Bibliomusings: Abarat--Clive Barker

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Abarat--Clive Barker

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Year Published: 2002
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of all the young adult books I read this year, this one was by far my favorite. Barker has created an amazing world, with unimaginable creatures both good and evil, with roots in both mythology and modern fantasy. I was surprised both by the depth and clarity of the characters and the quality of the writing. The protagonist, Candy, is unsatisfied with her lonely, nondescript life in Chickentown Minnesota, when a sea rolls into the outskirts of her town and she finds herself sailing away to the islands of Abarat, which are arranged to reflect the hours of the day and include a 25th island of timelessness. Candy finds herself launched into a harrowing adventure, and begins to realize that she is somehow more than what she believed before arriving there. The world is described in detail in the appendix via an almanac created by one of the characters, which in itself is worth reading.

The only problem with this book is that it ends abruptly. I am looking forward to reading the sequel: Abarat--Days of Magic, Nights of War.

I just have to mention one of the coolest things about this book--on the cover, the title reads exactly the same upside-down as right-side up! How cool is that?

Challenges: Young Adult, Naming Conventions, States (MN)
Book-a-Week # 64
Date Read: 12/21/2008

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Great Quotes

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." (Atticus, To Kill a Mockingbird; Harper Lee)

"But maybe the last part of the symphony was the music she loved the best--glad and like the greatest people in the world running and springing up in a hard, free way. Wonderful music like this was the worst hurt there could be. The whole world was this symphony, and there was not enough of her to listen." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)

"Dark of the invisible moon. The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp." (The Road; Cormac McCarthy)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe; Douglas Adams)

"I ought not to have listened to her," he confided to me one day. "One never ought to listen to the flowers. One should simply look at them and breathe their fragrance. Mine perfumed all my planet. But I did not know how to take pleasure in all her grace. This tale of claws, which disturbed me so much, should only have filled my heart with tenderness and pity."

And he continued his confidences: "The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little strategems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her..." (The Little Prince; Anton de Saint-Exupery)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. (Betting on the Muse; Charles Bukowski)

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. (Tom Robbins)

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. (The Prophet; Kahlil Gibran)

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. (C.S. Lewis)

"For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labor and of those who--one word--love." (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers)