Weaveworld
Encyclopedia
Weaveworld is a novel by Clive Barker
. It was published in 1987 and could be categorized as dark fantasy
. It deals with a parallel world
, like many of Barker's novels, and contains many horror
elements.
It was nominated in 1988 for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
.
and facing the ultimate battle against the resurrected Scourge.
and caring for his father until he encounters the mysterious rug that instantly strikes him as something peculiar. Cal becomes entangled in a magical adventure while also realising his feelings for his companion Suzanna Parish.
Suzanna Parish: A young woman who pays a visit to her dying grandmother, Mimi Laschenski, and is given clues to her family's secret past. Suzanna carries both Seerkind and Cuckoo blood in her veins. After accidentally obtaining the menstruum by Immacolata, she becomes almost as powerful as her and proves her battle skills later on in the book, trying to save the Fugue.
Immacolata
: A cold, ruthless sorceress
, who was exiled by her own race for practising evil magic
and desiring too much power. A woman of tremendous dark abilities, she seeks the rug with the purpose of destroying it and ultimately unmaking her kind.
Shadwell aka the Salesman: a greedy man, whose speciality is his talent to convince others to buy anything he chooses to sell. Shadwell has been given a gift by his accomplice, Immacolata; a jacket with a glittering lining which is able to hypnotise and persuade anybody to do his bidding by granting them a wish. He gradually becomes more and more confident and finally decides to seize the power of the Fugue for himself.
The Scourge: a catastrophic, ancient power of unknown origin. It slew the Seerkind by hundreds in the old times until they decided to prevent this genocide
by hiding their world within the rug. After decades of hibernation, the Scourge is awoken in the desert by an eager Shadwell, who wishes to see the Seerkind thoroughly slaughtered. Persuaded by Shadwell, the Scourge then views itself as a form of avenging angel
, identifying itself with Uriel
.
The Hag: one of Immacolata's triplet sisters, whom she strangled while all three were in the womb. The Hag survived as the ghostly presence of a gruesome old woman, always accompanying her sister and helping her when necessary. She can divine knowledge by examining the afterbirth produced by her prolific and likewise ghostly sister.
The Magdalene: Immacolata's other triplet sister who also survives after her prenatal death as ectoplasm
. She frequently rapes defenceless men and gives birth to brutally deformed abominations (called by-blows) within hours of their conception.
Jerichau St. Louis: one of the Seerkind who is among the first five to be unleashed from the rug. He later becomes Suzanna's friend and companion, choosing not to return to the weave.
Hobart: a cruel and deranged police inspector whom Shadwell manipulates in order to capture Suzanna and Jerichau. He is later possessed by the Scourge.
Nimrod: another one of the first five Seerkind to be unleashed from the carpet after Cal tears off a piece of it. He is a shape-shifter
, initially trapped in the form of the infant which he used to escape from a jilted husband whose wife he had seduced.
Mimi Laschenski: Suzanna's grandmother, the guardian of the rug. At the time Immacolata tracks her down, she is too old and weak to use an effective magical trick and willingly dies in order to prevent herself from disclosing any secrets, under Immacolata's pressure.
, for instance: the Shelob
, the giant spiders, the orcs and Sauron
. When you set up battles between good and evil, monsters are bound to rear their heads. I don't think Weaveworld is in the same territory as Rings
- from page 1 the latter is obviously set in another world; Weaveworld intends something which is closer to the kind of collision of the real and the fantastical which occurs in the pages of J. M. Barrie
's Peter Pan
or in the prophetic pages of William Blake
. Tolkien
is completely uninspirational to me, which isn't to say that I don't enjoy his books. I didn't pick up Lord of the Rings
and say, well I'd like to do a fantasy. In my work there's a really strong reality base even in the fantastical stuff. You do get the impression in Weaveworld that the Seerkind fornicate, fart - they're very far from pure. That makes them more entertaining and obscures the artificial division between the morally pure and the heroic on one side, and the completely damned, blasphemous and unholy on the other..." (Clive Barker in the Flesh by Dave Hughes, Skeleton Crew, III/IV, 1988)
. The series were written by Erik Saltzgaber and pencilled by Mike Manley. Clive Barker served as consultant.
completed a first draft of a script for an eight-hour miniseries in 1995. Smith was later asked to write a complete script, but the project has fallen into hiatus and he is no longer involved. In 2001, Barker stated in an interview that a Showtime six-hour mini-series was about to enter a two-year preproduction stage, directed by Queer as Folk director Russell Mulcahy
, probably shot in Australia
. Barker announced that shooting was slated to start in 2003, with Stephen Molton as the screenwriter. In 2005, Barker stated that "finally, finally, finally!" the book had been adapted into a mini-series. In 2006, Barker again claimed that the mini-series adaptation was about to enter production.
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...
. It was published in 1987 and could be categorized as dark fantasy
Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...
. It deals with a parallel world
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
, like many of Barker's novels, and contains many horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
elements.
It was nominated in 1988 for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
This World Fantasy Award is given to the fantasy novel or novels voted best by a panel of judges, and presented each year at the World Fantasy Convention.-1975:...
.
Plot summary
The novel revolves around the world of the Fugue, a magical world which lies woven within a rug. Many decades ago the Seerkind (creatures of magical abilities) decided to hide themselves through a spell or "Rapture" in a safe haven after being hunted down and eradicated by humans for centuries (with humans most commonly depicting them as demons and fairies in their mythological tales) as well as being decimated by a destructive being known as The Scourge. This creature's form is entirely unknown to the Seerkind, given that none of those assaulted by the Scourge survived to describe it. The Seerkind collect a number of beautiful places, hills, meadows and mountains, alongside their belongings and themselves and undergo a spell which encloses all of them in a rug. They also leave the wife of one of their kind, a non-seerkind woman named Mimi Laschenski, outside in the human world with the purpose of keeping and guarding the rug and also unleashing the world of the Fugue someday when the world had become a safe place for them. Eight decades later, a sudden interest emerges for the rug at the time an elderly Mimi (having recently gone through a stroke in her old age) expires: Calhoun Mooney, an ordinary young man, accidentally comes into contact with the rug and realises its magical nature; Suzanna Parish, Mimi's granddaughter is given clues to the rug's existence from her grandmother (who can no longer speak since the stroke) and moves to uncover its secrets; Immacolata, exiled by the Seerkind into the human world, wants to find the rug and destroy her race. Cal and Suzanna join forces against Immacolata, her dead sisters and a greedy human known as Shadwell. The second part of the book develops within the world of Fugue, unleashed from within the rug, and deals with the struggle of characters for the control of this world. The third part sees the Fugue destroyed, with the surviving Seerkind, Cal and Suzanna hiding in the forests of ScotlandScotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
and facing the ultimate battle against the resurrected Scourge.
Characters in "Weaveworld"
Calhoun "Cal" Mooney: A bored young man whose life alternates between his job at an insurance company in LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and caring for his father until he encounters the mysterious rug that instantly strikes him as something peculiar. Cal becomes entangled in a magical adventure while also realising his feelings for his companion Suzanna Parish.
Suzanna Parish: A young woman who pays a visit to her dying grandmother, Mimi Laschenski, and is given clues to her family's secret past. Suzanna carries both Seerkind and Cuckoo blood in her veins. After accidentally obtaining the menstruum by Immacolata, she becomes almost as powerful as her and proves her battle skills later on in the book, trying to save the Fugue.
Immacolata
Immacolata
Immacolata aka the Incantatrix aka The Witch is a fictional character, created by Clive Barker and featured in his 1987 epic fantasy novel Weaveworld. One of the main villains in the book, she is an immensely powerful witch, her main goal being the destruction of the race she comes from, the...
: A cold, ruthless sorceress
Magician (fantasy)
A magician, mage, sorcerer, sorceress, wizard, enchanter, enchantress, thaumaturge or a person known under one of many other possible terms is someone who uses or practices magic that derives from supernatural or occult sources...
, who was exiled by her own race for practising evil magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
and desiring too much power. A woman of tremendous dark abilities, she seeks the rug with the purpose of destroying it and ultimately unmaking her kind.
Shadwell aka the Salesman: a greedy man, whose speciality is his talent to convince others to buy anything he chooses to sell. Shadwell has been given a gift by his accomplice, Immacolata; a jacket with a glittering lining which is able to hypnotise and persuade anybody to do his bidding by granting them a wish. He gradually becomes more and more confident and finally decides to seize the power of the Fugue for himself.
The Scourge: a catastrophic, ancient power of unknown origin. It slew the Seerkind by hundreds in the old times until they decided to prevent this genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
by hiding their world within the rug. After decades of hibernation, the Scourge is awoken in the desert by an eager Shadwell, who wishes to see the Seerkind thoroughly slaughtered. Persuaded by Shadwell, the Scourge then views itself as a form of avenging angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
, identifying itself with Uriel
Uriel
Uriel is one of the archangels of post-Exilic Rabbinic tradition, and also of certain Christian traditions...
.
The Hag: one of Immacolata's triplet sisters, whom she strangled while all three were in the womb. The Hag survived as the ghostly presence of a gruesome old woman, always accompanying her sister and helping her when necessary. She can divine knowledge by examining the afterbirth produced by her prolific and likewise ghostly sister.
The Magdalene: Immacolata's other triplet sister who also survives after her prenatal death as ectoplasm
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
. She frequently rapes defenceless men and gives birth to brutally deformed abominations (called by-blows) within hours of their conception.
Jerichau St. Louis: one of the Seerkind who is among the first five to be unleashed from the rug. He later becomes Suzanna's friend and companion, choosing not to return to the weave.
Hobart: a cruel and deranged police inspector whom Shadwell manipulates in order to capture Suzanna and Jerichau. He is later possessed by the Scourge.
Nimrod: another one of the first five Seerkind to be unleashed from the carpet after Cal tears off a piece of it. He is a shape-shifter
Shapeshifting
Shapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
, initially trapped in the form of the infant which he used to escape from a jilted husband whose wife he had seduced.
Mimi Laschenski: Suzanna's grandmother, the guardian of the rug. At the time Immacolata tracks her down, she is too old and weak to use an effective magical trick and willingly dies in order to prevent herself from disclosing any secrets, under Immacolata's pressure.
Barker on Weaveworld
Quotes by Clive Barker on the novel :On the nature of the novel
"...It's not a splatter book, it's not visceral. What it is disturbing in places: I think Immacolata, the Magdalene and the Hag are very disturbing creatures. And let's also remember that fantasy fiction has its share of monsters - there are lots of monsters slavering and slobbering their way through The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
, for instance: the Shelob
Shelob
Shelob is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume , of The Lord of the Rings.-Literature:...
, the giant spiders, the orcs and Sauron
Sauron
Sauron is the primary antagonist and titular character of the epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.In the same work, he is revealed to be the same character as "the Necromancer" from Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit...
. When you set up battles between good and evil, monsters are bound to rear their heads. I don't think Weaveworld is in the same territory as Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
- from page 1 the latter is obviously set in another world; Weaveworld intends something which is closer to the kind of collision of the real and the fantastical which occurs in the pages of J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's Peter Pan
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a character created by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie . A mischievous boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up, Peter Pan spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the small island of Neverland as the leader of his gang the Lost Boys, interacting with...
or in the prophetic pages of William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
is completely uninspirational to me, which isn't to say that I don't enjoy his books. I didn't pick up Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
and say, well I'd like to do a fantasy. In my work there's a really strong reality base even in the fantastical stuff. You do get the impression in Weaveworld that the Seerkind fornicate, fart - they're very far from pure. That makes them more entertaining and obscures the artificial division between the morally pure and the heroic on one side, and the completely damned, blasphemous and unholy on the other..." (Clive Barker in the Flesh by Dave Hughes, Skeleton Crew, III/IV, 1988)
On the eroticism of the novel
"...[...] there are scenes of great depravity and darkness, and it's also a sexual world: a lot of fantasy is de-sexualised. It may be part and parcel of the origins of fantasy, I don't know: there's a lot of romance but remarkably little sex. [...] And obviously the horror fiction is very sexual: I write highly eroticised horror fiction. [..] fantasy [...] is [...] a genre which is full of phallic swords and that kind of thing, it's important to establish female power and female potency, and the eroticism which comes with that. And it needn't all be 'goody-goody' stuff, I mean Immacolata particularly; she's kind of sexy, yet dangerous at the same time. And yet a virgin, which makes her all the more sexier of course. One of my favourite scenes in Weaveworld is when Jerichau makes love with Suzanna, in which his words become poems, which is a kind of image of eroticism which is potent I hope in part because it is anti-chauvinist. Because here is a man who is very vulnerable and very much in love. And of course Cal is very much in love with Suzanna, but it's a non-sexual love, under those circumstances... She has so much power in the book. She's the one who makes the plot turn 90 degrees in places…I love the Venus Mountain sequences because they are very sexual, and yet they are very erotic in a curious kind of way. But also they're absolutely such strange sequences."Religious aspects
The novel contains several religious references, particularly in the form of character names:- Immacolata's name is a reference to an epithet of Virgin Mary, in association to the Immaculate ConceptionImmaculate ConceptionThe Immaculate Conception of Mary is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, according to which the Virgin Mary was conceived without any stain of original sin. It is one of the four dogmata in Roman Catholic Mariology...
, a central belief of Roman Catholic ChurchRoman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
. Immacolata is often described by Barker as a perverse version of Virgin Mary. She persists on her "virtue" by keeping her virginity. She is also called in the novel by the alias Black Madonna. - One of Immacolata's ghost-sisters is named "the Magdalene". The Magdalene is a lusty, nymphomaniac ectoplasm. Her namesake denotes a contrast to the "chastity" her sister's name declares, by having a vague association with Mary MagdaleneMary MagdaleneMary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
, disciple of ChristChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
. Mary MagdaleneMary MagdaleneMary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
has often been erroneously identified with a nameless woman sinner (a prostitute) whom ChristChristChrist is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
saved from an angry crowd, as chronicled in the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. - The Scourge is a being of unknown origin, whose mission was to guard a garden, wherein the Seerkind were born and remained captives, until their escape. Immacolata mentions that different religions have called the garden different names, including ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
which has acknowledged the fabled garden as the Garden of EdenGarden of EdenThe Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
. - The Scourge presents itself to Shadwell as if it is the incarnation of the angel UrielUrielUriel is one of the archangels of post-Exilic Rabbinic tradition, and also of certain Christian traditions...
, with the mission to punish the Seerkind due to their escape from the Garden of Eden.
"The Scourge rose from its throne of sand, and in an instant it grew blindingly bright. Shadwell covered his eyes, but the light shone through flesh and bone, and into his head, where the Scourge was pronouncing its eternal name. I am called Uriel, it said. Uriel, of the principalities."
- Jerichau's name is a reference to JerichoJerichoJericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...
, the city of IsraelIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
that is mentioned in the BibleBibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. - Nimrod's name is a reference to the evil Mesopotamian king, NimrodNimrod (king)Nimrod is, according to the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles, the son of Cush and great-grandson of Noah and the king of Shinar. He is depicted in the Tanakh as a man of power in the earth, and a mighty hunter. Extra-Biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his...
, who built the city of BabelBabylonBabylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
.
Comic book adaptation
Weaveworld was made into a three-issue comic series in 1991 by Epic ComicsEpic Comics
Epic Comics was a creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics started in 1982, lasting through the mid-1990s, and being briefly revived on a small scale in the mid-2000s.- Origins :...
. The series were written by Erik Saltzgaber and pencilled by Mike Manley. Clive Barker served as consultant.
Mini-series adaptation
A possible film or television adaptation of the novel has often been deemed problematic, mainly due to the epic scope of the book which demands an extensive use of special effects, many costumes and scenery and a potentially huge script. It has frequently been rumoured that the novel would be adapted into a mini-series. Such rumours have spread throughout the years, since Showtime obtained the legal rights for a mini-series in 1996 but so far, despite the occasional rumours, no project has come to fruition. Novelist and screenwriter Michael Marshall SmithMichael Marshall Smith
Michael Marshall Smith is a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer who also writes as Michael Marshall.-Biography:...
completed a first draft of a script for an eight-hour miniseries in 1995. Smith was later asked to write a complete script, but the project has fallen into hiatus and he is no longer involved. In 2001, Barker stated in an interview that a Showtime six-hour mini-series was about to enter a two-year preproduction stage, directed by Queer as Folk director Russell Mulcahy
Russell Mulcahy
Russell Mulcahy is an Australian film director. His work is easily recognized by his use of fast cuts, tracking shots and use of glowing lights.- Music videos :...
, probably shot in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Barker announced that shooting was slated to start in 2003, with Stephen Molton as the screenwriter. In 2005, Barker stated that "finally, finally, finally!" the book had been adapted into a mini-series. In 2006, Barker again claimed that the mini-series adaptation was about to enter production.
External links
- October 2007 is the 20th Anniversary of Weaveworld Archived information and illustration from Revelations - The Official Clive Barker Resource.