The Yattering and Jack

Clive Barker has a particular way of writing. After reading Rawhead Rex and The Yattering and Jack, I have to say, there's a specific style I feel I'd be able to recognize if I read any of his other works. The first word that comes to mind is "crude"-- though maybe "brutally honest" might be a nicer way of putting it. Emphasis on the "brutal" part. 

The Yattering and Jack deals with a demon sent to claim the soul of a human, though the human is too dumb to realize it. The Yattering does whatever he can to try to get negative emotions out of Jack, which leads to possibly the most uncomfortable part of the short story which is the death of the cats. For the most part, I'm okay with animal death in stories- but this was just excessive (another good word to describe Barker's writing). The first was not an accident at all, but at least it seemed to fit the story aesthetic and I didn't mind it. Then the second cat was drowned in a toilet (??) but the last cat had to be exploded? Yes, the Yattering is a demon, yes demons are terrible and evil, but in terms of Barker's writing it mostly just reads to me as excessive.

As the story progresses, I felt that the character of Jack became a little less concrete like the one we saw in the beginning. He grows more cunning, more affected by the Yattering's attempt, and overall more devious. I wonder if the Yattering being within Jack's house affected Jack's personality, making him slightly more demonic. Especially given the ended, where Jack is almost proud that he's managed to enslave a demon and has no qualms at all about starting to give orders. Plus, how did Jack know that he had enslaved the demon through these actions in the first place? It wasn't like I was missing these answers in the midst of the story, but they definitely came to me after, especially when thinking on how Jack's character changed. Of course there wouldn't be a story without the plot and some change, though I wonder how it would have turned out if Jack's character had remained a little more, in my opinion, consistent. 

Jack's constant repetition of the phrase "Che sera, sera" was also very prevalent throughout the story. Since it wasn't outright explained and also did seem to have an actual meaning, I looked it up and discovered that it can be translated to "what will be, will be." It definitely fit the theme of the story, but I think the most representative of the repetitions was the end, with the Yattering. It has to resign itself to being stuck with Jack, with the knowledge that Jack doesn't seem to care that he won't be able to get to heaven. It's applicable for both of them, in terms of resignation and reluctant acceptance.