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. Clive Barker (born October 5, 1952) is an English author, film director and visual artist. ... Dark fantasy has yet to be solidly connected to its own particular subgenre of Fantasy. ... Parallel universe or alternate reality in science fiction and fantasy is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with our own. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ...

It was nominated in 1988 for the 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. ...

Cover of 2001 edition of Weaveworld

Image File history File links Weaveworld2001. ... Image File history File links Weaveworld2001. ...

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 some spell, 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, whose form is entirely unknown to the Seerkind, given that none of them 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 one of their race, a Seerkind woman named Mimi Lasenski, outside, in the human world (the Kingdom of Cuckoos, as they call it) with the purpose of keeping and guarding the rug and also unleashing the world of the Fugue someday, when the world will be a safe place for them. Eight decades later, a sudden interest emerges for the rug, at the time an elderly Mimi (having lost her immortality) expires: Cal Mooney, an ordinary young man, bumps into the rug and realises its magical nature; Suzanna Parish, Mimi's granddaughter wants to claim the property of her grandmother and access its secrets; Immacolata, once 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 the 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 sensational world. The third part sees the Fugue destroyed, with the surviving Seerkind, Cal and Suzanna hiding in the forests of northern England and facing the ultimate battle against the resurrected Scourge. Motto (French) God and my right Anthem God Save the King (Queen) England() – on the European continent() – in the United Kingdom() Capital (and largest city) London (de facto) Official languages English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  -  Queen Queen Elizabeth II  -  Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification  -  by Athelstan 967  Area...

Characters in "Weaveworld"

Calhoun "Cal" Mooney: A bored young man, whose life alternates between his job at an insurance company in Liverpool and his homing pigeons, until he encounters the mysterious rug that instantly strikes him as something peculiar. Cal gets entangled in a magical adventure he never dreamt of while also realising his feelings for his companion Suzanna Parish. Liverpool skyline. ... The homing pigeon is a variety of domesticated Rock Dove (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find their way home over extremely long distances. ...

Susanna Parish: A young woman who pays a visit to her dying grandmother, Mimi Lasenski, and finally discovers her secret. Suzanna is half-breed, carrying 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, the Seerkind, for practising evil magic and longing for too much power. A woman of tremendous power, she seeks the rug with the purpose of destroying it and ultimately unmaking her kind. Immacolata (Latin for immaculate and an epithet for Virgin Mary) aka the Incantatrix is a fictional character, created by Clive Barker and featured in his 1987 epic fantasy novel Weaveworld. ... A sorcerer (from Old French sorcier; fem. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic and sorcery are the influencing of events, objects, people and physical phenomena by mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ...

Shadwell aka the Salesman: A greedy man, whose specialty, as he often exclaims, is his talent to convince others to buy whatever he wants them to buy. After Shadwell is given a gift by his accomplice, Immacolata, a suit whose glint is able to hypnotise and persuade everybody, he gradually becomes more and more confident and finally decides to seize the power of the Fugue all by 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. Genocide is the mass killing of a group of people as defined by Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or... A Gothic angel in ivory, c1250, Louvre An angel is a supernatural being found in many religions. ... Uriel (אוּרִיאֵל Flame of God, Auriel/Oriel (light of god) Standard Hebrew Uriʾel, Tiberian Hebrew ʾÛrîʾēl) 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 embryos in the uterus. The Hag survived as the ghostly presence of a gruesome old woman, always surrounding her sister and helping her when necessary. The uterus or womb is the major female reproductive organ of most mammals, including humans. ...

The Magdalene: Immacolata's other triplet sister, who also survives after her prenatal death as an ectoplasm. A nymphomaniac, she frequently rapes defenceless men and gives birth to brutally deformed abominations within the matter of hours. A ghostly woman coming down the stairs. ... Hypersexuality describes human sexual behavior at levels high enough to be considered clinically significant. ...

Jerichau St. Louis: One of the Seerkind who is among the first five to be unleashed from the rug. He later becomes Suzanna's lover.

Hobart: A cruel and rather deranged police inspector, whom Shadwell manipulates so as to capture Suzanna and Jerichau. He is later possessed by Uriel.

Nimrod: Another one of the first five Seerkind to be unleashed from the carpet after Cal tears a piece of it.

Mimi Lasenski: Suzanna's grandmother, she is 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

Cover for Japanese edition of Weaveworld

Quotes by Clive Barker on the novel ^[1]: Image File history File links Weaveworldjap. ... Image File history File links Weaveworldjap. ...

On the nature of the novel

"...It's not a splatter book, it's not visceral. What it is 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 Rings, 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 Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English academic J. R. R. Tolkien. ... Shelob is a character from J. R. R. Tolkiens fictional works of Middle-earth. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Eye of Sauron. ... The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English academic J. R. R. Tolkien. ... You may be looking for James Barry, surgeon Sir James Mathew Barrie, Bt. ... Statue of Peter Pan in Bowring Park, St. ... William Blake in an 1807 portrait by Thomas Phillips. ... John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) was an English philologist, writer and university professor who is best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. ... The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English academic J. R. R. Tolkien. ...

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 maybe 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 Conception, a central belief of Roman Catholic Church. 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.
• Immacolata's one ghost-sister 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 Magdalene, disciple of Christ. Mary Magdalene has often been erroneously identified with a nameless woman sinner (a prostitute) whom Christ saved from a maddening crowd, as chronicled in the Bible.
• 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 Christianity which has acknowledged the fabled garden as the Garden of Eden.
• The Scourge is persuaded by Shadwell that it is the incarnation of the angel Uriel, with the mission to punish the Seerkind.
• Jerichau's name is a reference to Jericho, the city of Israel that is mentioned in the Bible.
• Nimrod's name is a reference to the evil Mesopotamian king, Nimrod, who built the city of Babel.

The term Virgin Mary has several different meanings: Mary, the mother of Jesus, the historical and multi-denominational concept of Mary Blessed Virgin Mary, the Roman Catholic theological and doctrinal concept of Mary Marian apparitions shrines to the Virgin Mary Virgin Mary in Islam, the Islamic theological and doctrinal concept... Mary, mother of Jesus as the Immaculate Conception. ... The Roman Catholic Church or Catholic Church (see terminology below) is the Christian Church in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, currently Pope Benedict XVI. It traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus Christ and led by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter. ... The term Virgin Mary has several different meanings: Mary, the mother of Jesus, the historical and multi-denominational concept of Mary Blessed Virgin Mary, the Roman Catholic theological and doctrinal concept of Mary Marian apparitions shrines to the Virgin Mary Virgin Mary in Islam, the Islamic theological and doctrinal concept... The penitent Mary Magdalen, a much reproduced composition by Titian. ... Christ is the English translation of the Greek word (Christós), which literally means The Anointed One. ... The penitent Mary Magdalen, a much reproduced composition by Titian. ... Christ is the English translation of the Greek word (Christós), which literally means The Anointed One. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. ... The Fall of Man by Lucas Cranach, a 16th century German depiction of Eden The Garden of Eden (from Hebrew גַּן עֵדֶן  ; Arabic جنة عدن ) is described in the Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, lived after they were created by God. ... Uriel (אוּרִיאֵל Flame of God, Auriel/Oriel (light of god) Standard Hebrew Uriʾel, Tiberian Hebrew ʾÛrîʾēl) is one of the archangels of post-Exilic Rabbinic tradition, and also of certain Christian traditions. ... The Taking of Jericho, by Jean Fouquet Near central Jericho, November 1996 Jericho (Hebrew  , Arabic  , ʼArīḥā; Standard YÉ™riḥo Tiberian YÉ™rîḫô / YÉ™rîḥô; meaning fragrant[1]. Greek Ἱεριχώ) is a town in the West Bank, located within the Jericho Governorate, near the Jordan River. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ... In the Bible and in legend, Nimrod (Standard Hebrew נִמְרוֹד Nimrod, Tiberian Hebrew נִמְרֹד Nimrōḏ), son of Cush, grandson of Ham, great-grandson of Noah, was a Mesopotamian monarch and a mighty hunter before Yahweh. He is mentioned in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), in the First Book of Chronicles, and... For other uses, see Babel (disambiguation). ...

Comic book adaptation

Cover of Weaveworld # 1. Art by Mike Manley.

Weaveworld was made into a three-issue comic series in 1991 by Epic Comics. The series were written by Erik Saltzgaber and pencilled by Mike Manley. Clive Barker served as consultant. Image File history File links Weaveworld1. ... Image File history File links Weaveworld1. ... Cover to Darkhawk #1. ... 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. ... Cover to Darkhawk #1. ...

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 into fruition. Novelist and screenwriter Michael Marshall Smith had completed a first draft of a script for an eight-hour mini series in 1995. Smith was later asked to write a complete script but after the project fell into hiatus, he is not involved anymore. ^[2] 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^[3]. Barker had announced that shooting was slated to start in 2003 (with Stephen Molton as the screenwriter) but that never happened. In 2005, Barker stated that "finally, finally, finally!" the book is adapted into a mini-series ^[4]. As of 2006, Barker still insists that the mini-series adaptation is about to enter production ^[5]. Showtime is a subscription television brand used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to a group of channels in the United States. ... Michael Marshall Smith (born May 3, 1965) is a British novelist, screenwriter and short story writer. ... Showtime is a subscription television brand used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to a group of channels in the United States. ... Queer as Folk was an American television series produced by Showtime, which was based on the British series of the same name created by Russell T. Davies. ... Russell Mulcahy (born January 1, 1953) is a film director, born in Melbourne, Australia. ...

References

1. ^ The Official Clive Barker Resources - Revelations - Barker on Weaveworld
2. ^ The Official Clive Barker Resource - Revelations - Uncompleted TV Projects
3. ^ Science Fiction News of the Week - Weaveworld Near Production
4. ^ The Book Blog at ReadersRead.com
5. ^ Talking Comics with Clive Barker

External links

• Revelations - The Official Clive Barker Resource Constantly updated news on upcoming projects and a fascinating archive of comment from Barker and others.

• Clandestyne Urban Fantasy Information about the world of the Fugue and other mythical worlds