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Jerusalem #1.1
Jerusalem, Book One: The Boroughs
Book one of three.
363 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2016
28 people are currently reading
338 people want to read
About the author
Alan Moore
1,576 books21.7k followersAlan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
September 1, 2019
While this isn't one of my long anthology reviews (that usually necessitate a three tiered review with a short section for "was it good/should I read it?" up front) and while I tend to keep my reviews of novels a bit briefer, this is a review of the first volume in an enormous three volume novel which I absolutely loved, and the first volume constitutes a series of linked short stories/character studies, so despite my best intentions to keep it short, let's throw a token to the TLDR crowd and answer the question up front.
JERUSALEM is, likely, the best modern novel I have ever read. But I haven't read many MODERN novels, so let's restate that. JERUSALEM certainly is one of the best (non-qualified) novels I have ever read - and I've read a hell of a lot of novels (although more short fiction). Now, I say this only having read the first two volumes, and I say this with some slight knowledge of minor defects in the second volume, but regardless - JERUSALEM is a wonder to behold, to read and experience. Not for the cynical, not for the easily distracted, not for those craving mere entertainment. But for those looking for beauty, for wonder, for some rigorous art, for humanity....ahhh.
In fact, after having read the first book, and before starting the second, I began to listen to the audiobook version - at least the first 3 chapters - and found it a revelation, having then the knowledge of the entire book under my belt and I caught much stuff I had missed on the initial go. I got distracted, and started reading the second volume, finishing it just recently and decided to restart the audiobook over, listening to those first three sections again - and AGAIN they were a revelation, even more so than the first time, now that I had the full knowledge of the second book to go by (I had completely forgotten that we actually MET "The Third Borough" in the first few pages of Volume One, and "ASBOS of Desire" just keeps getting more powerful each new time around, as Marla resists every impulse to go out, yet by now we know she has no other choice but to do exactly that....)
So, is JERUSALEM a good book and worth your time? You betcha. Should you read it? Well, yeah, of course, but if you are a certain kind of reader (as noted above) you may not be able to handle it (but then who ever self-identifies themselves in the negative?). You may have to have grown a bit, lived a little, and for all I know it may NEVER work for you - but I hope to heavens you give it a try, regardless. And if it doesn't work, then I hope that you come back later for another go.
This being a review of book one, and each book being somewhat different than the others (I imagine one and two could be read independently of each other - not having read volume three, I can't guess at that but it seems less likely), I'll give the general outline (and try not to give spoilers). The framing device of JERUSALEM book one ("The Boroughs") involves a 49 year old man named Michael Warren of the city of Northampton, UK, who one day suffers an industrial accident that knocks him unconscious. On awakening, he suddenly retains a full memory of what happened to him when (as a child of 3) he choked on a cough drop and was technically dead for a short time - not just THAT it happened (it had been a family legend for some time) but WHAT happened to him while he was dead, who he met, where he had been, what he had learned about himself, about Northampton, about life, about time, about the afterlife, about all of creation. He tells this to his sister, Alma Warren (a professional painter) and she devises a series of paintings from his tale, which she makes an exhibit of. Michael's actual remembered experience is book 2 of JERUSALEM ("Mansoul") while the opening of Alma's painting exhibit seems to make up at least some of book 3 ("Vernall's Inquest").
So here in "The Boroughs" we are given the frame and, after setting this up, the book consists of a series of short stories/character studies of various individuals living in Northampton in various times - from "now" back to the 800s (when the city was a small walled town). These often contrast one another, or overlap, although as the stories commence we begin to realize that, chronologically, some of these characters CANNOT possibly overlap, and so we have been reading about ghosts in some instances, or that some individuals perceive around them not just the living but the dead, and from this we begin to get a sense of how time actually works. We also begin to realize that the majority (but not all) of individuals we meet are ancestors of Michael and Alma Warren, or related friends or individuals from the entire history of Northampton (which, as it turns out, serves many important roles in the history of England's politics, arts and letters - as birthplace, setting of an event, or origin of some species of thought). So, in that, the book is an enormous love-letter to the city - but not a soppy sentimental one and, in fact, often a grungy, brutal and sadly honest one. In this first book, Alan Moore perfects a concept first utilized in Watchmen, in which the passing people in the street, who mainly seem like a bit of distracting local color, become the actual tapestry from which history is woven (In WATCHMEN, of course, these were the victims of Ozymandias' plan who, if we hadn't gotten to know them over 12 issues, would have been far easier - narratively - to sweep aside or swallow as the "acceptable losses" and the "eggs that need to be broken" for one to feel better about the larger plan to 'save the world.') Also here, textually, is Moore's much copied "visual overlap" technique from the comics, enlarged and broadened (as just a minor example, "Modern Times" has "Oatsie's" worry about the serial-ity of life's "...and then...and then...and then..." which is followed, in "Blind And Now I See," with Black Charlie's "...and before that...and before that...." memories, or the twinning where "A Host Of Angles" and "Atlantis" both open with a character waking up and going through their morning ablutions) and there are a host of echoing (births followed by births) and "the smaller in the larger" because "we all fold up," as we're told (one of my favorite little bits like this, only recognized as such the second time around, was the detail about Alma and Michael's childhood "War on The Ant Cities" and how it echoes the "War In Heaven" as seen from Archangel Michael's POV at the start of books 3 - even down to Michael making an ant "2 dimensional" with a brick!).
As an aside, the funny thing about this book is that there are at least two aspects which, generally, I tend not to react well to in modern fiction. In the case of this book, however, they are both so central, so integral to the exercise, that they cannot be ignored or considered mere faults. One is extended genealogy, as woven here non-consecutively - and once I realized that, I just gave in to it, not worrying too much about tracking the specifics (no doubt, somewhere, someone online has charted it all out in order) so instead I just focused on one or another aspect of a person and hoped for the best in remembering who they were when they obliquely re-entered the narrative, or we heard references or stories about them or their ultimate fates. Secondly, while I am a "visual thinker" when it comes to reading - in that I tend to create a space in my head and visualize the events of a text occurring as if in a movie or play - this book HEAVILY - and I mean HEAVILY - stresses the geographical scenario of where it occurs, noting streets, rights and lefts, over there's, down this ways, to-ing and fro-ing, etc. Some might argue that this is to the narrative flow's detriment, or that in doing so it betrays Moore's origins in scripting visual comic books but, while I found this a bit wearisome and overwhelming to read, again I just let it flow over me (although the first volume also contains a nice little map of Northampton that one could, if you chose to, trace the various narratives through). While I initially considered this a slight fault in the writing, I actually came to see it as important to the overall idea of the book itself, and its rigorous conception of human life as lived in three (and four) dimensional space.
Beyond that, I will merely say the following. The cross-section of humanity you will experience in these slices of time is simply breathtaking in its beauty, conception and humane honesty. Moore reserves most of the visionary world-building for volume two (which sketches out how all of Creation works) and so here is more concerned with the PEOPLE who make up the world as we know it, and experience it. There is much joy here, and even some laughs (In "Hark! The Glad Sound!" I laughed out loud at Tom Warren's disastrous date with an upright, moral girl that ends at a filthy music-hall comedian's show, while also rather touchingly sharing his problems with meeting woman) and the to-ing and fro-ing of life as it is lived. Hopes, dreams, plans...and, yes, pain and disappointment and despair. I don't mean to overstate this, because the book is many things, but it honestly contains some of the saddest moments I have ever read in fiction - whether it be Black Charlie's ultimate understanding of the origins of the hymn "Amazing Grace," and how religion manifests in people (in "Blind But Now I See") or the fate of burnished beauty baby May Warren who burns like an unearthly beacon in a grey world. Or the desperation of drug-addicted prostitute Marla, beautifully captured in the aforementioned "ASBOS of Desire" where her pain and regret and arrogance muddle up to blacken her world and leave her open to more suffering and exploitation. There is the bizarre joy of Snowy Vernall (in "Do As You Darn Well Pleasey") who is gifted with the singular ability to see the world and time as it really is, and so takes ridiculous chances because he knows when and how he will die (and it isn't NOW or THIS WAY) and the melancholy fate of "the published poet" Benedict Perrit who squanders his talent and time from a lack of self-confidence while he drinks himself closer towards death, until one night he realizes exactly what he must do and what challenge he must face (in "Atlantis") (the double blow - a generalized one the reader receives in "Blind..." and then the specific one in "Atlantis" - hit home pretty brutally for me - the latter, quite personally, not just for myself but for how much it brought to mind a good friend who also squandered his talent and succumbed to drink not too long ago).
And while Marla struggles with a devil towards her higher Sainthood further up the line, we meet a man who goes mad when an Angel speaks to him, and later we are present firsthand as witnesses to the game that higher powers play with our lives... play very well as it turns out, not even being above the occasional trick shot. "Rough Sleepers" lays out our initial glimpse of how time, the world, and the afterlife works, through the sympathetic figure of homeless tramp Georgie Allan, who doesn't think he deserves to move on to a better world because of a terrible desire he once had (which he never put into action - but the thought haunts him). Sweaty Peter the Monk toils towards a holy goal, with some humor and much wrestling with his faith, while theatrical 'Oatsie' looks upon the burgeoning 20th Century and "Modern Times," wishing only that it will remember his name, as he dons the made-up stage costume of his dissolute father for a bit of comedy (I leave it to you the reader to figure out just what famous person he was - the penny didn't drop for me until re-listening to Marla's earlier story in audio - although it seemingly is made explicit in Book Three).
Because there is so much humanity on display here that it quite literally held me in awe at time. Muck and shit and sex and divinity and retribution and reward and love and joy, joy, joy...
THIS WILL BE VERY HARD FOR YOU we are repeatedly told, and not only is this simple statement a formula in which the entirety of existence is hidden (as I eventually pieced together - past, future, present), but it is also a truth. Yes, it will be. And Yes, it is. It is....
...but it is also beautiful BECAUSE of exactly that...
JERUSALEM is, likely, the best modern novel I have ever read. But I haven't read many MODERN novels, so let's restate that. JERUSALEM certainly is one of the best (non-qualified) novels I have ever read - and I've read a hell of a lot of novels (although more short fiction). Now, I say this only having read the first two volumes, and I say this with some slight knowledge of minor defects in the second volume, but regardless - JERUSALEM is a wonder to behold, to read and experience. Not for the cynical, not for the easily distracted, not for those craving mere entertainment. But for those looking for beauty, for wonder, for some rigorous art, for humanity....ahhh.
In fact, after having read the first book, and before starting the second, I began to listen to the audiobook version - at least the first 3 chapters - and found it a revelation, having then the knowledge of the entire book under my belt and I caught much stuff I had missed on the initial go. I got distracted, and started reading the second volume, finishing it just recently and decided to restart the audiobook over, listening to those first three sections again - and AGAIN they were a revelation, even more so than the first time, now that I had the full knowledge of the second book to go by (I had completely forgotten that we actually MET "The Third Borough" in the first few pages of Volume One, and "ASBOS of Desire" just keeps getting more powerful each new time around, as Marla resists every impulse to go out, yet by now we know she has no other choice but to do exactly that....)
So, is JERUSALEM a good book and worth your time? You betcha. Should you read it? Well, yeah, of course, but if you are a certain kind of reader (as noted above) you may not be able to handle it (but then who ever self-identifies themselves in the negative?). You may have to have grown a bit, lived a little, and for all I know it may NEVER work for you - but I hope to heavens you give it a try, regardless. And if it doesn't work, then I hope that you come back later for another go.
This being a review of book one, and each book being somewhat different than the others (I imagine one and two could be read independently of each other - not having read volume three, I can't guess at that but it seems less likely), I'll give the general outline (and try not to give spoilers). The framing device of JERUSALEM book one ("The Boroughs") involves a 49 year old man named Michael Warren of the city of Northampton, UK, who one day suffers an industrial accident that knocks him unconscious. On awakening, he suddenly retains a full memory of what happened to him when (as a child of 3) he choked on a cough drop and was technically dead for a short time - not just THAT it happened (it had been a family legend for some time) but WHAT happened to him while he was dead, who he met, where he had been, what he had learned about himself, about Northampton, about life, about time, about the afterlife, about all of creation. He tells this to his sister, Alma Warren (a professional painter) and she devises a series of paintings from his tale, which she makes an exhibit of. Michael's actual remembered experience is book 2 of JERUSALEM ("Mansoul") while the opening of Alma's painting exhibit seems to make up at least some of book 3 ("Vernall's Inquest").
So here in "The Boroughs" we are given the frame and, after setting this up, the book consists of a series of short stories/character studies of various individuals living in Northampton in various times - from "now" back to the 800s (when the city was a small walled town). These often contrast one another, or overlap, although as the stories commence we begin to realize that, chronologically, some of these characters CANNOT possibly overlap, and so we have been reading about ghosts in some instances, or that some individuals perceive around them not just the living but the dead, and from this we begin to get a sense of how time actually works. We also begin to realize that the majority (but not all) of individuals we meet are ancestors of Michael and Alma Warren, or related friends or individuals from the entire history of Northampton (which, as it turns out, serves many important roles in the history of England's politics, arts and letters - as birthplace, setting of an event, or origin of some species of thought). So, in that, the book is an enormous love-letter to the city - but not a soppy sentimental one and, in fact, often a grungy, brutal and sadly honest one. In this first book, Alan Moore perfects a concept first utilized in Watchmen, in which the passing people in the street, who mainly seem like a bit of distracting local color, become the actual tapestry from which history is woven (In WATCHMEN, of course, these were the victims of Ozymandias' plan who, if we hadn't gotten to know them over 12 issues, would have been far easier - narratively - to sweep aside or swallow as the "acceptable losses" and the "eggs that need to be broken" for one to feel better about the larger plan to 'save the world.') Also here, textually, is Moore's much copied "visual overlap" technique from the comics, enlarged and broadened (as just a minor example, "Modern Times" has "Oatsie's" worry about the serial-ity of life's "...and then...and then...and then..." which is followed, in "Blind And Now I See," with Black Charlie's "...and before that...and before that...." memories, or the twinning where "A Host Of Angles" and "Atlantis" both open with a character waking up and going through their morning ablutions) and there are a host of echoing (births followed by births) and "the smaller in the larger" because "we all fold up," as we're told (one of my favorite little bits like this, only recognized as such the second time around, was the detail about Alma and Michael's childhood "War on The Ant Cities" and how it echoes the "War In Heaven" as seen from Archangel Michael's POV at the start of books 3 - even down to Michael making an ant "2 dimensional" with a brick!).
As an aside, the funny thing about this book is that there are at least two aspects which, generally, I tend not to react well to in modern fiction. In the case of this book, however, they are both so central, so integral to the exercise, that they cannot be ignored or considered mere faults. One is extended genealogy, as woven here non-consecutively - and once I realized that, I just gave in to it, not worrying too much about tracking the specifics (no doubt, somewhere, someone online has charted it all out in order) so instead I just focused on one or another aspect of a person and hoped for the best in remembering who they were when they obliquely re-entered the narrative, or we heard references or stories about them or their ultimate fates. Secondly, while I am a "visual thinker" when it comes to reading - in that I tend to create a space in my head and visualize the events of a text occurring as if in a movie or play - this book HEAVILY - and I mean HEAVILY - stresses the geographical scenario of where it occurs, noting streets, rights and lefts, over there's, down this ways, to-ing and fro-ing, etc. Some might argue that this is to the narrative flow's detriment, or that in doing so it betrays Moore's origins in scripting visual comic books but, while I found this a bit wearisome and overwhelming to read, again I just let it flow over me (although the first volume also contains a nice little map of Northampton that one could, if you chose to, trace the various narratives through). While I initially considered this a slight fault in the writing, I actually came to see it as important to the overall idea of the book itself, and its rigorous conception of human life as lived in three (and four) dimensional space.
Beyond that, I will merely say the following. The cross-section of humanity you will experience in these slices of time is simply breathtaking in its beauty, conception and humane honesty. Moore reserves most of the visionary world-building for volume two (which sketches out how all of Creation works) and so here is more concerned with the PEOPLE who make up the world as we know it, and experience it. There is much joy here, and even some laughs (In "Hark! The Glad Sound!" I laughed out loud at Tom Warren's disastrous date with an upright, moral girl that ends at a filthy music-hall comedian's show, while also rather touchingly sharing his problems with meeting woman) and the to-ing and fro-ing of life as it is lived. Hopes, dreams, plans...and, yes, pain and disappointment and despair. I don't mean to overstate this, because the book is many things, but it honestly contains some of the saddest moments I have ever read in fiction - whether it be Black Charlie's ultimate understanding of the origins of the hymn "Amazing Grace," and how religion manifests in people (in "Blind But Now I See") or the fate of burnished beauty baby May Warren who burns like an unearthly beacon in a grey world. Or the desperation of drug-addicted prostitute Marla, beautifully captured in the aforementioned "ASBOS of Desire" where her pain and regret and arrogance muddle up to blacken her world and leave her open to more suffering and exploitation. There is the bizarre joy of Snowy Vernall (in "Do As You Darn Well Pleasey") who is gifted with the singular ability to see the world and time as it really is, and so takes ridiculous chances because he knows when and how he will die (and it isn't NOW or THIS WAY) and the melancholy fate of "the published poet" Benedict Perrit who squanders his talent and time from a lack of self-confidence while he drinks himself closer towards death, until one night he realizes exactly what he must do and what challenge he must face (in "Atlantis") (the double blow - a generalized one the reader receives in "Blind..." and then the specific one in "Atlantis" - hit home pretty brutally for me - the latter, quite personally, not just for myself but for how much it brought to mind a good friend who also squandered his talent and succumbed to drink not too long ago).
And while Marla struggles with a devil towards her higher Sainthood further up the line, we meet a man who goes mad when an Angel speaks to him, and later we are present firsthand as witnesses to the game that higher powers play with our lives... play very well as it turns out, not even being above the occasional trick shot. "Rough Sleepers" lays out our initial glimpse of how time, the world, and the afterlife works, through the sympathetic figure of homeless tramp Georgie Allan, who doesn't think he deserves to move on to a better world because of a terrible desire he once had (which he never put into action - but the thought haunts him). Sweaty Peter the Monk toils towards a holy goal, with some humor and much wrestling with his faith, while theatrical 'Oatsie' looks upon the burgeoning 20th Century and "Modern Times," wishing only that it will remember his name, as he dons the made-up stage costume of his dissolute father for a bit of comedy (I leave it to you the reader to figure out just what famous person he was - the penny didn't drop for me until re-listening to Marla's earlier story in audio - although it seemingly is made explicit in Book Three).
Because there is so much humanity on display here that it quite literally held me in awe at time. Muck and shit and sex and divinity and retribution and reward and love and joy, joy, joy...
THIS WILL BE VERY HARD FOR YOU we are repeatedly told, and not only is this simple statement a formula in which the entirety of existence is hidden (as I eventually pieced together - past, future, present), but it is also a truth. Yes, it will be. And Yes, it is. It is....
...but it is also beautiful BECAUSE of exactly that...
October 14, 2022
Just finished the first book of Alan Moores, Jerusalem.
Before heading in I was intimidated by its size and the unknown mystery this book seemed to evoke. I was shocked when I read the first chapter how “easy” it was to read. The writing just flowed in a way that can only be described as pure magic in written form.
This book captures life - in all its beauty, darkness, rough, mystical, supernatural, and ever transformative power.
The setting is Northampton but the time and the stories/characters in each chapter are different. However you will very quickly get to learn they are all connected - as is our lives now. You get to spend time with drug addicted Marla who talks with a vision of a cigarette called “Ash Moses”, you experience going mad with Ern Vernall as one of the angels he paints on the church walls comes to life and shows him insight on time and space, you will be taken on a pilgrimage and walk dark roads with Peter, or face a crossroads in life of learning the mark of a great man with Henry, you walk around town with Benedict (one of the most interesting characters in a book I’ve read) who has a nervous tick all while death haunts his steps, and finally you gain more insight with the Vernall family as they go through births and they understand they too have access to gain insight into time and space only at the expense of being mad.
This book is about many things and I have become insanely attached to the various storylines and the way Alan Moore captures life in such a tangible and more real way than life itself. He hit something supernatural here for me. The easiest 5 ⭐️ I have given in a long time.
Genius level.
Before heading in I was intimidated by its size and the unknown mystery this book seemed to evoke. I was shocked when I read the first chapter how “easy” it was to read. The writing just flowed in a way that can only be described as pure magic in written form.
This book captures life - in all its beauty, darkness, rough, mystical, supernatural, and ever transformative power.
The setting is Northampton but the time and the stories/characters in each chapter are different. However you will very quickly get to learn they are all connected - as is our lives now. You get to spend time with drug addicted Marla who talks with a vision of a cigarette called “Ash Moses”, you experience going mad with Ern Vernall as one of the angels he paints on the church walls comes to life and shows him insight on time and space, you will be taken on a pilgrimage and walk dark roads with Peter, or face a crossroads in life of learning the mark of a great man with Henry, you walk around town with Benedict (one of the most interesting characters in a book I’ve read) who has a nervous tick all while death haunts his steps, and finally you gain more insight with the Vernall family as they go through births and they understand they too have access to gain insight into time and space only at the expense of being mad.
This book is about many things and I have become insanely attached to the various storylines and the way Alan Moore captures life in such a tangible and more real way than life itself. He hit something supernatural here for me. The easiest 5 ⭐️ I have given in a long time.
Genius level.
August 12, 2018
*D+*. 17 hours of interrelated character introductions with several angelic visitations miraculously reduced to the inspiration of a fart. I’ve read a lot of Alan Moore but I’m done. Stopping at book one. Life is too short for this.
January 15, 2020
Competent but somewhat bloated and staid. Covers the same turf as Red Shift-- ode to one location in jolly olde-- but way, way longer. Made it halfway through the next one, Mansoul, and now I'm taking a bit of a break.
June 17, 2024
Alan Moore es Alan Moore es Alan Moore.
No importa que guionice cómics de súpers, de humor, de ciencia ficción o de terror; tampoco importa si hace un espectáculo de magia o, como en este caso, escribe una novela-río: es el mejor en lo que hace. Lo ha sido siempre.
La diferencia con otros guionistas de su generación, que han ido apagándose poco a poco, perdiendo progresivamente la ilusión y el talento, es que Moore adora lo que hace, y siempre tiene algo que contar. Lo puede narrar de la forma que le dé la gana, porque es Alan Moore, y punto. Porque es el genio que cambió los cómics para siempre (para bien y para mal, ¿eh?) Porque es el cultísimo y a la vez popular escritor que no para de sacar referencias claras y oscuras en su extraordinaria League of extraordinary gentlemen. Porque, por Dios, escribió From Hell. Nadie podrá superarlo nunca.
En esta ocasión, Moore se adentra en una historia que bordea el realismo mágico de un García Márquez o de un José Donoso: las cosas más asombrosas se nos presentan como cotidianas, porque el mundo del barbudo guionista es un mundo encantado (vamos a ver, que el tío es mago... es mago de verdad, leñe) donde todo puede suceder. Donde los ángeles juegan partidas de billar con almas humanas. Donde los fantasmas se alimentan de hongos y viajan por el tiempo. Donde existe un «piso superior» que no es necesariamente el Cielo, sino simplemente otro plano de existencia, con unas normas que iremos descubriendo según Moore nos las quiera contar. ¿Que tiene un ritmo lento? Venga ya. A ver si Da Vinci pintó La última cena en una tarde y pretendía que pasáramos por delante del cuadro sin fijarnos en el sinfín de detalles que contiene. Cualquier obra de arte verdadera requiere que tengamos la paciencia de admirarla, contemplarla, leerla... al ritmo que el autor le imprima, porque eso es lo justo, y porque si no, disfrutarla será imposible. ¿Se puede leer Calvin y Hobbes (por poner otro ejemplo de verdadera obra de arte) a toda leche? Pues claro, pero nos vamos a perder la impagable gama de expresiones faciales de Calvin, el ritmo de pantomima que Bill Watterson imprime a sus planchas (y dominicales) mudas, los dobles sentidos, la crítica social... y nos quedaremos con los chistes más básicos. Eso no es leer, eso no es disfrutar. Ahora, todo el mundo tiene prisa. Recuerdo que, cuando leí V de Vendetta por primera vez, me acababa a toda prisa el número entero, lo devoraba, y luego, con calma, me lo releía. Las veces que hiciera falta. El tomo primero de Jerusalén me ha costado un disparate de tiempo acabármelo, pero he disfrutado cada segundo; lo he leído en el váter, donde se me pasaba el tiempo como si fuera uno de los espectros de Moore; bajando a mi perra, mientras le tiraba la pelota; en el autobús yendo a cualquier parte; en la cama, donde me daban las mil. Y en cuanto termine de leer la obra completa (los tres tomos), me la pienso releer otra vez, de cabo a rabo.
Así de buena es.
No importa que guionice cómics de súpers, de humor, de ciencia ficción o de terror; tampoco importa si hace un espectáculo de magia o, como en este caso, escribe una novela-río: es el mejor en lo que hace. Lo ha sido siempre.
La diferencia con otros guionistas de su generación, que han ido apagándose poco a poco, perdiendo progresivamente la ilusión y el talento, es que Moore adora lo que hace, y siempre tiene algo que contar. Lo puede narrar de la forma que le dé la gana, porque es Alan Moore, y punto. Porque es el genio que cambió los cómics para siempre (para bien y para mal, ¿eh?) Porque es el cultísimo y a la vez popular escritor que no para de sacar referencias claras y oscuras en su extraordinaria League of extraordinary gentlemen. Porque, por Dios, escribió From Hell. Nadie podrá superarlo nunca.
En esta ocasión, Moore se adentra en una historia que bordea el realismo mágico de un García Márquez o de un José Donoso: las cosas más asombrosas se nos presentan como cotidianas, porque el mundo del barbudo guionista es un mundo encantado (vamos a ver, que el tío es mago... es mago de verdad, leñe) donde todo puede suceder. Donde los ángeles juegan partidas de billar con almas humanas. Donde los fantasmas se alimentan de hongos y viajan por el tiempo. Donde existe un «piso superior» que no es necesariamente el Cielo, sino simplemente otro plano de existencia, con unas normas que iremos descubriendo según Moore nos las quiera contar. ¿Que tiene un ritmo lento? Venga ya. A ver si Da Vinci pintó La última cena en una tarde y pretendía que pasáramos por delante del cuadro sin fijarnos en el sinfín de detalles que contiene. Cualquier obra de arte verdadera requiere que tengamos la paciencia de admirarla, contemplarla, leerla... al ritmo que el autor le imprima, porque eso es lo justo, y porque si no, disfrutarla será imposible. ¿Se puede leer Calvin y Hobbes (por poner otro ejemplo de verdadera obra de arte) a toda leche? Pues claro, pero nos vamos a perder la impagable gama de expresiones faciales de Calvin, el ritmo de pantomima que Bill Watterson imprime a sus planchas (y dominicales) mudas, los dobles sentidos, la crítica social... y nos quedaremos con los chistes más básicos. Eso no es leer, eso no es disfrutar. Ahora, todo el mundo tiene prisa. Recuerdo que, cuando leí V de Vendetta por primera vez, me acababa a toda prisa el número entero, lo devoraba, y luego, con calma, me lo releía. Las veces que hiciera falta. El tomo primero de Jerusalén me ha costado un disparate de tiempo acabármelo, pero he disfrutado cada segundo; lo he leído en el váter, donde se me pasaba el tiempo como si fuera uno de los espectros de Moore; bajando a mi perra, mientras le tiraba la pelota; en el autobús yendo a cualquier parte; en la cama, donde me daban las mil. Y en cuanto termine de leer la obra completa (los tres tomos), me la pienso releer otra vez, de cabo a rabo.
Así de buena es.
May 15, 2021
Alan Moore schrijft een boek, en doet dat allesbehalve onaardig. Ongeduldige lezers zijn wel gewaarschuwd: Moore verkiest Joyciaanse omzwervingen boven de voldoening van een duidelijke plot. Op naar deel 2.
December 18, 2025
Kind of gutted that this did not accord with me. I still remain a massive fan of Moore, but it may be some time before I attempt the second volume.
February 21, 2021
El primer libro de Jerusalén no es una novela gráfica. Es obvio, pero uno va al proyecto grande de Moore porque es Moore. A medida que avanzan los capítulos, se va armando una historia, entre pasado y presente, en la que los distintos personajes van dando vida a los Boroughs, girando alrededor de la familia Vernall/Warren. Esta familia tiene una tradición de personas "esquinadas" y contactos con ángeles (juego de palabras de angled, angle y angel con el que juega Moore desde el inicio). Cada historia es distinta, lo cual deja leerlas en cualquier orden, aunque los eventos que se van interconectando hacen que sea de mayor provecho seguir la secuencia del libro. Leer Jerusalén es una tarea que debe ser concienzuda, pues los largos capítulos no sólo entretejen historia, sino que están llenos de reflexiones respecto a la vida y a la muerte, a la humanidad, a la sociedad y el lugar subjetivo en la historia. De nuevo, quienes estén esperando grandes aventuras porque es Moore el escritor y pues V de Vendetta y Watchmen y ajá, se van a ver absorbidos por una dinámica narrativa bastante diferente. Personajes bien estructurados con base en circunstancias, como May Warren (Mi favoritísima), se cruzan con otros tantos más, dando vida a la época y a la zona, armando un complejo mapa de situaciones tanto históricas como particulares muy interesantes. No es una novela a lo Faulkner, pero vale la pena poner atención a los nombres de los personajes, tratando de armar la historia, porque no siempre es evidente en qué época estamos leyendo. Terminando el libro, sólo se me ocurre decir que es reposado: no hay vértigo ni velocidad. La vida de cada integrante principal de los relatos es de suma importancia. Habrá que ver qué tiene el segundo libro de la trilogía, y cómo se mueve la locura de los Vernall/Warren.
July 24, 2020
I liked it, I'm sure I will develop a more intense relation with the saga when I finish the other two volumes. The Boroughs has been one of the most dense reads of the year for me, very hard to swallow at some points but really amazing and refreshing in others.
I can recommend it if you want to feel involved in stories, if you want to have a complete perspective of the mind of a character. I have read that some people find it depressing at some point, it's Alan Moore after all... but I can't say I felt the same, maybe it's a little hard sometimes but having in mind he is talking about his pwn hometown, I find it quite amusing and funny to read.
Most of the stories in it are complete and interesting in their own way, I started to enjoy the ones happening during the XIX more than the others but that doesn't mean the rest are bad, not at all.
I will continue with the second one after another book I'm interested at the moment.
I can recommend it if you want to feel involved in stories, if you want to have a complete perspective of the mind of a character. I have read that some people find it depressing at some point, it's Alan Moore after all... but I can't say I felt the same, maybe it's a little hard sometimes but having in mind he is talking about his pwn hometown, I find it quite amusing and funny to read.
Most of the stories in it are complete and interesting in their own way, I started to enjoy the ones happening during the XIX more than the others but that doesn't mean the rest are bad, not at all.
I will continue with the second one after another book I'm interested at the moment.
August 13, 2019
I read about 60% of this and there are part I like very much - beautifully written passages, thoughtful meditations on life and humanity, specific dialectic approaches that read strangely identical to how people talk where I grew up in rural Pennsylvania - but then there are parts that ramble on and feel unfocused; there's too much map-making; and it is all-too-often just plain tedious. I think I'm done with The Boroughs, but I also think, in a month or two, I'll come back and pick up the second leg of this epic-length novel and see where it goes. The bad is bogging down the good and I need a break, but the good still offers enough to tempt me back again.
January 15, 2019
I'm taking Moore's monster-length novel one 'book' at a time. It took me a little while to get into this first volume. I could have done without the long, long descriptions of the Boroughs' streets and buildings, but once we get going things start to come together. The tale is told in a time-jumping-just-weird-enough way that delivers the tale of both the neighborhood and a family in an engaging, if not long winded, way.
November 12, 2020
Uhm. Wow. I had no idea what to expect when starting this. I assumed I was going yo get a Neil Gaiman-esque novel with perchance a little more raw and gritty. What I got instead was a piece of literature that was dense in both words and concept. It is both real and surreal. I never felt so much loss and anguish from a book, as I've had similar connection and love to my environments where I lived as Mr. Moore has with Northampton. The realism plays into the surrealism to the point where you can't really separate the two. It feels more like historical fiction than it does fantasy, and yet when it doesn't get fantastical it feels....right. As if...perhaps that's how it really is. I would venture to say it's almost magical realism as it's not over done and have a conceptual element based on Mr. Moore's magical and occult studies. Once again I have found a book which I can claim to me in my most favorite list. I can't wait to read the second and third in the series. And the read them again
March 24, 2021
So. Jerusalem. This MASSIVE tome. It took about 2 hours to hit its stride, but from that point I was totally engrossed.
This is like every other thing of Moore's I've ever read - not what I expected. The Boroughs introduces us to the people haunting Northampton, sometimes literally, separated from each other only by thin layers of time. At some point I stopped wondering what was going on - nothing seemed to be - and just sank into the story. I think it's probably a lot easier to deal with as an audiobook; it is literally the neverending story.
I like the writing, and the elaborate language. I like the way we dip into life after life, without judgement. I am wholly impressed by the endless historical detail. I like that Moore can be coarse and often is, without being in the least bit sensationalist. Look away if you don't like it! He doesn't care.
This is like every other thing of Moore's I've ever read - not what I expected. The Boroughs introduces us to the people haunting Northampton, sometimes literally, separated from each other only by thin layers of time. At some point I stopped wondering what was going on - nothing seemed to be - and just sank into the story. I think it's probably a lot easier to deal with as an audiobook; it is literally the neverending story.
I like the writing, and the elaborate language. I like the way we dip into life after life, without judgement. I am wholly impressed by the endless historical detail. I like that Moore can be coarse and often is, without being in the least bit sensationalist. Look away if you don't like it! He doesn't care.
May 25, 2020
A hard book to read in many ways. The tight narrow print coupled with the detailded description may have lead to that feeling. It's like being with your aunt/uncle who has researched the family in intense detail and regales you with all the stories of the time gone past with some grainy B/W pictures. Having said that, Moore is a clever writer who employs a bit of magic realism and clever twists to keep the reader on their toes. I think I will have a break before embarking on Book 2 though.
June 21, 2020
Increíble. Mezcla géneros, épocas, tiempos y espacios sin salir nunca de Northampton, donde se desarrolla la historia a través de numerosos personajes. Aparentemente no interrelacionados, poco a poco se desentrañan esas conexiones y se dibuja el principio de un (largo pero brillante) relato con tintes sobrenaturales tan sutiles que lo convierten en un género propio y una historia única.
Muy recomendable, especialmente si has leído antes algo de Alan Moore.
Muy recomendable, especialmente si has leído antes algo de Alan Moore.
August 2, 2019
This introduction to the place and characters gives just enough mystery to warrant continuation to book two. Different characters stories told in different styles which adds to the rhythm of the book. Namedropping my childhood village helps! All in a good opener.
Read
May 17, 2020Denso, confuso, lleno de imaginación, sin rumbo fijo pero con una pátina bíblica escondida en sus sagas familiares o personajes (y personalidades) interconectadas.
No sé hacia donde irá en los siguientes libros, pero sí entiendo por qué es su obra más ambiciosa y espiritual.
No sé hacia donde irá en los siguientes libros, pero sí entiendo por qué es su obra más ambiciosa y espiritual.
April 21, 2025
I'm a sucker for Alan Moore talking about anything, but I loved how everything felt present when switching between centuries and layering. The characters didn't really interact with each other directly but occupied the same space and had some ephemeral sense of each other
December 4, 2021
500 páginas y aún no veo para a donde va todo esto.
September 6, 2022
4 ½ stars
January 22, 2024
(review pending)
Read
May 31, 2024Would have enjoyed this more if i knew first hand where all these streets in northhampton are
June 16, 2024
What the first part of the story, lacks in narrative cohesion, it makes up for in atmosphere, incredible prose, and a memorable cast of characters.
September 10, 2024
Alan Moore has this fantastic ability to take tiniest moment and stretch it to its fullest extent to create an entire scene. While it’s a bit bloated in places and is certainly dense, there is plenty here that I thoroughly enjoyed. The following two books will take some time for me to work through as well. I’ve never read anything quite like this but it’s something to savor. Its themes and concepts are often broad and profound, the premise consists of many different things, but I can’t deny there is some mad-genius in this. I absolutely love Moore and I’m glad I took the plunge into Jerusalem. I’ll continue on with the journey and see how book two goes, but for now, a little break.
Want to read
January 17, 2019.
From a comment attached to my The Gray House review:
Darren wrote: "clearest example I know of a "Cult Classic" where everyone who reads it is blown away and recommends it to all their friends - soon the whole world will know!"
MK wrote: "I hope so!
*grin*
I'm still reading my way through the pile I created, wanting to put some background into my head, so I could go for a re-read with a wider appreciation, understanding some of the references that blew by me previously."
writegeist wrote: "Add Moore's Jerusalem to that list, too."
MK wrote: "I put that on my TBR in October ... I bet it was from one of your updates or posts that I heard about it! :)"
,
From a comment attached to my The Gray House review:
Darren wrote: "clearest example I know of a "Cult Classic" where everyone who reads it is blown away and recommends it to all their friends - soon the whole world will know!"
MK wrote: "I hope so!
*grin*
I'm still reading my way through the pile I created, wanting to put some background into my head, so I could go for a re-read with a wider appreciation, understanding some of the references that blew by me previously."
writegeist wrote: "Add Moore's Jerusalem to that list, too."
MK wrote: "I put that on my TBR in October ... I bet it was from one of your updates or posts that I heard about it! :)"
,
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