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Jerusalem (Alan Moore)


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The famous "comic book" author also wrote a 1200+ page behemoth of a novel which was released in 2016 to critical acclaim, but mediocre sales. Probably because of its enormous length 

 

In Book 1 Moore shows he's not an author who likes to leave too much up to the imagination of the reader. A modernism work which celebrates the authors birthplace of Northampton, seen though the perspective of many people, some of the same, possible important family, but all characters are working class or lower, all struggling with the undeniably fact of poverty, disenfranchisement, indentity as possible religious or supernatural forces begin to bear down in an yet undisclosed event which will happen in 2006.

 

A bunch of working class people in that year, a 19 year old drug addict prostitute, a young mother in the early 20th century, her father as she was born in the gutters two decades earlier, her son after WWII, a colorful drunk in 2006, a death monger, Charlie Chaplin, and a restorer of old frescos in late 19th century St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Poverty and mental illness, all related somehow in a way that seems both nebulous and inevitable.

 

 

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Book 2: Mansoul.

 

Moore goes from a modernist work about seemingly random people musing about poverty while walking through Northampton to a modern version of classic English children's story adventures. Alice In Wonderland, Hook, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. As young Michael goes round the bend and finds himself in Mansoul, the second level of excistence....in 4 dimensions.

 

Moore shows incredible verbal dexterity, imagination and slight of hand when he pulls out all the stops and uses every trick in the book to depict a fantasy realm unlike any ive seen.

 

Underneath its still all about class though, and institutionalised poverty as a means of political controll. Few characters are who they seem, and the outcome of this largely predestined book may be dramatically influenced by the misguided good intentions of flawed people.

 

Also...Alma might just fuck everything up.

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

Once I finish this book I will have to start The Wire.

Alan Moore is a big fan, by the way. That is how I discovered it - through one of his interviews. Give it some episodes. Like some of the best shows, it's a slow burn.

 

Karol

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His From Hell is fascinating too. 500 page epic about Victorian London with Jack the Ripper as a focal point. The film adaptation is embarrassing. Even V for Vendetta looks good in comparison. But still not as bad as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now this one is way off. I know that I said a lot of bad things about Snyder's Watchmen but that's still a pretty solid adaptation (all things considered).

 

And Lost Girls is interesting too. A porn as written by Alan Moore. This is bit harder to recommend because of its nature. Sexual imagination is so bizarre after all. It's provocative but quite good.

 

Karol

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Jerusalem seems to have gotten great reviews, but so far hasn't sold that well. Probably because its enormous size, and probably because its hard to pin down exactly what kinda genre the book is.

 

Moore doesn't seem to be interested in confirming to a genre or style.

 

It occasionally touches upon aspects dealt with in Watchmen, and presumably From Hell too.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Book 3: Vernall's Inquest

 

The most challenging of the three books, in which Moore ups the ante by making it (in in my opinion 100% deliberately) for the reader to read the book and try and follow the story.

Book 3 is most likely the one where people will start to skim stuff, or just give up. 

 

The reason as to why Moore does this will be a matter debate between people who did make it through for years to come I'm sure. My personal opinion is that Moore wrote the book he wanted to write, and that it is entirely up to the reader to decide if he on board with what Moore is doing. Both stylistically (in Book 3 Moore goes hog wild and presents his chapters in a variety of styles ranging from James Joyce to Samuel Beckett to Philip Marlow) to the final direction the story unfolds in.

 

I for one found Book 3 it to be an incredibly satisfying work, in part because I was really made to work for it.

 

Jerusalem isnt for everyone. I think one very important thing is that you have to be prepared to deal with everything Moore throws at you and just go along for the ride. If Jerusalem proves anything it's that Alan Moore is a writer of an incredible skill level, who is in no way shy of letting you know how incredibly talented he is. And he does this for 1200 pages virtually non-stop. 

Even having read very little of Alam More previously (only Watchmen), I have no doubts stating that this is his most personal work.

A love-song to his home town of Northampton, described both historically and dimensionally in breathtaking, at times maddening detail, a manifesto that describes the origins, and mechanics of poverty in all it's facets, a fantasy work that manages to combine geometry, mathematics, religion and sci-fi in something that feels surprisingly coherent, and probably lots of other things. 

 

This makes the book hard to recommend. Because Moore (again very deliberately, imo) flaunts obvious literary conventions regarding genre and structure, and doesnt shy away from describing sex, either voluntary or otherwise, violence, mental illness, and death in great detail.

 

Reviewing this book is to some extent like reviewing a painting. And again, I think that's something that Moore intended.

 

We have at times wondered on JWFan what art is. I honestly wouldn't know what the proper and final definition is. But Alan Moore's Jerusalem by without doubt a work of art.

 

 

 

    

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