I'm thoroughly enjoying Alan Moore's novel 'Jerusalem'. It's a beast of a thing, nearly 1200 pages and apparently longer than the Bible. It took me a while to get beyond the dreamlike first 30 pages, but since I got the cut of its jib I've been thinking it's one of the most enjoyable novels I've ever read.
It's probably the most ambitious - a multi-millennial trail of interlocked family histories, including relevant ghosts and characters who may be angels, all happening in the ancient Boroughs area of Northampton.
I bought it on personal recommendation, so I only just read a review. The reviewer didn't like the language. I get what he's saying, it is immensely rich - sentences are multi-sensory, weaving history into sensation and feeling, a style that's probably influenced by psychedelic experience. It works for me, because I like some kinds of over-the-top and psychedelic. To my mind, a lot of what's in the literary mainstream is timid and colourless.
But those details do perhaps tell us why Moore is on the fringe, not in the mainstream. Seems to me that s where the best stuff is to be found!
So that was my pro-weirdness rant. (And a strong recommendation... if you like that sort of thing!)
It's probably the most ambitious - a multi-millennial trail of interlocked family histories, including relevant ghosts and characters who may be angels, all happening in the ancient Boroughs area of Northampton.
I bought it on personal recommendation, so I only just read a review. The reviewer didn't like the language. I get what he's saying, it is immensely rich - sentences are multi-sensory, weaving history into sensation and feeling, a style that's probably influenced by psychedelic experience. It works for me, because I like some kinds of over-the-top and psychedelic. To my mind, a lot of what's in the literary mainstream is timid and colourless.
But those details do perhaps tell us why Moore is on the fringe, not in the mainstream. Seems to me that s where the best stuff is to be found!
So that was my pro-weirdness rant. (And a strong recommendation... if you like that sort of thing!)
