Clear: A Transparent Novel

by Nicola Barker

Longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. A raucous, novel about the circus surrounding David Blaine’s starvation stunt at Tower Bridge, from a Granta Best of British Novelist.On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist David Blaine gets into a small Perspex box next to the River Thames and begins starving himself. 44 days later, he comes out again, four stone lighter. This much is clear.Yet the huge crowds which gather to sneer and worship and get drunk and throw eggs seem to have very different ideas about what – if anything – this macabre spectacle might mean. For some it’s a religious experience. For others it’s the perfect excuse for a post-pub punch-up.For Adair Graham MacKenny – a 28-year-old fashion victim whose uber-cool landlord is giving him an inferiority complex – the human zoo which surrounds Blaine is simply a great place to pick up girls. Until an exquisitely shod woman with a plastic bag full of Tupperware calls him a pimp…And Nicola Barker’s riotous peep-show of a novel opens out into a hilarious and thought-provoking portrait of a world of illusion, delusion, celebrity and hunger.

Genres: Fiction, London, Novels, British Literature, Ebooks, Contemporary, Adult

346 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Nicola Barker is an English writer.
Nicola Barker’s eight previous novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden Prize), Wide Open (winner of the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and Clear (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2004). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in East London.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that this is my first Barker novel - probably long overdue, and I chose to test the water with this one because it seemed one of the less intimidating ones. It is an entertaining book set in 2003 when David Blaine spent 44 days starving himself in a perspex box above the Thames in London. Its cast is taken from the many regular spectators of this event.

The narrator Adair Graham McKenney is something of a picaresque antihero - he has an office job which he is half-heartedly engaged in but is more engaged with his various conversations with the more extreme caricatures he meets around the Blaine circus and his flatmate.

This narrative framework allows Barker to discuss the place of the event in the wider cultural context of the day, some of which already feels a little dated less than 15 years on, but I found myself enjoying the book and its ideas more the longer the book went on, and ultimately found it quite stimulating.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really care for David Blaine. I don't really like his kind of dopey stoner like way of talking and most of his stunts I've always thought while kind of impressive physically I've always felt were kind of just clamoring for attention. What is wrong with that though, he is an entertainer, and he is in the entertainment business, so that kind of goes with the territory--do something big and get lots of people to watch you. Can you hold this against the man? Well sure, I can and lots of people do, surprisingly people do who probably wouldn't damn someone like Angelina Jolie for appearing on "The Tonight Show", which is also clamoring for attention but instead it's called promotion. I'd like to say that I can dislike them both equally for what they do, but I don't. I'm a hypocrite who isn't bothered by the entertainment industry in general, I think most of it's garbage, but I don't get upset over all the self promotion, so why should I get annoyed at someone like David Blaine when he makes a spectacle of himself and gets millions of people to watch, discuss, enjoy or hate what he's doing? In all honesty it's more impressive that he can sit in a box suspended over London for forty four days fasting than just about anything that anyone who shows up to be honored at the Oscars has done in the past year. But still something about Blaine annoys me, and it's not just him on TV, I can say that the man has annoyed me in my two near personal encounters with the man, once when I came within a breath of telling his posse they couldn't use cameras in our store (in that breath I realized that the dopey looking guy standing with them was the illusionist himself, and they were doing an event at the store), and the second time while I stood and listened to him talking to Karen about books he was looking for. I can't put my finger on what it is though.

At one point in Clear one of the characters says that Blaine is mirror, he's devoid of content and that he brings out the best in people who see the world brightly and attracts the negativity from those of us like myself who don't. I don't know if this is true.

Clear is a novel set in London during the last 35 days of Blaine's 44 day fasting stunt. The novel never really has Blaine do anything, he just sits there in his clear plastic box while the actions of the characters happen around him. He's there as a constant and his presence seems to change the way that the two main characters deal with their lives, one who had never even heard of Blaine before he started the stunt, and the other an opportunistic young man who initially sees the hoopla surrounding the event, and the extreme emotions it brings out in people, especially women, as a way to get laid more often by turning himself into a mirror of sorts that projects back and agrees with whatever a woman thinks about the Blaine stunt.

I have a hard time putting my finger on exactly what was really good about Clear. Barker's writing style was great, and it made me want to read more of her; and I think it's the style of the book that really drew me in. I don't really like Blaine (see paragraph 1), none of the characters are especially likable, most of the pop-culture references had to do with some kind of British Hip-Hop or Garage music that I know nothing about and in a way the story is kind of like others that you've heard before about guys and gals and all that lust kind of stuff, but still something in the book transcended all of that and made for a really tight novel, which in itself is kind of surprising if you make a cursory look at the text, it's written in a kind of blotchy style that usually makes for dreadful reading, but here it just works perfectly.

I'm looking forward to reading more of her books. If I liked a book this much that I didn't have much interest in the subject matter, I can imagine that she'll do wonders with something I'm more interested in.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novel written in three months during (and after) David Blaine’s infamous Christ-in-a-Perspex-box stunt in London. Barker’s novel is the most entertaining account of this memorable public spectacle that united Londoners in the act of throwing eggs at a man with mental health problems. Clear: A Transparent Novel is an ebullient comic novel written in such bouncy, jack-in-a-box prose, you want to crawl into those pages and live with these cast of cranky oddballs and relive 2003 all over again. (Maybe not the last bit—I was a depressed teenager in 2003. But I still want to live with the oddballs in that rent-free house, please). Barker’s fiction moved almost entirely into the comic realm after this novel (Behindlings was written in the same style with more coastal bleakness), but retains its distinctive power, despite the eccentricities and relentless hiccupping slapstick. I have nothing else to say about this novel so this sentence is redundant. And this one. Me too. (And me!)

[Nadine in California]

DNF early on. The only other book I've read by Barker is The Cauliflower, and it was such a delight! I loved the exuberance of its characters and language - even the punctuation and use of white space cracked me up. I was excited to read another Barker book to see what else she can do. Sadly, judging by the first 20 or so pages of this book, she doesn't do anything else. The exuberance that so perfectly matched the characters and story of The Cauliflower felt forced and affected in Clear. Pyncheon is another author who writes with a qurky, distinctive voice and I liked all that I've read of him, but that was years ago, maybe my taste has changed. Or maybe I picked the wrong Barker book.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Ali Smith, Nicola Barker inhabits that space where she can write a complex novel and make it seem so easy and fun. Clear is no exception. In fact I whizzed through clear and had a great time reading it.

It’s 2003 and magician David Blaine is just a few days into his trick, Above the Below, where he stayed 44 days in a glass case over the Thames.

The narrator of the book is Adair Graham MacKenny, who initially uses the situation to sleep with women but then he is acought out and embarks on a relationship with Aphra. Trust me, it becomes complicated.

In this journey, Adair learns about identity, suffering, race relations, Jack Schaefer’s Shane and … Dizzee Rascal and white appropriation. As I said there’s a lot going on here and I could easily dedicate a paragraph to each of the various themes.

Ultimately, Adair really wants to know why Blaine is going through all this and he comes to the realisation that it’s because Blaine wants to be transparent as the box he’s in. By this not disappear but become someone who can be seen through – the ultimate open human.

I had tons of fun reading Clear, Nicola Barker knows how to capture the idiosyncrasies of the human race and get a good laugh out of the reader. Every page has a surprise and it works as a solid read – once you get used to the style.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My 2000th 'read' book catalogued on Goodreads.

2004: The Books sections of the papers are full of this. It's about David Blaine *yawn*. And it sounds both boring and gimmicky. What could be a worse combination? I wish they'd move on to something more interesting so I can forget about it and hear about stuff I might actually read.
2013: Nope, one day the author will be one of your favourite writers. Only three years later, not recognising her name, you'll find a gigantic historical-looking tome called Darkmans just below hip-level on a bookshop display and it'll be pretty much everything you wanted in a book. A few years later again and you'll be devouring her earlier works as you devoured almost any book in your teens, and Pratchett et al shortly after you graduated. Can't blame you - what you never would have guessed about Clear from the cover or the reviews is how deliberately bloody ridiculous it is. (You still find stage magic and illusionists fairly boring to watch, but that doesn't seem to stop you from enjoying films and novels about them.)

The last Barker book I read was Small Holdings (1995) and WOW has her style come on in leaps and bounds here: just before Darkmans, a writer fully confident in her powers: freewheeling, silly, erudite, trivial and expansive.

Narrator Adair Graham MacKenney is possibly the most conventional Barker character I've encountered yet. Handily, this jack-the-lad is an English & Media graduate of UCL so he provides the perfect combination of 'typical' young male attitude alongside the plausibility of his making the references the author wants to slip in. It's those around him who are spectacular Barkerian eccentrics and who draw him into their weirdness. Especially Aphra - whom he encounters whilst watching Blaine - a sort of White Rabbit/ manic pixie dream girl (who's nonetheless non-tropish enough to remind me of an old friend ... but one who is rather elusive and magical).

There's a lot of satire of public intellectuals here - interesting timing; having by now won the IMPAC award, Barker is making fun of a class she's probably being perceived as part of, more and more. That sort of contrarian, playful kicking is something I very much like and can understand.

Am I comfortable with a white writer satirising black intellectuals? It's a great piece of writing about opinionated people generally and excellent use of intelligent characters to transmit the author's research in a way that doesn't jar, but... Perhaps if my social circle had been as diverse as the one I've recently been reading about in NW (or the sort of circle I tend to imagine Barker has) it would more just be a case of hearing about people a bit like some of those I knew... But still not sure. What do highly educated black people think of these characters?
Regardless of quibbles I really like Jalisa, Adair's pundit housemate's girlfriend who never shuts up - I'm not sure how much you're meant to like her but I found all her conversations very interesting. And admire the way that without being obnoxious, she really cares far more about her own opinions - which generally are right - than about what anyone else, including Solomon, thinks of them.

Not sure Clear will age well given that it's stuffed with ephemeral references - if you weren't consuming a lot of British news and entertainment media in 2003 you might be a bit lost. (Or unless you are an early-2000's vintage nut... Do they exist yet?) But on the whole this is the sort of fun silly book I never thought it would be.

[Sophy H · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh man, what happened here?! From the genius of Wide Open to this, what a disappointment!

This was utter tripe. I can find no redeeming features at all.

1 star bollocks.

[Jim Elkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

The question this book raises for me is: what is wrong with writing that simply tries to be as sharp as it can be, recording every microsecond of thought, every slight nuance, every nearly imperceptible shift in intonation, every second guess, doubt, and revision, every shade of introspection, self-reflexivity, and self-awareness? What can go wrong with writing that tries to keep up with manic consciousness?

Reviews in the Guardian and the Observer say that it's not clear whether Barker should have written an entire novel about a magic trick performed by David Blaine. The assumption is that it's too thin a subject for a novel. But the novel is about thinness. One reviewer is closer to the mark in complaining that Barker's voice is cold, that she doesn't take emotional risks, that she controls her characters so much that there's nothing to engage the reader. Again, that's true, but it's also an expressive value.

What bothers me about this book isn't its supposedly overly trivial subject matter (what could that possibly mean, after "Madame Bovary") or its supposedly unemotional, disengaged characters (what could that possibly mean after Oulipo, after Beckett, after Stein). What bothers me is that the supposedly scintillating, mercurial dialogue (which all the reviewers praise) isn't interesting.

The book opens and closes with praise of the novel "Shane." Here's the end of the book:

"And it ends:
"'He was the man who rose into our little valley out of the heart of our great glowing west and when his work was done rode back whence he had come and he was Shane.'
"Observe the total lack of punctuation.
"(Jesus H. How'd he ever get away with that stuff?)
"Not even a comma after 'whence he had come'? Or a dash?
"Man.
"Is Jack Schaefer some fuck-you, balls-out writer or what?"

I'm omitting the italics, which are everywhere in the book.

This kind of rapid-fire, apparently spontaneous, apparently stream of consciousness narrative is fairly continuous throughout the book. Each successive brief paragraph is like an apostrophe, directed not at the reader so much as at an immediately previous version of the narrator himself, as he compulsively comments on his own previous thoughts, and revises and sharpens his own ideas.

This kind of writing is intended to be clever, sharp, witty, unexpected, fast, and entertaining, and I think it is also intended to ring true to something like inner monologue of a dissatisfied, twitchy young urban male in London. For me it isn't any of those things except twitchy. There are many other versions of continuously self-doubting, cross-cutting inner monologues. Among contemporary authors, for example, there is Mark Leyner. But Leyner is more linguistically versatile, faster, and sharper. The twitching voice in "Clear" is ticcy, like Tourette's. Leyner is more genuinely driven and often believably hysterical -- it's hard to imagine him stopping, which isn't necessarily a virtue, but it does make the act of writing compulsively about compulsive thinking itself a more persuasive.

*

Incidentally -- although nothing in a novel is incidental -- there are moments of the deeper purpose and belief reviewers found missing. At the end, Blaine's magic performance (it's the one where he was suspended in a glass cube for a month) becomes compelling for the narrator:

"...he's holding it together. In fact he's finding himself again. Little by little that necessary transition is taking place--from sitting-duck to superstar, from total access to none."

And later:

"He changed (I need to believe it)."

These are brief glimpses into something "deeper," even if it is only vacuous superstardom. It seems, at moments like these, that the narrator -- and the author -- can only permit themselves the very briefest moments in which they speak unguardedly about things they really care about.

[Angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have vague memories of reading this book a long time ago. My vague memory of the book is that it is weird and not that great. I wish I had gotten rid of this book after the first read.

Before I started this novel, I decided to read an article about David Blaine's Above the Below. I wish I had stopped there. In my vague memory, I thought the author didn't do a good job of describing Blaine's magic trick/performance art/whatever you want to call it. So I read an article which explained the basics of Blaine's 44-day fast in a transparent box above the River Thames. Clear is 1% rehashed facts; 4% theorizing on Blaine's connections to Franz Kafka, Primo Levi, Jews, and Christianity; and 95% time-wasting bullshit.

The style is atrocious. The narrator is a pretentious idiot who thinks he's clever. He digresses a lot. There's an incredible amount of parentheses, ellipsis, and unnecessary italics. He also has a weird habit of addressing the reader. It's a very irritating novel in which nothing happens. Blaine's Above the Below is the milieu for what is really the story of a worthless British guy who has a strange relationship with an awkward woman who is unremarkable except for her shoe collection and her sense of smell. If this sounds like a terrible idea for a novel, it absolutely is.

[Booker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adair Graham MacKenny and all his fellow Brits try to make sense of their lives against the backdrop of London and David Blaine's 44 day fast "event". Among the topics explored, enjoyed, and despised are the American western, films, literature, religion, sex, food, philosophy, and magic itself. Adair brings his roommate, his roommate's current girlfriend, his coworker, his love/lust interest and her current husband along for the ride as they all struggle with the magic or illusion that defines life and death. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel takes place in the 44 days David Blaine starved himself in a suspended plastic box above the Thames. It was sort of fascinating to read a book that was almost designed to be immediately dated. Barker is not entirely successful at keeping her narrator endearing, but the story is entertaining and has all the quirk Barker is known for.

[David]

Of course it isn't.

Barker's fiction is destabilizingly interesting.

[Katrine Solvaag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the weirder books I've ever read, yet so addictive! I very much liked the play with space within the novel and the free flowing thoughts of the character (who was perhaps even more odd than the plot itself).

[Genevieve · Rating 2 out of 5]

So disappointed after Behindlings and Wide Open but why would I be surprised? David Blaine is lame in person and even lamer as the hub of a novel.

[David Morley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't like this book at all. It was shallow, insipid, pointless.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately, I am not that interested in David Blaine, even when yoked to the epiphanies of entertainingly dislikeable oaf-hipsters.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the poetic nature of the prose and the spacing but the story felt pointless.

[Elliot · Rating 2 out of 5]

...annoying

[Hana White · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional novel, with brilliant, arresting characters. This is the first Nicola Barker novel I have read.
Very stylistically vivid and exciting, although perhaps a quarter or third in I was overwhelmed by how Martin Amis-y the writing was which really dampened my enjoyment of the book. After continuing, the writing started to feel more idiosyncratic again, and I really loved reading it.

A very small criticism is that the main character's continual flip-flopping on his thoughts on David Blaine, and roundabout ruminating, which I really liked reading, made it a little difficult to follow the progression of his feelings towards the magician. I do like how it held up quite a nice mirror to Adair's character in general though, and his roundabout way of approaching what he likes and doesn't like, and his stance towards the people in his life. And clearly (ha ha), it ironises (is this a word? Irony-izes? makes an irony of?) the title of the book, for nothing is clear, and the more you look into a clear box with a man who tries to be the most transparent man in the world, the less clear it appears.

I also really loved that the plot was tighter than I was expecting. There were descriptions about characters that I originally assumed were just to flesh them out but later were plot points I really enjoyed. It really felt like a treat to read the end part of the book where all the threads came together.

One thing I thought was perhaps the most interesting thing in the book was Solomon's relationship with black culture and his assertion that the general (white) public only accept black culture when it's been through the white washing machine (i.e. mercury prize awarded). The fact that he has been written through the hand of a white woman, and uses never ending cultural references, which Nicola Barker's audience will understand, is something I wish there was a real Solomon to give his opinions about! It's quite a beautiful paradox, to have this character who clearly loves himself and all he stands for, who would hate if he knew where he'd really 'come from' (i.e. the white hand).

I also think Nicola is really brilliant at balancing cultural references, so that you get a perfect feel for the character's interests and their level of narcissism (and sometimes - relatable narcissism... the YMC shoes!!!) without being overwhelming and tedious to read. It's just a brilliant, fun novel that is as rewarding to read as it is enjoyable.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a book now I’ve read two of, where fictional characters are draped over a non-fiction setting. It’s kind of like historical fiction, without any distance. Kerry Howley’s book ”Thrown,” about MMA fighters, is one. This one is another.

In Howley’s book, she replaces herself with a fictional character. In this one, she becomes a set of fictional characters doing plot kind of things, all musing about David Blaine in the shadow of his fasting in a clear box stunt. The effect is like art criticism that’s expressed through drama. The characters, eccentric and fascinating, never seem quite real. That’s not a problem, though. They seem more like arguments that go around flirting and lusting and gossiping, which brings them to life.

Not living people, but living ideas. With interesting shoe preferences. Or maybe, a diary in a hall of mirrors.

I can’t quite get my fingers around what she is saying about Blaine, but it’s more interesting for its slipperiness. Blaine’s an interesting artist. Magicians dare you to interpret their work: the most high mystery and the most arrant fakery, the combination is like seeing the same thing through two lenses at once.

Good stuff. Filthy, by the way.

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clear is a sharp, fast-paced satire about celebrity, obsession and cultural one-upmanship. Set in London it takes events around the illusionist David Blaine's forty four day self incarceration in a small perspex box suspended above Tower Bridge as a backdrop. A host of eccentric characters jostle to be the strangest/most self-serving/coolest and cleverest while analysing popular and media takes on up and coming star Dizzee Rascal, death, sex and office life. It's a really enjoyable page turner for anyone around at the time.

[Michael Reffold · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas (mostly voiced by Jalisa, who is secretly the best character in my opinion) but a truly obnoxious narrator and overuse of italics for emphasis. The whole thing goes absolutely nowhere and is often a struggle to read.

[Jodee Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5 ⭐️
This book took me quite a while to actually get into but overall I really enjoyed it. I look forward to reading more of Nicola Barker's works.

[Liam Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really funny. Classic Barker.

[Schopflin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, clever and just the tiniest bit surprisingly touching. Some memorable Big Characters providing foil for the narrator ... But don't expect to love anyone!

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely little book, quite moving in parts. The end is the best ending ever involving an overrated illusionist and the UKs premier pop/grime star. Worth reading for that alone.

[Barbora · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ja se omlouvam objektivne asi skvele ale i couldnt care less

[Lorna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've liked other things she wrote but I could not stand this one . The style just irritated me and the subject of no interest at the time or now. Shouldn't have even tried . it is in the bin.

[John Fetzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd tale of Kafka, Jewishness, identity, mimicry, and fame.

[mims · Rating 3 out of 5]

a freaky fun little book, lighthearted and a bit light when it comes to its plot and themes BUT barker is a wonderfully manic writer