Clearly brilliant characters - Rated 
"Another of Nicola Barker's amazing novels which just capture the ways and words of her characters so clearly. Narrated by 28yr old Adair, he works at the GLC and is drawn to watch the spectacle that was David Blaine suspended in a glass box by the Thames in 2003, and meets some interesting people there too. He is cocky and arrogant, but does try to think about things, and close to the start of the book comes out with this amazing simile describing the spectacle and egg-throwing attendant public - I quote:
"it's like the embankment is a toilet and Blaine is just the scented rim-block dangling in his disposable plastic container from the bowl at the top."
You can picture it exactly can't you!
During Blaine's self-imposed imprisonment, Adie meets, falls for and is confused by Aphra a gourmet cook, has many philosophical discussions with his landlord Solomon, and ultimately finds himself - in a sort of I can see clearly now the Blaine has gone kind of way (excuse my awful pun).
This novel just draws you in and doesn't let go."
Another excellent Barker novel. - Rated
There can't be that many novels that have stellar reviews from both the Times Literary Supplement and Heat Magazine, but Clear by Nicola Barker is just such a one.
I seem to be reading her books in reverse order. I started last year with Darkmans, which came to my attention when it made the shortlist of the 2007 Booker Prize (I still say it woz robbed, btw), and now thanks to Palimpsest and its book group I have found myself reading her previous novel, Clear, which was seemingly longlisted for the 2004 Booker. At this rate, I'll be gobbling up everything of hers I can find because both of her books so far have been a dream.
So what is Clear all about then? Well, here's the blurb:
"On 5th September 2003, New York illusionist David Blaine entered a small perspex box beside the River Thames and began starving himself. Forty-four days later he left the box. The end. The real show, of course, was on the sidelines: the crowds, the chaos, the hype and most enjoyably, the hypocrisy. Through the eyes and exploits of Adair Graham MacKenney, bitter, shameless and irreverent, we see this world for what it is: a place of illusion, delusion, celebrity and hunger. And, naturally, lust. With her Tupperware and awful shoes, Adair finds himself unaccountably drawn to the reluctant Aphra. But when has futility ever stopped anyone? Just think of the guy in the perspex box. Wickedly comic, caustic and uncommonly astute, this outrageous peep show of a novel gives us our contemporary world laid bare."
So there's the background - David Blaine in his clear perspex box dangling above the Thames. Adair is a bit of a fashion victim, achingly cool in his Boxfresh jacket and pristine "classic" trainers. However, for him Blaine's stunt seems to precipitate a genuine growth within his personality, whether it is fighting with his flatmate's girlfriend about whether or not Blaine was influenced by Kafka and Primo Levi, or getting to know workmate Bly through lunchtime strolls past Blaine in his box, or being entranced by the enigmatic Aphra and her endless supply of bizarre second-hand shoes.
I found an interview with Barker about the book where she states that "as a writer (and as a person) I've always celebrated the outsider, the stranger, the interloper, the freak. The main aim of all my fiction is to render the unlovable, lovable." She certainly achieved that for me. She lays out modern life and obsessions in front of you and points out their ridiculousness, but still manages to make it really not seem so awful after all. The novel is written in the first person, with Adair as our narrator, and Barker's real skill is in her dialogue, both internal and external (an aside: internal dialogue? is that not just internal monologue? *shrugs* Anyway...) because everything she writes is just utterly believable. Everything fits, Adair's reactions, realizations, fits of temper, they all fit. All the characters are superbly drawn in fact. And they are all trying to find their way in this crazy modern world we all find ourselves in, desperately searching for meaning for themselves by way of looking for an explanation for Blaine's actions.
This is a quirky novel, and its idiosyncratic narration will clearly not be for everyone, but it is laugh-out-loud funny in places and is wonderful on a number of levels - story, the underlying implications, the language, the satire. Which is probably why it clearly (ho ho ho) appeals to everyone from Heat readers to TLS subscribers.
A very funny well written novel - Rated 
This novel was on my reading list for a Innovative Contemporary Novel module, and I wasn't sure what to make it of from the blurb. However, after the first chapter I was completely drawn in and found it absolutely hilarious! I love the fact that Barker writes from a man's point of view, and how the whole thing is structured around David Blaine's above the below. Her use of writing is also very refreshing, and I strongly recommend this book. I gave it 4 stars as I don't think it is a good as other books I have read, but it is by no means bad or confusing as other reviewers have said.
Sorry - I just don't get it - Rated 
The first 25 pages of this book made me think that it was going to be one of those "hey, look at me", barely readable, tricksy, oddly-structured stabs at "modern literature" written more for the author (and his/her peers) than for the reader, where the author is concerned more with showing off his/her mastery of technique than with producing something people might actually want to read. Had I not enjoyed Nicola Barker's "Reversed forecast" (which I can heartily recommend to anyone interested in reading a writer on top form), I would probably not have bothered finishing this one. As it is, I felt very little wiser at the end than I had at the start. While her ear for dialogue and the spoken word is as acute as ever, I'm afraid I just don't get it, but maybe that's partly because I don't understand the references to "Shane" and the Kafka short story. Is the point that we all bring our own unique combination of experiences, prejudices, hopes and fears to bear on the judgements we make and that those therefore determine how we all respond differently to the same stimulus?
Through the Looking Glass - Rated
Clear is the best novel I've read this year. Ms. Barker has reignited my belief that good writing lives . . . and that novels can be innovative, literate, surprising and accessible. The book's main theme is that even when we think we are seeing, our perceptions of appearances are deceiving us. What can be more transparent than an illusionist, David Blaine, who sits suspended in a Perspex box above the Thames while he fasts for 44 days? That central image becomes the fulcrum for this insightful, witty novel about modern conceits. You soon get a hint that the book is in part about writing when the narrator, Adair Graham MacKenny, opens the narration with ribald praise for the language in Jack Schaefer's Shane. Later, Blaine's very illusion is discussed in terms of a Kafka story. Unlike snobbish novelists, Ms. Barker shares everything you need to know to share her point. As the story develops, you find yourself in the middle of an enigma wrapped in several mysteries, one Aphra by name, who sits every night watching Blaine in the wee hours while others sleep, who keeps dozens of containers of gourmet food which alternative with regurgitated remnants of such food, and wears outrageous shoes. Aphra's shoe fetish nicely matches Adair's foot fetish, and Adair finds himself in enraptured pursuit. As the mysteries about Aphra are gradually resolved, you begin to appreciate Ms. Barker's point about not knowing what we are seeing. In one powerful passage on page 311, she reveals all in describing Blaine's magic: "He's like a mirror in which people can see the very best and the very worst of themselves." Clear goes on to make the point that we all use other people in the same way. It's clear!
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