When you open a book and the first sentence, addressed directly to you, reads, “Burn this Book,” it’s hard not to be just a little curious as to why that book wants to die. And that’s exactly how “Mister B. Gone,” by Clive Baker, begins, and it doesn’t stop the suicidal pleadings until the end. Told from the point of view of Demon-Out-of-Hell Jakabok Botch, who is trapped in the very pages you’re reading, you are taken on a grotesque and satirical journey through medieval times at their most righteous and corrupt.
In hopes of making a trade, the narrator offers a bartering chip: information (the story of who he is and how he came to be trapped in the paper and ink you hold), in exchange for the assurance you will burn the book.
At first he recounts his days as a young, socially awkward demon living in the Ninth Circle of Hell, and his character is set up to squeeze out every bit of sympathy you can manage for a creature that travels the world causing confusion and destruction at every new stop. He remembers those early days with an abusive father with the stressful occupation of working the third shift at the furnaces of Hell, of his and his father’s capture from Hell by a corrupt priest, and the ensuing patricide and slippery escape from his captors.
It’s revealed that, though he lived in the deepest and most vile level of Hell, he is merely a lesser demon. His only advantageous powers, other than a scrappy resourcefulness and wit, are the rare double set of tails inherited from his father, and what he calls his “nightmare voice” from his mother. He recollects actions both gruesome and tear jerking in the tone of a self reflective man listing what he just bought from the grocery store. Yet you still find yourself empathetic toward the demon, and it’s hard not to root for him even as he goes on his mayhem inflicting adventure.
In what some will no doubt think takes you out of the narrative, he addresses you, the reader, directly many times. Jakabok Botch (or Mister B.) ends the telling of each separate story with another plea to set the book aflame, but not without first offhandedly mentioning some greater mystery. His pleas range from the sympathetic to threats of dismemberment and damnation of varying severity. While this method receives some criticism and will no doubt deter some less interested readers, for me it only aroused my curiosity and drove me to read on further, in hopes of discovering his secrets.
This book is not for the squeamish, and may cause some frustration for people of a more devout faith, but there’s no denying Mister B’s is a story worth telling. Through his eyes you get the rare point of view of a creature who observes humanity’s various cruelties, but at the same time is the source of those very actions.