Author:Alan Moore
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Jerusalem by Alan Moore is one of the longest novels in the English language. It is also one of the strangest and hardest to describe, so full is it of philosophy, humour, memory, the nature of the universe, even time itself. Indeed, Life, The Universe and Everything. And all this set within the confines of a few square miles of Northampton’s poorest neighbourhood, The Boroughs, where Moore’s family lived and breathed for generations.
So, where to start? The novel is divided into three parts with a prologue and an epilogue, both of which feature the brother and sister Alma and Michael Warren. Alma is clearly a gender swapped rendition of Moore himself, as an artist rather than writer, but still the imposing Gothic figure we know and love. The first part, “The Boroughs”, leaps about all over the place, backwards and forwards in time and it reads more like a series of short stories with, at first, no obvious link. You really have to stick with it before the narrative threads begin to reveal themselves and it becomes apparent that this is not just the history of the Warren family (an analog for Moore’s own family history) but also of a specific part of Northampton. A place so steeped in radical history that it’s no wonder it caught fire at one point. Cromwell fought a decisive battle of the Civil War nearby; political and religious dissenters were rife. This first part gradually coalesces around the Warrens and in particular Michael Warren and what happened when he chokes to death on a cough sweet at the age of three. Yes, you read that right….
Part two, “Mansoul” reads like a cross between Enid Blyton and Stephen King as we revel in Moore’s vision of the Afterlife, complete with Master Builders (Angles), Devils and all manner of ghosts, spectres and apparitions. It is here, in what is the most straightforward, linear part of the book, that we follow the adventures of the recently deceased Michael and the Dead Dead Gang, an unruly bunch of ghost kids roaming the endless galleries of Mansoul, causing mischief and generally having a bloody good time.
They are entrusted with returning Michael to his body, for he has died too soon, which has caused ructions amongst the Master Builders and their game of Trilliards (sort of a form of billiards but played with balls representing the inhabitants of The Boroughs). So ensues a long journey through Mansoul and it’s attendant wonders (architecture built with dreams, great windows onto moments in time like stained glass floor panels, all under a great, curved glass and iron arcade), as well as excursions into the “ghost seam”, the strip between our world and Mansoul, where ghosts walk amongst us. This part of the book is literally bursting with fun (once you get the hang of the so-called “Lucy Lips” dialect of Mansoul, where words are mangled to within an inch of their lives). It is indeed a rip roaring read. So when Michael’s predicament is finally sorted out, after we have encountered such figures as Cromwell, the Reverend Doddridge and a particularly nasty Devil called Asmodeus, we are delivered into the arms of part three…
“Vernall’s Inquest” reverts to the structure of the first part of the novel, in that this is more like a series of interconnected short stories, but you get the distinct impression that Moore is showing off (or is he?). One chapter apes Joyce, another is written as a stage play (featuring Joyce, John Bunyan, Samuel Beckett and Thomas Becket and a couple of Warrens recognisable from an earlier chapter), another is done as a lyric poem. We even get two chapters devoted to characters who haven’t featured in the story before! This could all be seen as post-modern showing off, but then Moore drops in some information about a Northampton clergyman called James Hervey and a book he wrote called Theron and Aspasio, which it turns out Moore is paying a kind of tribute to in the style and structure of this third part.
That’s the thing about Jerusalem. It folds back in upon itself so many times that you almost need a notebook to keep track of events and characters, which pop up in one chapter and then are seen from a different point of view in another.
The book culminates in an art exhibition by Alma with works based on the story told in the book. Indeed, the chapters are the names of the paintings. It’s all about the unmaking of the world, of how visionaries have fashioned the world in their image, from William Blake to Adam Smith. There is also a fair sprinkling of political polemic, a railing against the injustices heaped upon the “working classes”. But it’s also about Moore’s adherence to a view of time wherein every event exists forever, that free will is an illusion and we relive our lives over and over again. We just don’t know it.
It is a vast, sprawling book that shoots off in so many directions at once that it barely hold itself together. It is not entirely successful. It will certainly repay re-readings. It took Moore years to write, but you sometimes wish an Editor had been brave enough to whisper to Alan that maybe, just maybe, he was over-egging the pudding.
Length of Read:Epic
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Ulysses. Anything long, complicated and a bit overblown….
One thing you’ve learned
Confirms that Alan Moore is a great, if undisciplined, writer.
Not one for the poolside on holiday then?
Minipaws, aged 18 months, ran up to Alan Moore once in a local coffee shop shouting “dad dad dad dad dad dad dad.” As far as I’m aware she was not accurate, for a start she doesn’t have a massive beard.
Excellent review. This is going on my ‘to get’ list. I’ve read a few of Moore’s graphic novels and have been blown away by some aspects of them.; I’m glad he’s still around, still writing and still ludicrously ambitious…
That was a great review @Wheldrake, almost a mini-novel in itself! I`ve never read any Alan Moore, it`s where to start really (hint). I am aware of his association with those Space Cadets of Forever – Hawkwind (love `em). I see `Jerusalem` is a new(ish) book so maybe I should start with some of his earlier stuff first.
I came across this interview with A.M. which i intend to read after I`ve found Pt. I.
http://www.comicsbeat.com/alan-moore-interview-part-ii-punk-rock-crossed-and-providence/
Ahh! A link for Pt I at the top of Pt II.
Where to start? The obvious place is with his work in comics. His run on Swamp Thing is fantastic, taking a second string DC property and turning it into a modern horror classic.
Watchmen is his masterpiece. Ignore the slavish movie adaptation, the graphic novel has layer upon layer of meaning.
The Books of Promethea are brilliant. Basically his treatise on magick done through the medium of a mythical goddess superheroine.
From Hell, with art by the equally brilliant Eddie Campbell is his take on Jack the Ripper and it is chillingly brilliant.
That’s a good starter for ten! Jump in.
Thanks W. I have a `graphic Watchman DVD` which I enjoy. The movie adaptation? Well I`m a Sci-Fi fan and have built up a moderate collection of DVDs/Blurays but that movie adaptation? It sucked, I gave the Bluray to the Charity Shop.
There`s plenty there to start off with, I wonder if the Baroness will loan/give me some shelf space?
Thanks for a fine review which had made very curious to give this a read.
I’ve really enjoyed the wild flights of imagination in his graphic novels so I suspect I may enjoy this too.
Be aware this is a VERY long book. It’s taken me over three months. I’d suggest getting the three volume paperback rather than the one volume hardback. Less daunting! 🙂
This has been sitting intimidating me from my to be read pile for some time now. Suspect it will have to wait for Winter
Finished Jerusalem a month or so ago. It took a little while and I took time out now and again. Here’s my review from Goodreads.
Wow.
Let’s get the elephant out of the way first. This book is 1280 pages long. Why is it 1280 pages long? It is 1280 pages long because they are larger than average pages which contain smaller than average print. If they had been average pages with a standard font size, then the book would be 1800-2000 pages long. When it was published, reviewers claimed it is longer than the Bible. It probably is.
What is it? A history of Northampton, at the heart of England, which makes it a history of England, and as it claims that everywhere is Jerusalem, historically viewed as the centre of the world, a history of the world. A story of poor communities and the powers around them bent on their eradication. A story of a family of mystical dreamers. A fantasy of the bridges between this world and the next. Potted histories of Philip Doddridge, James Joyce’s daughter, John Bunyan, Oliver Cromwell, Charlie Chaplin and many more who make an appearance.
The cast are introduced in the first third of the book in a series of disconnected, connected stories that leap through time but are centred, as is the whole book, on the Burroughs, a maze of small houses, forming the historical centre of Northampton. This leads onto the strange and wonderful middle section as we are taken into a world above and beyond whose inhabitants are able to explore that world but also our world, burrowing through time, unseen by all except the very young, the dreamers and those under the influence.
By this point in my reading, this was going to be a five star review, but the book sags in the last third. We know we are heading towards an art exhibition (as this is introduced very early in one of the first stories I don’t think this is much of a spoiler). However, we are back to the separate stories, which might be fine if they all formed part of the central thread, but they don’t. This is the section that includes the most modernist writing: an unpunctuated interior monologue like the end of Ulysses, a section written as a play and a classically formed poem with very modern content. Actually all of these are relatively easy to read. Not so the sub Finnegans Wake section of made up words describing the life of Joyce’s daughter in her Northampton asylum; whilst it was possible to work out what most words meant, putting them together to form any useful overall meaning proved too much. I missed out half of this section, but as it didn’t seem to relate to the overall arc of the book, I don’t think I lost anything. It felt a bit as if Alan Moore was going, look I did all this research into Northampton and its famous inhabitants so I am going to put it all in and I’ll write in this modernist manner just to show that I can.
Worth it? Yes, but with those reservations about the final slog. Look out for all the little puns and jokes on the word play, referencing songs and hymns. I am sure I missed many that referenced stuff I didn’t know. Alan Moore has an impressive imaginative mind; I am glad I don’t live in it.
Is everything resolved at the end? Does it all make sense in its own fantastical way? Of course not, but you don’t read a book of this length, of this mad imagination to come to some all encompassing conclusion. You read for the journey, with all its meandering and strange viewpoints.
I don’t know if I would recommend it to my friends, but if it sounds like your sort of thing, then I would very much recommend plunging in.
Excellent review. Totally agree about the last third. It really did slow me down after the joy that was Mansoul. Yes some will find it pretentious tosh. But it is well worth persevering with.
Another excellent review. Thanks David. It does sound like an extraordinary read.
If you find Alan moreish, you may enjoy these tag interviews.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lgkzc?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_4&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=radio_and_music
Alan interviewed by Stewart Lee and then the author and warlock interviewing Brian Eno. Moore has a marvelous voice and is a very witty chap.
Greatest Living Englishman, dontcha know (present company excepted). There’s also a good documentary film called The Mindscape Of Alan Moore, which is essentially the bearded genius talking for ninety minutes. It’s great.