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The great and secret show book5/29/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There Jaffe, intercepting countless missives from all over the country, becomes privy to something The Art. It begins in riveting fashion with Jaffe, a dissatisfied man harboring grandiose ambitions sent to work in the dead letters office of Omaha, Nebraska, effectively the center of the United States. Those books may have been expansive, but they were also concise, something THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW isn’t. THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW is the most monumental of Clive Barker’s early (pre-1990) novels but also the most cluttered, lacking the leanness of THE DAMNATION GAME and WEAVEWORLD. ![]() That seriously wonky title adequately encapsulates this horror/fantasy epic’s charms, and its shortcomings as well. His imagination is also as fertile as ever, even though THE GREAT AND SECRET SHOW contains many overly familiar elements from Barker’s fiction: young lovers in danger, obsessive madmen and an alternate universe filled with a plethora of marvels and horrors (all of which are present in THE DAMNATION GAME, WEAVEWORLD, IMAGICA and this novel’s 1994 sequel EVERVILLE). The 650-page GREAT AND SECRET SHOW is enlivened by Clive Barker’s smooth, erudite prose, which as always is a joy to read. Definitely an interesting and unique novel, but a complete success? No. ![]()
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