Mister B. Gone
Encyclopedia
Mister B. Gone is a short metafiction
novel by Clive Barker
, published in the United Kingdom and the United States in October 2007..
, telling the reader to "Burn this book!" It is revealed that the narrator is some sort of presence trapped within the novel. The presence understands that the reader isn't going to burn the book without hearing some sort of story, and so it begins to tell its tale.
The narrator reveals himself as a lesser demon named Jakabok Botch, who lived a traumatized childhood in Hell
, especially due to his brutish, physically abusive demon of a father. To prevent himself from losing his mind, Jakabok decides to write violent, hate-filled papers in which he commits torture and patricide. Eventually, his mother comes across these papers, and confronts Jakabok, telling him that she wishes he was never born. She commands that he burn the papers immediately, and Jakabok reluctantly obeys.
While watching the papers burn, Jakabok passes out and lands face down in the fire. His father either fails to notice or simply ignores his son's anguish, choosing to beat his mother instead. Jakabok is later dragged from the flames by his father, severely burnt and disfigured. Fearing further abuse, Jakabok seizes a knife and flees, eventually coming across a peculiar sight: raw steak and beer, hanging as though it is on a fishing wire. The sight causes Jakabok's pursuing father to forget about inflicting pain on his son, approaching the free meal. It is revealed that the steak and beer is hanging from fishing wire, and Jakabok and his father are caught in the trap. They are "reeled" out of Hell. While ascending, Jakabok's father threatens and curses his son as Jakabok starts cutting away at his father's net, attempting to make it so his father, Pappy Gatmuss, will fall to his death (for if Gatmuss and Jakabok is brought to wherever it is they are being dragged, Gatmuss will kill Jakabok for sure.) Seeing Jakabok attempt to kill him, Gatmuss tries to play for sympathy, lying about his love for his son in order to gain pity. As they breach the first circle of hell, they see the crack they are being dragged into, which causes Gatmuss to panic and become hysteric (he seems to fear the light.) He struggles in his nets, which causes the already weakened ropes to snap, and Jakabok's father fatally falls back into Hell while Jakabok is dragged into the realm of the living.
Emerging, Jakabok finds himself in the 14th century, under the captivity of a corrupt priest and his partners. They begin to "judge Jakabok's worth", when he decides to run off into the forest. He approaches a young girl - one of the partners' daughters - in the midst of unholy ground, which is covered in demonic gore. He instantly falls in love, and asks if she would like to run off with him. She defies him, and so he smacks her face into the burning cauldron which she is working by. The priests' partners, who had been chasing him, see the girl and are distracted as Jakabok runs off.
Jakabok then encounters a naked couple in the grass. Jakabok is forced to kill the hostile male counterpart, taking his clothes. He wanders into a crowd trying to blend in as a peasant, but his inhuman feet give his disguise away. As the crowd approaches to massacre him, a pair of soldiers decide to take him away to be judged by an Archbishop. While being escorted away, one of the men kills the other. After horrendously slaughtering the crowd, the man reveals himself to Jakabok - now referred to as "Mister B." - as a powerful demon known as Quitoon.
Quitoon and Mister B. head off, and for the next one hundred years cause a great deal of calamity in the countryside. Eventually, the two find themselves in disagreement of each other, and separate after Quitoon threatens Jakabok. Jakabok takes refuge in the German town of Mainz
, where he believes Quitoon has headed to, in order to reconcile his differences.
He stumbles across Johannes Gutenberg and his company - including the Archbishop
and Quitoon - who claims to possess a secret so powerful that it could rock the foundations of even Heaven and Hell. The secret turns out to be the first printing press
, over which a large battle soon erupts between the celestial and the infernal. Gutenberg's wife is revealed to be an angel. Jakabok is wounded and passes out. When he comes to, he discovers the conflict has ended.
Jakabok enters a room in which he sees the angels and demons conversing over the secret, where the Archbishop reveals himself to be a demon. They spot Jakabok, and argue over how to keep him silent about the secret. Instead of destroying him, they turn his very essence into words, and embed him onto paper.
At this point, Jakabok - after several persuading attempts throughout the story - threatens the reader one final time to burn the book and set him free. After realizing that the reader is heartless and cold, he gives up on asking. He decides to stop telling the story, and instead chooses to wait for another person to open the book and obey his demands to set the book ablaze. After all, he concludes, "words know how to wait."
: "It's also about a demon, it's just a very different kind of book. It's in the first person; I’m writing in the voice of Jakabok. Jakabok is 'a minor divil’ he calls himself, but he's actually a vicious little bastard and he's talking to us and giving us the inside skinny on what it is to be a demon."
Clive Barker
: "The book works: it scares the bejesus out of people but it also entertains people and, I mean, you’re in the company of this individual who is really the dark half of me and, you know, it's not a coincidence that I chose ‘B’ for his second name…
"This guy Botch is an egotist, all he wants to say is ‘I suffer and now I’m going to tell you how I suffer and you’re going to get me out of my suffering or pay the price’...
"This guy is horribly, physically disfigured, I won’t give you the circumstances of how. There isn’t much of his conventional devilry left because, well, he's been in a very bad fire and I won’t go any further than that, but it does leave him, you know, we’re not talking about a sleek, slick demon here, we’re talking about someone who could pass among human beings though he would pass shunned: the way we would cross the road (I’m not saying we would… well, we might...) if he came towards us and his face had been burned off and he looked like he might have once been human, we’d certainly be a little anxious around him. And Botch passes for human because he's burned…."
Clive Barker
: " I mean, this book, "Mister B. Gone", this book suggests that the novel you have in your hand, literally this thing in your hand, is possessed. The book you've got. The voice out of this book will address you directly for the full length of the book. It's a 70,000 word book and not for one moment are you not aware that this thing is reading the sweat marks you're leaving on the page and analyzing their content to see how scared you are or how best to work you. And nor does he even attempt to—it's a demon—nor does it even attempt to dissuade you that it's doing so. It says "If I really want to, I could make you hate yourself and with this book turn you all bloody." My editor, actually, having read the first few pages went to St. Patrick's, said a few prayers, then went back to read the rest. I thought, "I must be doing something right." [Laughs.]"
Metafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
novel by Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
, published in the United Kingdom and the United States in October 2007..
Plot summary
The story begins by immediately breaking the fourth wallFourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
, telling the reader to "Burn this book!" It is revealed that the narrator is some sort of presence trapped within the novel. The presence understands that the reader isn't going to burn the book without hearing some sort of story, and so it begins to tell its tale.
The narrator reveals himself as a lesser demon named Jakabok Botch, who lived a traumatized childhood in Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, especially due to his brutish, physically abusive demon of a father. To prevent himself from losing his mind, Jakabok decides to write violent, hate-filled papers in which he commits torture and patricide. Eventually, his mother comes across these papers, and confronts Jakabok, telling him that she wishes he was never born. She commands that he burn the papers immediately, and Jakabok reluctantly obeys.
While watching the papers burn, Jakabok passes out and lands face down in the fire. His father either fails to notice or simply ignores his son's anguish, choosing to beat his mother instead. Jakabok is later dragged from the flames by his father, severely burnt and disfigured. Fearing further abuse, Jakabok seizes a knife and flees, eventually coming across a peculiar sight: raw steak and beer, hanging as though it is on a fishing wire. The sight causes Jakabok's pursuing father to forget about inflicting pain on his son, approaching the free meal. It is revealed that the steak and beer is hanging from fishing wire, and Jakabok and his father are caught in the trap. They are "reeled" out of Hell. While ascending, Jakabok's father threatens and curses his son as Jakabok starts cutting away at his father's net, attempting to make it so his father, Pappy Gatmuss, will fall to his death (for if Gatmuss and Jakabok is brought to wherever it is they are being dragged, Gatmuss will kill Jakabok for sure.) Seeing Jakabok attempt to kill him, Gatmuss tries to play for sympathy, lying about his love for his son in order to gain pity. As they breach the first circle of hell, they see the crack they are being dragged into, which causes Gatmuss to panic and become hysteric (he seems to fear the light.) He struggles in his nets, which causes the already weakened ropes to snap, and Jakabok's father fatally falls back into Hell while Jakabok is dragged into the realm of the living.
Emerging, Jakabok finds himself in the 14th century, under the captivity of a corrupt priest and his partners. They begin to "judge Jakabok's worth", when he decides to run off into the forest. He approaches a young girl - one of the partners' daughters - in the midst of unholy ground, which is covered in demonic gore. He instantly falls in love, and asks if she would like to run off with him. She defies him, and so he smacks her face into the burning cauldron which she is working by. The priests' partners, who had been chasing him, see the girl and are distracted as Jakabok runs off.
Jakabok then encounters a naked couple in the grass. Jakabok is forced to kill the hostile male counterpart, taking his clothes. He wanders into a crowd trying to blend in as a peasant, but his inhuman feet give his disguise away. As the crowd approaches to massacre him, a pair of soldiers decide to take him away to be judged by an Archbishop. While being escorted away, one of the men kills the other. After horrendously slaughtering the crowd, the man reveals himself to Jakabok - now referred to as "Mister B." - as a powerful demon known as Quitoon.
Quitoon and Mister B. head off, and for the next one hundred years cause a great deal of calamity in the countryside. Eventually, the two find themselves in disagreement of each other, and separate after Quitoon threatens Jakabok. Jakabok takes refuge in the German town of Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
, where he believes Quitoon has headed to, in order to reconcile his differences.
He stumbles across Johannes Gutenberg and his company - including the Archbishop
Archbishop
An archbishop is a bishop of higher rank, but not of higher sacramental order above that of the three orders of deacon, priest , and bishop...
and Quitoon - who claims to possess a secret so powerful that it could rock the foundations of even Heaven and Hell. The secret turns out to be the first printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
, over which a large battle soon erupts between the celestial and the infernal. Gutenberg's wife is revealed to be an angel. Jakabok is wounded and passes out. When he comes to, he discovers the conflict has ended.
Jakabok enters a room in which he sees the angels and demons conversing over the secret, where the Archbishop reveals himself to be a demon. They spot Jakabok, and argue over how to keep him silent about the secret. Instead of destroying him, they turn his very essence into words, and embed him onto paper.
At this point, Jakabok - after several persuading attempts throughout the story - threatens the reader one final time to burn the book and set him free. After realizing that the reader is heartless and cold, he gives up on asking. He decides to stop telling the story, and instead chooses to wait for another person to open the book and obey his demands to set the book ablaze. After all, he concludes, "words know how to wait."
Quotes from the author
Clive BarkerClive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
: "It's also about a demon, it's just a very different kind of book. It's in the first person; I’m writing in the voice of Jakabok. Jakabok is 'a minor divil’ he calls himself, but he's actually a vicious little bastard and he's talking to us and giving us the inside skinny on what it is to be a demon."
Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
: "The book works: it scares the bejesus out of people but it also entertains people and, I mean, you’re in the company of this individual who is really the dark half of me and, you know, it's not a coincidence that I chose ‘B’ for his second name…
"This guy Botch is an egotist, all he wants to say is ‘I suffer and now I’m going to tell you how I suffer and you’re going to get me out of my suffering or pay the price’...
"This guy is horribly, physically disfigured, I won’t give you the circumstances of how. There isn’t much of his conventional devilry left because, well, he's been in a very bad fire and I won’t go any further than that, but it does leave him, you know, we’re not talking about a sleek, slick demon here, we’re talking about someone who could pass among human beings though he would pass shunned: the way we would cross the road (I’m not saying we would… well, we might...) if he came towards us and his face had been burned off and he looked like he might have once been human, we’d certainly be a little anxious around him. And Botch passes for human because he's burned…."
Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
: " I mean, this book, "Mister B. Gone", this book suggests that the novel you have in your hand, literally this thing in your hand, is possessed. The book you've got. The voice out of this book will address you directly for the full length of the book. It's a 70,000 word book and not for one moment are you not aware that this thing is reading the sweat marks you're leaving on the page and analyzing their content to see how scared you are or how best to work you. And nor does he even attempt to—it's a demon—nor does it even attempt to dissuade you that it's doing so. It says "If I really want to, I could make you hate yourself and with this book turn you all bloody." My editor, actually, having read the first few pages went to St. Patrick's, said a few prayers, then went back to read the rest. I thought, "I must be doing something right." [Laughs.]"
External links
- Revelations - The Official Clive Barker Online Resource - Includes a full bibliography, filmography and frequently updated news.