

I suppose his talent with paints and inks figures into the imaginative detail of his prose as well. Never is he more convincing than when describing a bit of magic or otherworldly nastiness. One need look no further than his disturbing, yet haungtingly beautiful, painting, The Arsonist, to see this familiarity with the impossible at work. There are moments of great intensity in all of Clive's books, too, when it becomes difficult not to wonder if the author has been made privy to something the rest of us only catch glimpses of from the corners of our our eyes or in the shifting shadows of twilight. Moments when we wonder, "Is this man really only pretending to be a magician, or is he perhaps the real McCoy?"

It scarcely matters, in the end. It amounts to the same thing.

Barker, of course, is known for his long, complicated novels like Imajica, The Great and Secret Show, and Galilee, but he's a master of all lengths of fiction. Such short works as "In the Hills, the Cities" and "Haeckel's Tale" will be remembered for ages by lovers of the short tale of terror. And even at the often overlooked novella length he has given us such remarkable gems as The Hellbound Heart and Cabal. And then there's the young-adult fiction to contend with. And the films. And the comics. And the paintings. Clive is respected, both critically and in the court of public opinion, but I wonder if the real depth of his contribution to the popular arts has been weighed and measured yet. If we continue to care about such things as the 21st century tumbles forward, I suspect Mr. Barker's standing might grow rather than diminish over time.

For these reasons, I'm in the minority of Clive Barker fans who never get upset over news of a delay in getting the next book of a series out the door. Yes, I'm dying to find out how he wraps up the Art trilogy, and Abarat has me in a coma of anticipation, but I know these books are worth the wait. I trust their creator. And when he decides it's time for a diversion, as he did when he published Mister B. Gone, the results are always delightful.

So yes, I find Clive to be a deeply human writer, but don't listen for the organ pipes and violins of Dickens. In Clive's fiction, the monstrous is ever present—sometimes contained within the skins of actual monsters, but just as often lurking in the hearts of men. Clive's endings don't tend to be warm or consoling (depending on which characters you identify with most passionately, I suppose), so you do well to hunt down signs of compassion early on, between harsh political observations and cruel condemnations. But it's there, always fueling the engine of hope that carries us to the final page.

And that's as close as I'm likely to get to explaining my enduring attraction to the fictions of Clive Barker. I share every fan's fascination with Clive's treatment of sexuality, feminsim, violence, and other taboos. But it's his ability to make all of these things matter in a fictional context that keeps me traipsing back for more, with salivary eagerness. We've come to expect groundbreaking work to flow from him, yet somehow he avoids repeating himself. I have no idea how he does it. Must be magic.

Before I leave you alone with your own unguided thoughts, let me cough up an anecdote about Clive Barker specifically and about fandom in general. I've been to a number of Clive's signings, and each of them stands out in my mind for different reasons. The meeting that's most germane to the present discussion, however, involved the signing of his mammoth art book, Visions of Heaven and Hell. He wasn't touring for that book, but he's always very generous about signing an extra book or two at these things, so I handed it to him and explained that I had recently enjoyed a very leisurely night with his book of visions, a bottle of Spanish red, and, for just the right atmosphere, Liszt's Faust Symphony (I'll likely go with the vastly superior Dante Symphony next time I settle in for an evening with this tome, but that's neither here nor there). Clive was curious to know more about the recording I owned, because he wasn't familiar with the piece, and he mentioned being interested to know what kind of music people feel goes with his art. He thanked me for the information I was able to give him, and I, in turn, thanked him for the joy he's given me over the years. Then he drew a breathtaking sketch in my book and inscribed it, not with his customary, "Best wishes, Clive Barker," but in the manner, "With love, Clive Barker."

Like anything, fandom can be taken to extremes, but at its heart what is it if not a form of love? You can get to know a writer quite well when you read novel after novel of his. You don't get to know him the way his close friends and family know him, of course, but then they probably don't know him quite the way you do, either. This is why the communication between author and reader is so unique and so special. Clive Barker will continue to enchant countless readers, even after he's no longer around, the way Charles Dickens continues to enchant people like me. But it's only while he's alive that we can hope to make the additional connection of a handshake or a few exchanged phrases. What a privilege. Much as it must have been an immense privilege indeed to partake in the public readings of Dickens.

And that's the take-away message for today, people. So take it away. My work here is done.

A word or two on the subject of cell phone usage, if you'll permit me. I was planning to let go of this, chalk up my attitudes about the techno-teat to early onset curmedgeonliness. But my sounding weight has yet to hit bottom on this issue, so I might as well record a few observations.

First, a ground rule. After this paragraph, I'm not going to so much as touch on the imbecilic act of driving while texting or talking on a cell phone. If you engage in either of these activities, you are no better than a drunk driver, and I hope you're jailed before you kill someone (assuming laws will continue to get tougher on cell drivers).

No, my ambition here is a small one, my scope decidedly narrow. I own a cell phone, after all, and I use it with some regularity. It's really not like I'm completely against these gizmos. I've even sold a science fiction story very heavily reliant on cell phone technology. But ladies and gentlemen, there's a time and a place.

I suppose the demographic most directly in my sites here consists of twenty-somethings. Why? Because it's couples in this age bracket that I see in restaurants and bars when suddenly one or the other of them decides to take a call. Now, think about this for a second. Your first reaction might be that it's somewhat rude. Big deal. But I think it goes a bit deeper than that. I see enough of it to wonder, anyway, what's happening to people's expectations. I mean, if you're willing to continue seeing someone romantically after they demonstrate this kind of disregard for your company, you're willing to put up with a hell of a lot more than I am.

So that's bad enough, but I probably wouldn't have bothered to blog on this topic if I hadn't begun to observe a new wrinkle. Yes, couples actually seem to be taking consensual text breaks now, during which they put down their knives and forks and tune each other out for varying durations in order to keep the text stream from drying up. I'm curious how many weeks these little escape sessions might cost a couple over the years. Is it possible that people are going to grow old together only to discover they don't know each other all that well, thanks to countless hours frittered away on long-forgotten text messages?

Probably not. More likely, our divorce rate will simply continue to climb. Thanks for tuning in. You know where to find me, if you ever need cheering up.