The Thief of Always: A Fable

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From the moment the reader meets Harvey in his bedroom, it’s clear he craves more from his existence, not wanting to waste a day inside or clean his room. When Rictus offers Harvey the opportunity of a lifetime on the condition that he stop asking questions, Harvey agrees and stifles his natural inclination to question what he sees and feels. Rictus’s goal is to quell Harvey’s curious spirit and, in doing so, maintain the secret of Holiday House. By preventing the children from openly questioning anything, Rictus’s rule encourages the children to ignore their intuitions about the House. If they question their situation, they must forego the fulfillment of their wishes. The point that [Harvey] realizes he is, in a sense, the spiritual child of Mr. Hood is the point at which he realizes he can destroy At lunch, Harvey asks if there is a place to swim. Wendell suggests the lake but is hesitant because you can’t see the bottom. Harvey suggests fishing instead and says they could have Mrs. Griffin cook up their catch. At this remark, Mrs. Griffin drops what she’s doing and tells the boys the fish are poisonous. This comment makes Harvey want to go to the lake more than ever. The Thief of Always is a plot that largely reflects a very old western sort of myth warning of the dangers of hedonism and apathy. The myth (specifically, a sort of fable [It even says so on the cover! Yay Clive Barker!]) is meant to impress upon people that their time on earth is short and every day should be valued just as the last (Seriously, he even maxims that shit up at the end). It's a principle that's been expressed in a number of ways throughout time, none of which are proving easy to google and right now I'm not really capable of coming up with one in my head. Suffice to say: It's a mytheme, or a trope, or a meme, depending on whose term you like best. The plot I liked, but I also never got the sense I was reading something super original. Barker included handmade drawings as illustrations and that was a very nice addition. They were dark and creepy, but still in a child-friendly sort of way.

I don't have anything else to say about this book apart from that it was a wonderful dark story about what you wish and what you get, a story about appreciating what you have and avoiding things you don't need. Older Than They Look: The residents of the House have come from various different points in time. However for every one day at Holiday House, a whole year passed in the real world. My passion is for imaginative work of one kind or another. I've written epic horror, I've written epic fantasy, I've written sexual stuff. Now this book offers another area I want to explore. I've never defined myself as a horror author. I see myself as an imaginer. And The Thief Of Always is another piece of imagining. As the truth behind the property begins to be exposed, it seems Harvey needs to make a move fast or risk never returning to that boring life he took for granted before. Sooooooooo, I mentioned that I had sworn off Mr. Clive Barker yeeeeeeeears ago- due to squeamishness- Ms. Stepheny called me on it- and said, "PLEASE... PLEASE...PLEASE- read THE THIEF OF ALWAYS before making your final judgement on allllllllll of his work".The Thief of Always is a wonderfully unique tale for children but is also very much a story adults can appreciate, too. I enjoyed reading this story so much. It had everything appealing about a great children’s book—the simplicity, the overall lessons without being shallow or preachy, a relatable and admirable main character, the unique magic and wonderment that come from a child’s perspective and the perfect tone for a strange tale for children. It was truly entertaining and compelling. The Thief of Always should not be missed. I highly recommend it for adults and young readers looking for something a little different. another book for kids or doing a comic? I would always choose the book for kids. That's just about trying to get my stories out to the Comics remain a relatively small scale endeavor in terms of the number of people that read a comic. It would probably take about For me, that's a characteristic of fiction that I have always been drawn to, even as a child. I would compare it to the tone of say Alice in Wonderland, or even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Right Behind Me: After Hood is seemingly defeated, Rictus reveals that he had secretly stolen some of Hood's power for himself. But then a hand reaches out of the ruins of the House and grabs him... Epiphanic Prison: Besides the wall, the House also creates illusions that trap children inside their own minds. It takes a strong will to resist these illusions, and see things for what they really are (if only glimpses). Wendell, however, is weak willed, and easily falls under Hood's sway again on his return. The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Only specific children can find their way to Holiday House or have to be lead there by one of his henchmen. When Harvey and his Dad try to go looking for it, they are unable to get there. And now my main gripe: I really didn't like the ending. And I can't go into it, because spoilers... but there were a couple of choices made that I just didn't like and things that needed some explaining for me. It almost went to a direction I would have applauded, but I kinda always knew it wouldn't go that route. It has to be kid friendly and hopeful, I get it. Still, missed opportunity. One day, as Harvey is contemplating just how boring his life is, a man named Rictus appears to him and offers him the opportunity to travel somewhere exciting, away from his parents and teachers and school, a place called the Holiday House, where every day brings something to celebrate.

However this miraculous place worked, it seemed real enough. The sun was hot, the soda was cold, the sky was blue, the grass was green. What more did he need to know?”

Figuring he doesn't have any other enticing options, Harvey agrees and off he goes with Rictus. After arriving at the property he finds other children there already and befriends two of them, Lulu and Wendell. Blue Cat' – Owned by Mrs. Griffin, who according to Mrs. Griffin, "has a good sense of direction" and helped Harvey and Wendell leave the holiday house. Blue Cat also dies because once Wendell and Harvey leave, Mr. Hood kills it. What Year Is This?: Subverted, no mention is made of what year it is, currently or in the Bad Future, no one asks, and when Harvey asks Mrs. Griffin, they'd rather not say because it would be too painful.When Harvey arrives home, an old couple answers the door. Harvey is confused until he realizes that the old woman is his mother. She recognizes Harvey, but his father is not convinced. Harvey realizes that every day he spent at the Holiday House was a year in the real world. It has been thirty-one years since Harvey disappeared, and while his parents have aged, Harvey hasn’t. Harvey tells his story but forgets most of it. His father, impatient, tells Harvey he must show him the House. I remember being a kid and being bored, and it is THE WORST. It wasn't just the boredom, it was the feeling of needing something but having no idea what. Awful. It will ruin your life.

Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England, the son of Joan Rubie (née Revill), a painter and school welfare officer, and Leonard Barker, a personnel director for an industrial relations firm. Educated at Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University and his picture now hangs in the entrance hallway to the Philosophy Department. It was in Liverpool in 1975 that he met his first partner, John Gregson, with whom he lived until 1986. Barker's second long-term relationship, with photographer David Armstrong, ended in 2009. Harvey is the perfect main character for a children’s story. He’s the “normal kid” POV for readers to experience the story through but is also unique within the strangely magical world of the Holiday House. He has nagging suspicions about Mr. Hood, questions how the House’s magic works—and why—and he finds the unwavering acceptance with which the other residents of the house treat every oddity unnerving. As for the secondary characters, the three other Holiday House residents—Mrs. Griffin, Wendell and Lulu—were quite intriguing. They each represented different impacts of the House and where Harvey’s fate could be headed. I was unsure of who to trust in the beginning and the characters only became more interesting as we learned how the Holiday House was affecting them. The enemies within The Thief of Always were also very entertaining. They were unique and creepy but persuasive and appealing to those they targeted. Too Dumb to Live: Rictus boasting about how he stole some of Mr. Hood's magic for preservation right on top of the ruins where Hood seemingly fell, leads to his downfall when the ruins reform into Hood's hand, which decapitates him as punishment for his betrayal.

And I remember as a little child I did not enjoy long descriptive passages in a novel. I liked reading a lot of action. And so when I write for children I try to keep in mind the memory of what the 10-year-old Clive Barker liked. I think the 10-year-old Clive Barker would have liked ‘Thief of Always’. I still digress. The book itself has its flaws, though many of these can be argued are results of the book being aimed at children. The main character, Harvey, has really nothing in the way of a personality, beyond being very willful. This makes him a good contrast to the other personalities in the book (much better examined/created) but a little dull and hard to particularly care about. The vague semblance of quasi-romance (just wanted to say that) between Harvey and Lulu was confusing and a felt a bit unnecessary or maybe just underdeveloped. It seemed like an angle that Barker changed his mind about exploring somewhere midway through writing the book, but felt was important enough to keep through to the end. Maybe he thought a ten year old (again, keeping with the protagonist) boy would be bored by a bit of romance. Or at least mystified and unable to relate. Who knows. The writing itself is quite good, however, especially compared to the first two chapters of Coraline that I google booksed to write this review with. Barker knows how to put together flow and express and idea in metaphor and unconventionality. Never does this book come across as insulting the reader's intelligence, something that I value in a book aimed at ten year old boys. Gaiman writes Coraline like a stilted pre-teen forced to write a short story, which is odd because he's usually a pretty decent writer. My best bet is that he fell apart when trying to write for a younger audience, unlike Barker here.