The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling Circus by Clive Barker, David Niall Wilson, Richard A. Kirk
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throughout the years and ages we have created our gods in our own. We personify them; we give them feelings and emotions and flaws that make them believable and give us points of reference that prevent the loss of our sanity.
In his novel Coldheart Canyon , Barker peeled back Hollywood’s glittering skin to show us what we’ve known all along—that there is decadence flowing just beneath the surface. We know things are different there, but it’s another world, so that makes it something we can justify and tolerate. It’s not our world, it’s one just off to the left. We get bits and pieces from tabloids and sensational journalists, but beneath it all, we believe there is more. There has to be magic there—how else could normal men and women transform strips of celluloid into moving fantasies? How else could worlds that don’t exist come to life?
Barker shows us how, but again he grounds us in the familiar. He starts with a very real story about an aging actor, fighting entropy and drawn into plastic surgery that is supposed to return his withering magic. As the story unfolds, Barker expands the circle. We discover a house, also old and fading. We find that there is a woman clinging desperately to a horrifying version of youth and beauty. As the ghosts and the magic beneath that mansion draw the protagonist in, we follow in his footsteps, amazed, horrified, and absolutely captivated by the world he inhabits. What starts as a path angling slightly off from our own slowly widens the gap as you follow it, only to bend back toward true near the end. Again and again we experience visions and wonders that seem too perfect—too precious to release—and each time we see those wonders crumble to reveal their inner truth.
It may seem that I have strayed off point, so let me begin to wind this back toward Maximillian Bacchus. The book you hold in your hands and have likely just finished reading is a work of magic. It’s not the polished spell that binds readers to Coldheart Canyon , or the heart-wrenching, powerful thing that Galilee represents, but it cannot be taken lightly.
Maximillian Bacchus holds court over a group of fantastical performers such as the world has never known. That is how it seems at first glance. Then you read the words, and the names. You feel the threads of mythology and religion weave themselves into the fabric of the story and it happens. Things shift. A character that is essentially an Egyptian crocodile named Malachi who name drops Egyptian royalty from the annals of history becomes believable. Characters named Ophelia and Hero are not jarring. You take for granted the trip to Coleridge’s Xanadu, and the arrival at the fabled pleasure dome. It is not difficult to imagine Bacchus’ enemies shanghaied by pirates, or a chasm where, when one is dragged over the cliff and ceases to exist, or how the juggler escapes it. A boy with the sun shining from his eyes seems perfectly normal in the person of an apple thief and traveler. The names appear in a long string, and as they pass by your mind’s eye, they fling lines into your memory and drag out ghosts from old literature classes and films about mythology.
These stories take you away from our world and lead you down a trail peopled with slightly off-center versions of fables, deities, and ancient powers that itch at your thoughts and taunt you with images that might be memories, or lessons learned in childhood, or something from an article in a long lost magazine—but are not. The thing that it is easiest to forget is that these stories of Maximillian Bacchus aren’t the work of a seasoned veteran. They are the first, tentative efforts of an amazing talent coming into its own. They stand against the work of the tricksters and the shysters effortlessly. They are alive with the hint of something wonderful, something amazing that can’t quite be defined or explained.
I came away from The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling
In his novel Coldheart Canyon , Barker peeled back Hollywood’s glittering skin to show us what we’ve known all along—that there is decadence flowing just beneath the surface. We know things are different there, but it’s another world, so that makes it something we can justify and tolerate. It’s not our world, it’s one just off to the left. We get bits and pieces from tabloids and sensational journalists, but beneath it all, we believe there is more. There has to be magic there—how else could normal men and women transform strips of celluloid into moving fantasies? How else could worlds that don’t exist come to life?
Barker shows us how, but again he grounds us in the familiar. He starts with a very real story about an aging actor, fighting entropy and drawn into plastic surgery that is supposed to return his withering magic. As the story unfolds, Barker expands the circle. We discover a house, also old and fading. We find that there is a woman clinging desperately to a horrifying version of youth and beauty. As the ghosts and the magic beneath that mansion draw the protagonist in, we follow in his footsteps, amazed, horrified, and absolutely captivated by the world he inhabits. What starts as a path angling slightly off from our own slowly widens the gap as you follow it, only to bend back toward true near the end. Again and again we experience visions and wonders that seem too perfect—too precious to release—and each time we see those wonders crumble to reveal their inner truth.
It may seem that I have strayed off point, so let me begin to wind this back toward Maximillian Bacchus. The book you hold in your hands and have likely just finished reading is a work of magic. It’s not the polished spell that binds readers to Coldheart Canyon , or the heart-wrenching, powerful thing that Galilee represents, but it cannot be taken lightly.
Maximillian Bacchus holds court over a group of fantastical performers such as the world has never known. That is how it seems at first glance. Then you read the words, and the names. You feel the threads of mythology and religion weave themselves into the fabric of the story and it happens. Things shift. A character that is essentially an Egyptian crocodile named Malachi who name drops Egyptian royalty from the annals of history becomes believable. Characters named Ophelia and Hero are not jarring. You take for granted the trip to Coleridge’s Xanadu, and the arrival at the fabled pleasure dome. It is not difficult to imagine Bacchus’ enemies shanghaied by pirates, or a chasm where, when one is dragged over the cliff and ceases to exist, or how the juggler escapes it. A boy with the sun shining from his eyes seems perfectly normal in the person of an apple thief and traveler. The names appear in a long string, and as they pass by your mind’s eye, they fling lines into your memory and drag out ghosts from old literature classes and films about mythology.
These stories take you away from our world and lead you down a trail peopled with slightly off-center versions of fables, deities, and ancient powers that itch at your thoughts and taunt you with images that might be memories, or lessons learned in childhood, or something from an article in a long lost magazine—but are not. The thing that it is easiest to forget is that these stories of Maximillian Bacchus aren’t the work of a seasoned veteran. They are the first, tentative efforts of an amazing talent coming into its own. They stand against the work of the tricksters and the shysters effortlessly. They are alive with the hint of something wonderful, something amazing that can’t quite be defined or explained.
I came away from The Adventures of Mr. Maximillian Bacchus and His Travelling
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