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Jerusalem #1.3
Jerusalem, Book Three: Vernall's Inquest
- GenresFiction
1266 pages, Paperback
5 people are currently reading
173 people want to read
About the author
Alan Moore
1,578 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 22, 2022
And so, we reach the end of this amazing book, in which the narrative (freed from its adventure story trappings) becomes something both familiar and experimental ("to keep the cunts out", as Moore so famously put it).
Essentially, volume 3 can be seen as a bookend to volume 1 (with volume 2 being the children's fantasy adventure in the middle), as it is similarly formatted. Short pieces examining certain characters or ideas, although here each piece also serves as a form of stylistic/experimental writing (generally), which adds a bit of showmanship to the whole. As for the overall story - well, the point (actually "points") is/are made from a number of angles, and Alma has her art exhibit, and we get to see the end of all time. Some other details/questions are left a mystery - as is perhaps fitting for the essential enigmas of celestial blueprinting (so, for example, no specific articulation of what the "Porthimoth di Norhan" involves, although you kind of get the vague shape of it) - or are just left for you to figure out on your own, which isn't really that hard (Who Sam O'Day really wanted Michael's help in killing, who the two old ladies at the exhibit are).
And so much good stuff. So many wonderful and heartbreaking characters. At times, a brutally raw and bleak narrative, both in the specific (what Marla endures), the characters' lives (Audrey Vernall, and her parent's discussion of same, John Clare's confession) and the general (how history and humanity have failed the basic root concept of Christianity, how money has fucked us all) but, of course, also a joyful and uplifting one (as long as you understand that the bad comes with the good) - in particular, I liked the flexibility of the concept of "heaven" and what it really might be. In fact, I honestly have to say that, given some of his expressed opinions of things, Moore's careful, considered and honest examination of "basic" Christianity (without ever bringing in Christ or all the clutter of religion) is both surprising and satisfying.
And as for the specifics:
"Clouds Unfold": how history/time/Creation looks from the POV of a fourth dimensional being (The Archangel Michael), written in a collage/cubist technique (because everything is happening all at once/has already happened and Michael is living/has lived/will live all of it). Amazing, and dense with details and ideas found nowhere else in the text (including a bit of metatextuality), which makes sense, given the POV.
"A Cold And Frosty Morning": a day in the life of Alma Warren as she prepares for her big exhibit. As Alma Warren is Alan Moore in literary "drag", this is interesting not only as a character study but as a bit of autobiography and self-assessment. Nicely, Moore does not let himself off the hook, accentuating and copping to his more personal/subjective "antisocial" character aspects (such as a rigorous need to intimidate others), while also featuring some nicely humorous bits. And the moments of childhood epiphany are quite well-handled.
"Round The Bend": Famously, the chapter that breaks readers. A day(?) in the life(?) of Lucia Joyce - schizophrenic daughter of James Joyce, consigned to a madhouse, to some degree "unstuck in time" - as she meets with (and in some cases, has sexual relations with) various "mad" figures from all times: John Clare, Dusty Springfield, and the river monster/sea hag of Northampton (with cameos from Jack The Ripper, Ogden Whitney and Patrick McGoohan in full Number Six/THE PRISONER mode). Most importantly - written in Joycespeak. And I thank those who suggested LISTENING to Simon Vance's expert reading of this chapter (from the audiobook) instead of wrestling with the text, because it is much easier (while still overwhelming).
"Burning Gold": A brief precise on the life of Roman Thompson (bipolar manic depressive homosexual Labor agitator/anarchist) - told by himself - inter-cut with a compressed history of physical currency/"unreal" money, and how it has screwed us over for centuries. Quite nice.
"The Rafters And The Beams": The lives of three black characters in three time periods - the continuation of "Black Charley"'s life (from the point of Book One's "Blind But Now I See") and eventual passing in 19th/Early 20th Century Northampton; how Bernard Daniels, born in Sierra Leone, moves himself and his wife to Northampton, and how his son - David Daniels - deals with his father's unbalanced child-rearing skills, the reality of being black in a British town, and his own life trajectory. Nicely handled, and Moore maneuvers the impossible, artificial, modern Scylla and Charybdis ("How dare he, as a white man, write black characters?" / "How dare he include no black characters") deftly - by not giving a fuck and just writing what he wants to, like authors are supposed to, you know?
"The Steps Of All Saints" - written in play form (in the style of Samuel Beckett), this has, on the one hand, various historical figures (Beckett, religious/historical figure Thomas Becket, "mad" poet John Clare, religious writer John Bunyan) commenting on the concept of history, legacies and "Sainthood" from the afterlife, while Audrey Vernall's parents discuss her "problem." Possibly one of the most moving sections of the book (Audrey's mother's turnaround is brutal), while the later appearance of "the half-caste woman" and her comforting of John Clare (following his "confession"), are incredibly sad and powerful. Amazing.
"Eating Flowers" - ping-pongs between significant moments in "Snowy" Vernall's life and his expedition, after his death, to travel to the end of time with his infant granddaughter May riding on his shoulders. More of Snowy's rather peculiar/specific view of time inter-cut with a scientific/climatological/geologic/astrophysical travelogue through the end of the world, and then the universe. Marvelous. The handling of the personal juxtaposed with the larger and larger (and then larger!) cosmological scale is breathtaking. Nice little details include the ulterior motives of the psychoactive Puck's hats, the guest appearance of two characters from earlier, the mysterious appearance of two strangers heading in the opposite direction, the final stopping point and who is met there, and my after-the-fact realization that (per current subatomic physics) Snowy and May get to be the needed "observers" of all space-time (and that their trek may have, in fact, been the noted "Inquest"). Again, amazing.
"Cornered" - Jim Cockie, local Northampton councilman, justifies himself (as a member of the New Left) and his financial/political decisions that have sold out and gutted the city, as he seeks a leisurely drink at the pub (and has to face up to his worst fears). Told in stream of consciousness, this is both a chance for "the other side" (that is to say, the wankers who have betrayed us throughout history) to have their say/voice their arguments (not just social/political but also as regards "problems" inherent in the "Eternalism" concept - with no free will, there's no good and no evil and no right and no wrong, and thus no punishment and no reward) while also serving as an absolutely scathing critique of Neoliberal/New Left cowardice and duplicity. And then, again amazingly, it becomes something like a modern take on an M.R. James "traditional English ghost story". Right up my alley (and we get a bit more Benedict Perrit!).
"The Rood In The Wall" - another tour de force, as actor (and associate/punching bag of Alma Warren) Bob Goodman sets out to investigate just what connection William Blake may have to Northampton and "The Boroughs". In doing so, he uncovers the idea that Gothic fiction/the Graveyard Poetry movement (and thus almost all genre fiction) may have been inspired by gloomy/morbid religious writer James Hervey, who spent his childhood there. Told in a combination of hard-boiled/noir private eye pastiche (Goodman lives his parts) and literary history lesson, this has some of the funniest lines (and one of the funniest bits "They wanted one more take? The film crew in your mind, Bob?") and a gut-punch of a moment wherein Goodman bluntly sums up the book's theme about Northampton and the Boroughs (and what its been through) in such a brutally honest way that it still makes me gasp to think of it. Outstanding.
"The Jolly Smokers" - told in verse, this ties up the dangling thread of the distraught young man who had just been "up the pub" (as encountered by Mick way back in the opening of Book One, in one of my favorite sequences which also indicated to me that JERUSALEM was going to be a very important work for me), the ghostly torture as observed by some of the Dead Dead gang, the fate of social blight (and all-about drug cretin) Fat Kenny, and some musings on poetry, poets and the purposes of visionary language. Moving.
"Go See Now This Cursed Woman" - combines the approaches of a number of the preceding chapters as we zoom back and forth between events occurring on that one fateful night and varied senses of scale, dream-narratives (and histories), stream of consciousness and madness, ghost stories and Gothic horrors, damnation and redemption and sainthood, all while examining Princess Diana's symbolic relation to Northampton. Absolutely brutal and absolutely inspiring (I particularly choked up at Georgie Allan's ultimate fate) and a sense that there may, actually, be "justice over the streets".
"Chain Of Office" - in which all the contemporary characters are brought together, Alma has her exhibition, and nothing and everything is solved. So much to enjoy about this chapter - how Mick's blue-collar critique of the whole exhibit is essentially also a critique of the book's preceding work, the little glimmers of hope we're given for the characters ("If this is what you see when you quit drinking...!"), the return of the two women, the rather ominous (at least symbolically) action Alma takes, the final joke - it's all just wonderful. And, perhaps my favorite little detail, the actual face that Alma painted on the titular work is NOT what I (and I assume most of the audience) assumed it was back in "A Cold And Frosty Morning".
I don't really know what else to say. I hope you read this book - it is challenging and long, no doubt, but it is also rewarding and timely (as the Destructor begins to be rolled out everywhere - for all of us and culture in general). You won't regret it.
Essentially, volume 3 can be seen as a bookend to volume 1 (with volume 2 being the children's fantasy adventure in the middle), as it is similarly formatted. Short pieces examining certain characters or ideas, although here each piece also serves as a form of stylistic/experimental writing (generally), which adds a bit of showmanship to the whole. As for the overall story - well, the point (actually "points") is/are made from a number of angles, and Alma has her art exhibit, and we get to see the end of all time. Some other details/questions are left a mystery - as is perhaps fitting for the essential enigmas of celestial blueprinting (so, for example, no specific articulation of what the "Porthimoth di Norhan" involves, although you kind of get the vague shape of it) - or are just left for you to figure out on your own, which isn't really that hard (Who Sam O'Day really wanted Michael's help in killing, who the two old ladies at the exhibit are).
And so much good stuff. So many wonderful and heartbreaking characters. At times, a brutally raw and bleak narrative, both in the specific (what Marla endures), the characters' lives (Audrey Vernall, and her parent's discussion of same, John Clare's confession) and the general (how history and humanity have failed the basic root concept of Christianity, how money has fucked us all) but, of course, also a joyful and uplifting one (as long as you understand that the bad comes with the good) - in particular, I liked the flexibility of the concept of "heaven" and what it really might be. In fact, I honestly have to say that, given some of his expressed opinions of things, Moore's careful, considered and honest examination of "basic" Christianity (without ever bringing in Christ or all the clutter of religion) is both surprising and satisfying.
And as for the specifics:
"Clouds Unfold": how history/time/Creation looks from the POV of a fourth dimensional being (The Archangel Michael), written in a collage/cubist technique (because everything is happening all at once/has already happened and Michael is living/has lived/will live all of it). Amazing, and dense with details and ideas found nowhere else in the text (including a bit of metatextuality), which makes sense, given the POV.
"A Cold And Frosty Morning": a day in the life of Alma Warren as she prepares for her big exhibit. As Alma Warren is Alan Moore in literary "drag", this is interesting not only as a character study but as a bit of autobiography and self-assessment. Nicely, Moore does not let himself off the hook, accentuating and copping to his more personal/subjective "antisocial" character aspects (such as a rigorous need to intimidate others), while also featuring some nicely humorous bits. And the moments of childhood epiphany are quite well-handled.
"Round The Bend": Famously, the chapter that breaks readers. A day(?) in the life(?) of Lucia Joyce - schizophrenic daughter of James Joyce, consigned to a madhouse, to some degree "unstuck in time" - as she meets with (and in some cases, has sexual relations with) various "mad" figures from all times: John Clare, Dusty Springfield, and the river monster/sea hag of Northampton (with cameos from Jack The Ripper, Ogden Whitney and Patrick McGoohan in full Number Six/THE PRISONER mode). Most importantly - written in Joycespeak. And I thank those who suggested LISTENING to Simon Vance's expert reading of this chapter (from the audiobook) instead of wrestling with the text, because it is much easier (while still overwhelming).
"Burning Gold": A brief precise on the life of Roman Thompson (bipolar manic depressive homosexual Labor agitator/anarchist) - told by himself - inter-cut with a compressed history of physical currency/"unreal" money, and how it has screwed us over for centuries. Quite nice.
"The Rafters And The Beams": The lives of three black characters in three time periods - the continuation of "Black Charley"'s life (from the point of Book One's "Blind But Now I See") and eventual passing in 19th/Early 20th Century Northampton; how Bernard Daniels, born in Sierra Leone, moves himself and his wife to Northampton, and how his son - David Daniels - deals with his father's unbalanced child-rearing skills, the reality of being black in a British town, and his own life trajectory. Nicely handled, and Moore maneuvers the impossible, artificial, modern Scylla and Charybdis ("How dare he, as a white man, write black characters?" / "How dare he include no black characters") deftly - by not giving a fuck and just writing what he wants to, like authors are supposed to, you know?
"The Steps Of All Saints" - written in play form (in the style of Samuel Beckett), this has, on the one hand, various historical figures (Beckett, religious/historical figure Thomas Becket, "mad" poet John Clare, religious writer John Bunyan) commenting on the concept of history, legacies and "Sainthood" from the afterlife, while Audrey Vernall's parents discuss her "problem." Possibly one of the most moving sections of the book (Audrey's mother's turnaround is brutal), while the later appearance of "the half-caste woman" and her comforting of John Clare (following his "confession"), are incredibly sad and powerful. Amazing.
"Eating Flowers" - ping-pongs between significant moments in "Snowy" Vernall's life and his expedition, after his death, to travel to the end of time with his infant granddaughter May riding on his shoulders. More of Snowy's rather peculiar/specific view of time inter-cut with a scientific/climatological/geologic/astrophysical travelogue through the end of the world, and then the universe. Marvelous. The handling of the personal juxtaposed with the larger and larger (and then larger!) cosmological scale is breathtaking. Nice little details include the ulterior motives of the psychoactive Puck's hats, the guest appearance of two characters from earlier, the mysterious appearance of two strangers heading in the opposite direction, the final stopping point and who is met there, and my after-the-fact realization that (per current subatomic physics) Snowy and May get to be the needed "observers" of all space-time (and that their trek may have, in fact, been the noted "Inquest"). Again, amazing.
"Cornered" - Jim Cockie, local Northampton councilman, justifies himself (as a member of the New Left) and his financial/political decisions that have sold out and gutted the city, as he seeks a leisurely drink at the pub (and has to face up to his worst fears). Told in stream of consciousness, this is both a chance for "the other side" (that is to say, the wankers who have betrayed us throughout history) to have their say/voice their arguments (not just social/political but also as regards "problems" inherent in the "Eternalism" concept - with no free will, there's no good and no evil and no right and no wrong, and thus no punishment and no reward) while also serving as an absolutely scathing critique of Neoliberal/New Left cowardice and duplicity. And then, again amazingly, it becomes something like a modern take on an M.R. James "traditional English ghost story". Right up my alley (and we get a bit more Benedict Perrit!).
"The Rood In The Wall" - another tour de force, as actor (and associate/punching bag of Alma Warren) Bob Goodman sets out to investigate just what connection William Blake may have to Northampton and "The Boroughs". In doing so, he uncovers the idea that Gothic fiction/the Graveyard Poetry movement (and thus almost all genre fiction) may have been inspired by gloomy/morbid religious writer James Hervey, who spent his childhood there. Told in a combination of hard-boiled/noir private eye pastiche (Goodman lives his parts) and literary history lesson, this has some of the funniest lines (and one of the funniest bits "They wanted one more take? The film crew in your mind, Bob?") and a gut-punch of a moment wherein Goodman bluntly sums up the book's theme about Northampton and the Boroughs (and what its been through) in such a brutally honest way that it still makes me gasp to think of it. Outstanding.
"The Jolly Smokers" - told in verse, this ties up the dangling thread of the distraught young man who had just been "up the pub" (as encountered by Mick way back in the opening of Book One, in one of my favorite sequences which also indicated to me that JERUSALEM was going to be a very important work for me), the ghostly torture as observed by some of the Dead Dead gang, the fate of social blight (and all-about drug cretin) Fat Kenny, and some musings on poetry, poets and the purposes of visionary language. Moving.
"Go See Now This Cursed Woman" - combines the approaches of a number of the preceding chapters as we zoom back and forth between events occurring on that one fateful night and varied senses of scale, dream-narratives (and histories), stream of consciousness and madness, ghost stories and Gothic horrors, damnation and redemption and sainthood, all while examining Princess Diana's symbolic relation to Northampton. Absolutely brutal and absolutely inspiring (I particularly choked up at Georgie Allan's ultimate fate) and a sense that there may, actually, be "justice over the streets".
"Chain Of Office" - in which all the contemporary characters are brought together, Alma has her exhibition, and nothing and everything is solved. So much to enjoy about this chapter - how Mick's blue-collar critique of the whole exhibit is essentially also a critique of the book's preceding work, the little glimmers of hope we're given for the characters ("If this is what you see when you quit drinking...!"), the return of the two women, the rather ominous (at least symbolically) action Alma takes, the final joke - it's all just wonderful. And, perhaps my favorite little detail, the actual face that Alma painted on the titular work is NOT what I (and I assume most of the audience) assumed it was back in "A Cold And Frosty Morning".
I don't really know what else to say. I hope you read this book - it is challenging and long, no doubt, but it is also rewarding and timely (as the Destructor begins to be rolled out everywhere - for all of us and culture in general). You won't regret it.
December 28, 2020
“Sooner or later all the people and the places that we loved are finished, and the only way to keep them safe is art. That’s what art’s for. It rescues everything from time.”
May 30, 2020
Sadly this book was even more of a wind up that the others. So long. Like a petulant child dragging out the story. If I hear another 5 page description of those same streets as one character or another bemoans the development, that seems to be one of the key drivers of this trilogy, I might cry
Some of his ideas are lovely and overall in pleased to have heard them.
I really try to finish a book if I start it but I basically skipped about 4 chapters one e it was really bad poetry. The other was because it was with in made up prose so dense it took 4 to 5 times as long to read it
I’ve just started a normal k with a simple multi strand narrative and feel so so much better
Some of his ideas are lovely and overall in pleased to have heard them.
I really try to finish a book if I start it but I basically skipped about 4 chapters one e it was really bad poetry. The other was because it was with in made up prose so dense it took 4 to 5 times as long to read it
I’ve just started a normal k with a simple multi strand narrative and feel so so much better
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 1, 2019
Did the last book of Moore's giant novel get around to wrapping things up and explaining what the heck was going on most of the time in the rest of this giant tome? Sort of. It still feels a bit like every idea Moore ever had for a story ended up here. But, I can glimpse the overarching story of ideas that was being told. It's definitely a weird book, but weird in a good way. Plus, there is some amazing writing buried here amount the long descriptions of the streets and building and people of the Boroughs. If you have a couple months to devote to a book, this one is not a bad choice.
October 23, 2019
I'm not sure how this book delivers, but it does. Some chapters are taken at a gallop and others (you'll know which) take all your wits and a snail's pace to absorb but I honestly am left satiated and light of body. If the premise of the before/during/afterlife is to be believed then I will surely read this tome again and enjoy it just as much!
July 25, 2020
La traducción es una puta mierda pero incluso con eso en contra es una de los mejores libros de la historia de la literatura. Pergeñado en La voz de fuego y rastreado en From Hell dudo que Alan Moore y por extensión psicogeografica Iain Sinclair, puedan escribir algo tan definitivo. Conoce tu barrio para conocer el mundo.
July 28, 2024
I have no words… along with its prequel, Jerusalem ticked all my boxes as far as what I love about reading as well as what it means to be human; among other things, it perfectly touches on the magic of being alive and the soul/history of a physical place having an effect on the beings that live there.
December 6, 2023
I don't even know how to rate this book. It's like trying to pick my favourite quarter of a painting. It's too big to summarise in a short curt review. This really is an epic work of fiction and as close to a modern literary classic as one is likely to get.
September 7, 2020
Mala traducción
February 28, 2021
Al final no decepciona y deja mucho en que pensar. El arte es eterno
August 1, 2021
So WHAT was the point, again, of Book 2?? What was the urgency of making sure that art show took place?
September 21, 2021
This hits me deeper than most books do. I think there are two types of readers. Those who get it and those who don't. I got it. I feel Alan Moore wrote this entire book series specifically for me.
June 24, 2025
Simply the best book I’ll ever read.
Want to read
June 18, 2020Edición en tres libros con caja. Tomo final.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews