Once again Clive Barker breaks away from the genre labelling tag of a ‘horror author’ for which he has been undeservingly stamped with since his early work. With Galilee, Barker takes to a new path with a beautifully written story of love that dances with the celestial and magical throughout. Indeed, elements of his past work such as ‘Sacrament’, ‘Imajica’ and dare I say even the ‘Book of The Art’ novels are clearly visible within this epic tale.With an obvious dedication of passion and love to his lover David Armstrong, Barker has crafted a deeply emotional and poetic tale that delves the deepest Barker ever has to date, into the sheer importance of love, revenge, power and lust. Deliberately throwing added weight towards the emotional states of each character within the story, Barker brings out such full-bodied and life like characters that form the main crux of the tale.Written by way of the hand of one of the books almost secondary characters, the story follows the lives of two powerful families, whose paths have intertwined throughout history. One of these families (the Barbarossa’s) is more godlike than they are human. The other family (the Geary’s) are extremely wealthy and powerful business men whose unsympathetic lives mirror that of many of the more dramatic circumstances that surround the storyline. One interlocking individual for the two families is the outcast by the name of Galilee. This character, to which the writer shows immense love for, was obviously based on Barker’s lover David Armstrong.The flow of the storyline, the intertwining subplots, the poetic use of words throughout, and the magnificent characterization, all form the main thrust to the novel. The developing storyline, with its carefully constructed delivery (by way of a historical account of the two families), is mere mortar to the stonework that is the passion of each character within the tale.Barker clearly took great joy in creating and developing on each one of the characters, setting down detailed histories for each, setting their individual places within the families and indeed the tale itself. For imagination alone, ‘Galilee’ is a joyous novel to read, but with the carefully crafted and beautifully delivered love for each character, the novel as a whole is breathtaking. Indeed, this is not like any other piece of work by Barker, yet it still holds strange elements of many pieces of his work. Almost a contradiction in itself, but after reading the novel, I am sure that many of you will agree with that very statement.The novel’s ending is extremely open, paving the way for the sequel which has a preliminary publication date of December 2009. Having just read the novel for the second time after a good ten years, I have once again fallen in love with each one of the characters that draw you deep into this magical story of romance and revenge.The novel runs for a total of 804 pages and was released back in 1998.
This novel has a reputation of being an oddity of sorts in Barker's body of work. It isn't quite horror and it isn't quite the dark fantasy that Barker is known for. What is it exactly? Well, first and foremost, it is a drama. The novel tells the story of a Kennedy-esque family that seems to have made a deal with a family of African gods, which seems to have secured the family's fortune over the decades. Barker goes into the depths of both families, tells of their members and their often odd behavior, and intertwines the stories of both families, who have developed some bad blood between each other. The novel is also a magical realist tale since its fantasy elements just blend into a story and shape the relationship of the two families.This is probably not the Barker novel that I would recommend to anyone who hasn't read his work since it is not the best representation of his work. However, I enjoy the work partly since it's and odd and strange book even by Barker's standards, and his attempts at always trying to go off the beaten path and come out with a novel like this out of nowhere is what makes his work so exciting to me.
What do You think about Galilee (1999)?
I went into this book hoping it would be an epic like The Great and Secret Show. I was disappointed, but in a good way. This book is more of a romance of sorts, something I did not expect from a writer I consider primarily a horror novelist. This book is half current story in the real world involving the Geary family, tracing a saga of a modern day rags to riches story of Rachel and Mitch, the latter of which is a famous Geary. These parts of the book were riveting. I admit that the other sections of the book which involved the Barbarossas, a godlike powerful family of beings, was much less engrossing and far more confusing, and I found myself skipping those sections of the book in eagerness to see what was going to happen to Rachel and Mitch (and eventually Galilee, the third part of that love triangle). It also took at least 4 chapters for me to get involved in this story, but once it got going it was hard to put down.Highly imaginative, and I liked the ending. Lots of great sayings, compelling introspection, and a very likable heroine in Rachel.
—Tara Hall
I've read this book numerous times and I have come away from it with differing things each time. This time I found that I wasn't as enchanted with the story itself. Instead, I found that I was thinking more about the Divine and the ideas that the book delved into. And I'm not sure I could even tell you what those ideas are... :P It's not a story told in a traditional fashion. It weaves between the present and past of the story without clearly demarcating which is which. I think that is part of why I love this book so much. I'm not sure that there is really anything that I can say about this book to do it real justice.
—Piggie
Great book, too meandering, bad sex. Is that enough of a review? Clive Barker is heretofore irrevocably linked with Piers Anthony in my books as an author who adds usually bad and at times quite odd eroticism to keep people turning the pages. Not needed. The ideas behind this book can carry themselves. I really like the idea of taking great families and mingling their history with mythology. It is a timeless concept (Early Greek kings, Caesar, blah, blah and blah...it's been done) but indicative of a powerful drive to belong to something ancient and greater than ourselves and therefore quite moving. Bottom line: This book does best when Mr. Barker digresses into fairy-tale type narratives and weaves stories. It has been quite a while since I read this book and certain scenes are still unbelievably vivid in my memory and that alone makes it a remarkable read.
—Alice
