Jerusalem
– Alan Moore (2016)
(1296 pages. That is what arrived in my mailbox after
sending a hand-written letter to Alan Moore’s publisher. In the letter I explained that I love books
and have written this here book review blog for over 2 years. I proclaimed my love for Alan Moore’s previous
work and my desire to read and review his upcoming opus, Jerusalem. Receiving that galley copy in the mail a few
weeks later was one of the coolest moments in my book-reading life! My deepest thanks go to the good folks at
Liveright Publishing Corporation for their support of my love of books.)
*****
Alan Moore has been one of the most
inventive and complex authors of the last 30 years. The fact that most of his work was done for
the supposedly lowly medium of comic books changed nothing for me. I love comics and Alan Moore’s have been some
of the greatest I have ever had the pleasure to read. V for Vendetta, From Hell, Promethea and especially
Watchmen are to me some of the highlights of modern literature and I hope they
will be seen that way in the future.
Moore’s work is always dense, instantly engrossing, and deeply
thought-provoking. When I read in the
trades that he had been working on a full-on novel I was intrigued. After receiving my review copy, I immersed myself
in the world of Moore’s Jerusalem for these past two months. This is why I have
not added any new reviews. It was
totally worth it!
How to describe the scope of
Jerusalem? First, let me explain the
significance of the title. Jerusalem is
a holy city. It is also a symbol for the
“promised land” and for “heaven.”
William Blake, the mystic/poet/artist wrote of each one of us creating
our own “Jerusalem” within us, allowing each human to experience the truly
divine and to achieve peace for one’s soul.
Alan Moore, through his intensive esoteric studies, understands that the
“lower classes” live lives so rife with brutality and despair that they are
unable to share in the philosophies and world views held by those whose lives
are softer, safer, and more stable. Alan
Moore’s aim with this book is to provide a mythology/philosophy for the world’s
downtrodden, and all the while he tells an amazing story.
The skeleton that Moore’ hangs his
story on is that of the Burroughs, a long-standing neighborhood of poor and
working class Brits whose lives, like the lives of all those that live in
historically impoverished and neglected areas, are extremely insular and
desperate. The novel jumps back and
forth in time following the Vernall family, a family whose roots in the
Burroughs go way back in history. The
Vernalls suffer a long history of mental illness in the family. Many of their members, male and female, lose
their marbles so to speak. Because of
this madness, they are also able to step out and above time and space, converse
with angels and demons, see the future and the past, and otherwise experience
things that those around them cannot. I
do not want to give anything away. It is
hard to discuss this book without doing so.
At the same time as we hear the story
of the Vernall family we are also introduced to dozens and dozens of peripheral
characters, each a piece of the overall fabric that makes up the odd space-time
continuum that the Burroughs exists in.
There are stories like that of a monk from the actual Jerusalem, who is
sent to travel to the center of Britain over 400 years ago with a specific task
to accomplish. There is a tale of a son
of slaves, who moved to the Burroughs in the late 1800’s to start a new
life. There is the story of a young boy,
who dies and awakens to find himself in Mansoul, which is neither heaven nor
hell, but instead is the dimension above our Earthly plane of existence where all of time exists simultaneously, and
the friends he makes there. There is the
story of an eccentric artist, the sister of the young boy above, whose artworks
describe the visions of Mansoul. These
are just the stories about the living people in the Burroughs. Interspersed throughout are also stories of events
that take place in Mansoul, of the angels who build existence and are in charge
of the lives of every resident of the Burroughs, and who control their fate
through what appears to be a giant game of billiards.
The real main character of this novel
is the Burroughs itself, a downtrodden neighborhood that Mr. Alan Moore himself
grew up in, and which he describes in such intricate detail that it becomes a
truly living thing. Every single
building, every tree, every paving stone has a million stories to tell, a
million memories attached, from countless residents and their life
experiences. This is very much like any
ghetto or slum or poor neighborhood.
There is no escape for the residents so they keep on building meaning
and experience in the same places that their parents and their parents’ parents
did. Some places, like the Burroughs, have
been involved in this process of isolationist stagnation for centuries, and it
shows in the people that have to or choose to call these places home.
The only books I can compare to this
one are the Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, and James
Joyce’s Ulysses. Jerusalem is like Illuminatus in that its purpose seems to be
to rewire the thought patterns and reality tunnel of the reader, allowing the
reader’s mind to expand and see the interconnectedness of all things as well as
the absurdity of certainty of any kind.
Jerusalem is like Ulysses in that events of a single day are explored in
near-infinite detail, letting the reader understand that at any given moment in
time, there are an infinity of events occurring around them, an infinity of
thoughts and feelings and decisions and crimes and good and evil. Ulysses takes place in the city of
Dublin. Jerusalem takes place in the
neighborhood of the Burroughs. Not only are different stories told but the
method of delivering the stories changes too, never letting the reader become too
comfortable. Jerusalem switches point of
view often, changes from prose to poetry, contains a chapter that is written
out like a stage play, describes the internal mental state of an “insane” woman
in a chapter that is near-Joycean in its phonetic creativity (It is best read
aloud), and hops back and forth in time regularly. Jerusalem is a complex masterwork, and I
understand why Alan Moore took ten years to write it.
One of the greatest ideas in the book
is that of the repeated nature of existence.
Some cultures believe in reincarnation, whereby one soul hops from
organism to organism, on its way to the complete absolution of self which they
call nirvana. Jerusalem posits that we
do reincarnate if we want to, but that each of us lives the same life over and
over and over and over. We make the same
mistakes. We experience the same
joys. We sometimes feel déjà vu because
we get a feeling we have experienced this moment before. While this idea seems to place a limit on
free will, it is perfectly fitting to a world where the same problems,
hardships, and fears plague generation after generation with no end in
sight. Upon death, our soul goes to the
dimension above ours, Mansoul as it is called.
Some people are too attached to living and are unable to make it to
Mansoul, instead spending eternity reliving their time on Earth as grey,
lifeless shades, forever looping around, revisiting moments in their life, and
being ignored by the living around them.
The way that Alan Moore describes all of this is so cool, and builds so
carefully, that I do it a disservice with my description here. It really needs to be read to be appreciated.
The hard part of reading this novel is
that Alan Moore also describes the horrors and traumas experienced by the
residents of the Burroughs. They are the
horrors of anyone living an impoverished and hopeless life. Drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual abuse,
violence, infidelity, joblessness, treachery, and plain old EVIL are constant
residents of the Burroughs too, as they are in all poor areas. The suffering of the disadvantaged human never
changes. It is the same pains that they
have felt for generations. It will be
felt by those to come. It is important
to know this, to know that people are shaped by their circumstances far more
than we wish to believe. Modern humans
have a delusion of free will, believing that anyone anywhere can improve their
lot by proper decisions and hard work.
Only someone who grew up comfortable, able to indulge their
individuality without fearing daily for their well-being, and able to take
meals and education and opportunity for granted can be so carefree. The poor of the world do not share this. They suffer from birth to death, and even
small victories such as graduating from High School, or getting a decent job
become tragedies far more regularly than not.
Alan Moore understands this and is able to show the innate dignity of
life in spite of the horrors that surround it.
(This book can be purchased here: AMAZON )
