Configurations: The Puzzle Box and the Hellbound Heart

"Hellbound Heart," is Clive Barker's 80 or 90 page novella, which became the inspiration for the movie "Hellraiser." Now - look down the page - and after what I just said about this Lumley guy, I do not own this book. It does not come into my house. The book is not just sick and fabulously weird and gut-wrenching, it is a vision of hell. Seriously. As in - your parish priest did not do a good enough job on Good Friday with the Crucifixion, and now you are, "down in it."

The opening prose poem of about a page and a half is available on the Internet, and is up there with the Horla as some of the best psychological terror-fiction ever written. The rest of the book is just - gross. I won't own it, and you couldn't pay me enough money to bring it into my house. For those who try the prose poem from the 'Net, it is a prose poem about a rare type of mystical experience where ecstasy and anguish become unified - it is a real state of consciousness - and the reader should beware at any age.

I'm a man of intuitions and hunches, and with Mr. Barker I have always had the hunch that this is not just horror-fiction, and that the man was on to something strange and real. I've had the same intution about certain stories by Lovecraft the H.P., and I don't own any Lovecraft the H.P. at the moment either. I would be willing to own H.P. because while H.P. talks about some themes that are a gap into something very black and real, it is also clear from his writing that people who look into these gaps usually end up going mad and dying.

We at least have a moral compass, and this particular Barker work shows no signs of any such thing. On the other side of this, there are two books by Barker that are probably - J.J. Fab that number high among my favorite horror novels and those are Imajica and Galilee. Sacrament is alright, but the end gets very confused.

Imajica and Galilee are books that most people would find very outside their limits - transgendered elements, bizarre sexual surrealism, psychological symbolisms, gender identity issues, heavy fatalism, and so on - but they aren't psychopathic books. Most people would find them distasteful, but they are very good books.

Like any surrealist fiction, they meander a bit and the excalamtion, "PLEASE OUTLINE AN EFFING CHAPTER BEFORE YOU WRITE IT!" occurs to me every time I reach for one of these and read a chapter or two. Also, "Damnation Game," by Barker is a very-short and well-plotted novel that will scare the Bar-zeus out of you, and it is sort of a quality, UK Stephen King style-novel.

So let us talk about just this prose poem that opens Hellbound Heart. The man in question has a puzzle-box, and the solution to the puzzle-box is called, "the LaMarchande Configuration." Now, the French translation in current French business-eese for "LaMarchande," would be, "the franchise," so we have a bit of a body-slam on the publisher - I think. If you aren't aware of French much, it sounds potentate, but it is a simple bowdlerism.

Still, there is a space that we are peering into, and it is not only a mystical experience that was most likely caused by drug-abuse. That is most of it, but we're peering through a liminal space here. The puzzle-box here is truly acting as a gateway to something else.

So the man seems to have solved the puzzle, and this ecstatic pain overcomes him, and the power of the poetry as least gives us an idea as to how this experience might feel. Next, there is a resounding bell, and the Cenobites show up. If we were to look in the dictionary, we would see that a cenobite is anyone who is in a monastery or a convent. An archaic english word, but ordinary enough. The Cenobites are these ghastly mutilated ghouls, and Mr. LaMarchande-solver, you ought to know how much trouble you are now in.

So here is the thing. If the man has solved the configuration correctly, then he misses the puzzle in his next total foul-up. The Cenobites ask him a question, "What do want from us?" He converses with them a bit. Doesn't answer the question. Then he answers the question, and now - you are DONE. "I want pleasure." YOU ARE SO DONE! It ought to be obvious that you do not foul-up with these Cenobites, who are also referred to as the Order of the Gash, and the rest of the book is about the man paying out of his hiney for being such a total cretin.

There is another element to the play, and it is a good theme, but you don't need to read the rest of the book. The man gets his foul pleasure, but what he gets as well is a pleasure that is the torment and destruction of his soul - a state that will last forever - apparently. In other words, our union of agony and ecstasy as described from the start is this man's eternal reward. You deserve it buddy, YOU ARE SO DONE! WHY NOT ASK FOR SOMETHING RATIONAL! 'Cause the guy ain't rational obviously, but you get the tenor of this character.

The other element is that this man's sister is aware that her brother has gotten into trouble, and goes looking for him. She finds what is left of him as the Cenobites are tormenting the man to death, which is not good for her psychology. However - we'll at least say - and it might be a J.J. Fab I'm remembering - but we'll give a happy ending - because the sister escapes the Cenobites simply because she doesn't want anything from them.

So - we have the basic outline, and it works out pretty well. A diseased psychopathic cretin gets the eternity he wants and deserves - those two very often go together - I remember his sister has to let her brother go into the hell he chose - which is satisfying. So good, a just end for a rotten book and a rotten sub-animal man. However - no matter how rational you are - there is something wrong here. Something badly wrong. Let us disregard psychoanalysis, even mysticism or demonism - we are seeing a knowledge, and for many people it is a knowledge they will forbid themselves.

I'm pretty daring, although I am not dumb enough to ask a torture-monk for an eternity of pleasure. However, what is it that we can't put our finger on? This is the way with liminal experiences, and don't buy the book! You can read the prose poem, but there are no free lunches. My own synopsis may suffice, but that is the question. What is the void we are kissing here? You see?

Another thing is, let us re-phrase the opening question of the Cenobites in a less story-driven way. "What do you want?" Simple question. No one, by the way, will ever ask you this in person, or I sincerely doubt they will. However, "What do YOU desire?" Really. Gut-reaction for many is "eternal bliss," and you see how it worked out for that dude.

The first time I ever encountered the question, my gut-response was "I want to be a God." I mentioned it at another article on "The Work," blog I think, or I may have just written about it in my diary. Now - I'm given to fantasy, and it is obvious that my first step into life-achievement is not, "Gee, let me become a God." I drink six 8 oz. cups of coffee a day and smoke at least 30 'grettes every 24 hours, and that isn't exactly "God," territory. Still, a gut-reaction to this question is worth writing down, no matter how, "pie-in-the-sky," it might be, and meditating in a diary or via recording on what the statement means to you might be worth doing as well.

One thing that drives me nuts, "What do you want? I dunnoe." You're insane. If you, "dunnoe," then you need to sit down and set some goals. Simple ones like, "5 cups of coffee tomorrow, and 25 'grettes." Something. You can't attempt to achieve what you desire if you have no idea what you desire. It's like - "duh-logic." That covers this article, and I understand - this is intense material. Actually, my head is a bit de-centralized, and I'm going to tell a funny story next, but not until my gray cells relax a bit. Hair-raising. Understood.