Summary
Fierce in its imagining and stupefying in its scope, Jerusalem is the tale of everything, told from a vanished gutter. In the epic novel Jerusalem, Alan Moore channels both the ecstatic visions of William Blake and the theoretical physics of Albert Einstein through the hardscrabble streets and alleys of his hometown of Northampton, UK. In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England's Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district's narrative among its saints, kings, prostitutes, and derelicts, a different kind of human time is happening, a soiled simultaneity that does not differentiate between the petrol-colored puddles and the fractured dreams of those who navigate them. Employing, a kaleidoscope of literary forms and styles that ranges from brutal social realism to extravagant children's fantasy, from the modern stage drama to the extremes of science fiction, Jerusalem's dizzyingly rich cast of characters includes the living, the dead, the celestial, and the infernal in an intricately woven tapestry that presents a vision of an absolute and timeless human reality in all of its exquisite, comical, and heartbreaking splendor. In these pages lurk demons from the second-century Book of Tobit and angels with golden blood who reduce fate to a snooker tournament. Vagrants, prostitutes, and ghosts rub shoulders with Oliver Cromwell, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce's tragic daughter Lucia, and Buffalo Bill, among many others. There is a conversation in the thunderstruck dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, childbirth on the cobblestones of Lambeth Walk, an estranged couple sitting all night on the cold steps of a Gothic church front, and an infant choking on a cough drop for eleven chapters. An art exhibition is in preparation, and above the world a naked old man and a beautiful dead baby race along the Attics of the Breath toward the heat death of the universe. An opulent mythology for those without a pot to piss in, through the labyrinthine streets and pages of Jerusalem tread ghosts that sing of wealth, poverty, and our threadbare millennium. They discuss English as a visionary language from John Bunyan to James Joyce, hold forth on the illusion of mortality post-Einstein, and insist upon the meanest slum as Blake's eternal holy city.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Reviewed by Heidi MacDonald. In this staggeringly imaginative second novel, Moore (Watchmen) bundles all his ruminations about space, time, life, and death into an immense interconnected narrative that spans all human existence within the streets of his native Northampton, U.K. Reading this sprawling collection of words and ideas isn't an activity; it's an experience. The book is divided into three parts, each 11 chapters long, with a prelude and "afterlude." The bookends involve Alma Warren and her brother, Mick, who as a child choked on a cough drop and died, only to be revived; their inquiries into the mysteries of death provide a faint glimmer of plot. The first section crisscrosses Northampton with startling chapters that introduce sad ghosts who drift around town, have sex with each other, and seek nourishment in the form of strange plants known as Puck Hats. Living characters include Ern Vernall, who survives a sanity-ending encounter with a talking painting while trapped on scaffolding, and Alma and Mick's grandmother, May, who grieves the death of her too-beautiful daughter and becomes a "deathmonger," overseeing local funerals and births. The second section takes place entirely between Mick's death and his revival, with a long adventure in an afterlife only Moore could have imagined. The third and most difficult part is written in a series of literary pastiches, including a Beckett-like play and an entire chapter written in a language invented by Lucia Joyce, the institutionalized daughter of James Joyce. Throughout, Moore conjures the specter of Joyce's Dubliners, with dense paragraphs that go inside the minds of all the characters as they traipse about town. Some are stunningly aware of their location in Moore's four-dimensional reality (Snowy Vernall, who experiences life as a constant state of déjà vu) and some painfully mired in a sordid now (mediocre middle-aged poet Benedict Perrit, who lives with his mother and finds inspiration only in the bottle). Moore's love of allusions, both historical and literary, leads him to create a web of references that may prompt attentive readers-and not just the future term paper writers who will find this a gold mine-to read along with a highlighter in hand. It's all a challenge to get through, and deliberately so, but bold readers who answer the call will be rewarded with unmatched writing that soars, chills, wallows, and ultimately describes a new cosmology. Challenges and all, Jerusalem ensures Moore's place as one of the great masters of the English language. (Sept.) Heidi MacDonald is the graphic novels reviews editor for Publishers Weekly and editor-in-chief of the Beat, a news blog about comics. © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In the comics universe, Moore remains a legend for such groundbreaking graphic novels as Watchmen (1988) and V for Vendetta (1990). For his latest work, Moore turns in a sprawling, million-word saga blending fantasy and historical fiction set roughly in the Northampton, England, neighborhood in which he grew up. Billed by the publisher as a tale of everything, told from a vanished gutter, the novel reaches across millennia and features a broad spectrum of colorful characters, both human and spectral, including eccentric artist Alma Warren and her brother, Mick, whose stories begin and end the volume. In between, an impossible-to-summarize plot rife with literary and cultural allusions embraces a dizzying variety of narrative styles, from realism to Shakespearean verse to Joycean patter describing the experiences of a madwoman named Lucia (which was the name of James Joyce's daughter, who, sadly, suffered from severe mental illness). All the while, Moore explores such fantastical themes as the reality behind hallucinations and the simultaneity of various time streams. Although it remains to be seen whether critics will deem Moore's novel a masterpiece or merely an uneven example of authorial excess, his fans will doubtless find much here to ponder and delight in. HIGH-DEMAND BACK STORY: Moore's gargantuan novel will be heavily promoted as a major literary event, drawing in his legions of fans.--Hays, Carl Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
JERUSALEM, by Alan Moore. (Liveright, $24.95.) In a sprawling tribute to his hometown, Moore, the author of "Watchmen" and other graphic novels, traces a single day in Northampton, England, in 2006. The book fuses fantasy and even Joycean tropes to create an entertaining, passionate story. As our reviewer, Douglas Wolk, put it, "It's a vehicle for nothing less than Moore's personal cosmology of space, time and life after death." LEONARDO DA VINCI, by Walter Isaacson. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) Isaacson, an acclaimed biographer of the futurists Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, turns his focus to the far-ranging talents of the Renaissance genius. The book deals plainly with Leonardo's contradictions, giving the story complexity and depth, and Isaacson interweaves his subject's contemplations of nature with his art. THE CHILD FINDER, by Rene Denfeld. (Harper Perennial, $15.99.) Naomi, a private investigator in Oregon and the novel's title character, is known for her particular aptitude in tracking down lost children. On the hunt for Madison, who's been lost for three years, Naomi confronts memories of her own past as a missing child. The story shifts between her perspective and Madison's, revealing the child's tactics to survive captivity. HOW TO TAME A FOX (AND BUILD A DOG): Visionary Scientists and a Siberian Tale of Jump-Started Evolution, by Lee Alan Dugatkln and Lyudmila Trut. (University of Chicago, $18.) How did dogs become dogs? This book considers a pioneering Soviet study begun the late 1950s that replicated the domestication process with silver foxes; Trut is the current lead researcher on the project. Our reviewer, Marlene Zuk, praised the book, writing, "It is the backdrop to a story that is part science, part Russian fairy tale and part spy thriller." HALF-LIGHT: Collected Poems, 1965-2016, by Frank Bidart. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20.) The poems across this collection, winner of the 2017 National Book Award, trace Bidart's evolution over his decades-long career. On display is his approach to autobiographical poetry, interweaving the inner lives of other people (both real and fictional); the method and the resulting poems rank among his most significant contributions to the genre. THE VANITY FAIR DIARIES: Power, Wealth, Celebrity, and Dreams: My Years at the Magazine That Defined a Decade, by Tina Brown. (Picador, $20.) Brown's account of Vanity Fair in the 1980s and early 1990s - by all measures a period of splashy excess - will thrill media junkies. It also offers a look at Brown's own insecurities, particularly the strains of being a career-driven mother.
Library Journal Review
This latest work by Moore (Watchmen; V for Vendetta; From Hell) is difficult to define by flimsy constraints such as genre. In fact, during a first read-through, it's hard to say what this literary behemoth is even about. Ten years in the making, it is, on one hand, a fictional history of Northampton, England, stretching out over millenia. On another hand, it is a story of siblings Michael and Alma -Warren, their extended family, and how they and their ancestors shape the fortunes of the denizens of The Boroughs, the ghetto in which they live. But also, and more importantly, it is a story about everything: life, death, the afterlife, free will, famous Northamptonians (John Clare, Oliver Cromwell, Philip -Doddridge) rubbing elbows with prostitutes and drug addicts over time and space. It is about how, no matter what happens in life, we all go to the same place when we die; how everything, literally everything, is determined by four angels playing a game of snooker. It is confusing, hilarious, sad, mind-blowing, poignant, frustrating, and one of the most beautiful books ever written. Verdict More of a work of art than a novel, this book simply needs to be read.-Tyler Hixson, Library -Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
