Yatter, Yatter, Yattering

[tmwriter70]

So, my seemingly eternal trek to find an enjoyable Clive Barker story is sort of continued. I didn’t dislike this story as much as I found I disliked “Rawhead Rex,” but I can’t say that I really enjoyed it either. I think the reason for that was the ho hum nature of the story and the lack of a character that I could root for.

First, the ho hum

Comments

His wife

[ext_242841]

This bothered me, too. While I enjoyed the story, it annoyed me to think that Jack had been able to casually brush off the death of his wife -- and that his kids hadn't noticed anything odd about their father before that final day. I felt myself cheering for both the Yattering and Jack, and I was happy that both survived by the end, but I did not feel that everything had made perfect sense in the story, unfortunately. Still, I liked it a lot. :)

[anonymous]

I rooted for that poor Yattering all the way through. I loved Barker's depiction of the frustration. I was totally unbelieving of Polo's unfeeling nature until I learned that he knew what he was. It was all a ruse. I think Polo knew all along that Hell would be after him and he was doing his best to bide his time until he knew he could turn the tables. I think it was the humor that carried me through. ~Nikki

[tmwriter70]

I didn't see much humor in this story. I guess I was more irritated with Jack and unable to laugh at the Yatterings tries and failures.

[anonymous]

I liked not seeing any reaction from Jack until that final realization that he knew what was going on. For me, it added a little something to the story. After everything that happened, I realized that he had to hide his reactions that whole time. Ugh..how miserable.
SLHB

The Yattering

[ext_305017]

I thought this was the funniest story of all. The poor little yattering used all of the tricks in his book to trick Jack, but he was unaware that Jack was onto him. How clever of Jack to keep it a secret until the end when he became Lord over the demon.

[anonymous]

"So, where does this fit in with the other monsters we’ve read about in this class? I don’t think this is really a monster story. Monsters, to me, are physical manifestations that are able to affect their prey, both physically and mentally. They frighten their prey because of their sharp claws and deadly teeth. The Yattering had neither and was in fact forbidden to touch Jack. How scary would a game of tag be if you couldn’t be tagged? That, to me, removes all of the monster’s power."

Could you argue that the Yattering was trying to affect Jack mentally though, by taking advantage of his invisibility and his inability to make physical contact? Not that I'm saying that doing things like animating a chicken would be mentally disturbing, per se...

--Kristina Butke