Reading the Chunksters discussion

Thread for posting about the Prelude - pages 1-38 in my hardcover version

Dianne, thank you for opening the discussion thread, and welcome, everyone!

We are going to start things slowly with the holiday celebrations, but hopefully our members from other parts of the globe will join the discussion and the holidays will not halt the reading speed.
In the vein of our tradition, we usually start slowly, but I will try to open threads ahead for those who are already ahead of the reading schedule.

The Prelude - Work in Progress.

One word that I can use to describe it is PACKED - packed with descriptions, packed with words, packed with ideas, and packed with the feeling of space.

1. Did you find the language and the choice of words challenging, exciting, adequate for the introduction?

2. Time Hop is the device to move the story forward. Did the story sound coherent to you because of the multiple forward time hops?

3. We are told that the minutial and detailed description is a dream only 10-15 pages after. Did you feel that this statement about the dream justified? Did it explain the questions we had (most definitely I had some) about the loosely-joined parts of the narrative?

4. Was there too much of the description in the Prelude?
Personally, I was overwhelmed with all the minutia and the nuances in the Prelude, but, on the other hand, dreams often had that surreal heightened feeling and the loosely related events, but I still think for the opening part of the book, it was somewhat flat and unappealing.

As usual , in our group, you do not have to answer the questions that are listed in the opening post; they are mostly discussion teasers, something that gets the ball rolling.


As I have already mentioned, I was overwhelmed by the amount of the detail that was provided in the prelude. Yes, it did convey the heightened sensation of the dream, but somehow it left me unsatisfied. I labored through these pages. It is not an exciting part so far, and the characters are dull and boring. One can call Alma decadent or rebellious and inordinary, but somehow she was ordinarily inordinary.

There was some spiciness in the family history that hopefully will be explored in other chapters, but the prelude left me wanting more and in a state of dissatisfaction, but one does not judge the book by its cover nor by its first pages.

Persevere is my advice. It all starts to make sense as the book unfolds, indeed part of the pleasure is the extraordinary scope of the novel aligned to the way it all hangs together and becomes a coherent whole.

I'm now into Book Three and am already dreading the moment when it ends.

By the by, and if you haven't already guessed, Alma is a thinly veiled self portrait of Alan Moore. Indeed look on the inside back cover of the hardback edition and there's a photo of Alan and his brother captioned 'Alma and Mick Warren'.

Karen wrote: "First few pages show great promise already. It has a magical, dreamlike quality and I already have so many questions.

Not sure about the dialogue being written in dialect. I have given up on books before because of the impenetrable way in which dialogue was written (I am looking at you Paul Kingsnorth) but I am sure that I will get used to it if the rest of the writing is as high quality as the prelude. "

I am listening to the book, which is stunningly narrated by Simon Vance, whilst also regular referring to the hardback edition, and the accents and dialect really add to the audio experience.

On one level 'Jerusalem' is a love letter to Northampton and so the accents also really add to the sense of place, and reinforce the local identity.

I hope you get used to the dialect soon Karen - I think it really adds something, just as Irvine Welsh's work just wouldn't work in the same way without the vernacular to bring it to life.

I highly recommend the audiobook.

Thank you. I might try the audiobook too. I often use audio narration alongside reading the book directly as I sometimes get too tired to read.
I might also look online for some examples of the Northampton accent so that I can 'hear' it more easily. At the moment it sounds Cornish when I read it!
I love Moore's descriptions already. I had no idea that walking along a deserted, wet city street could be evoked so clearly and with such beauty. Gorgeous.

Karen wrote: "I might also look online for some examples of the Northampton accent so that I can 'hear' it more easily. At the moment it sounds Cornish when I read it!"

It's not at all Cornish Karen, much more of a Midlands accent if that means anything. I don't know if you're from the UK, or familiar with the accents of the UK. It's similar to Birmingham or Coventry. Well, more Coventry, Leicester etc. Northampton is close to those places so no surprise really.

The best way to sample it is to listen to Alan Moore in conversation. For example....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpajF...

I was born and live in Coventry but am a bit like a fish in water because I don't hear the accent. I also speak with a neutral, educated accent after elocution lessons as a child! Thanks for the youtube clip.

I had elocution lessons too - to lose my London accent which horrified my Mum.

I'm now on page 827 of 'Jerusalem", and have just finished 'A Cold and Frosty Morning' which is really a day in the life of Alma Warren (the thinly veiled self portrait of Alan Moore). Absolutely blimmin marvellous it is too. I really want that to be a pretty typical day in Alan's life.

NOT TO SELF: Checkout the Herbie cartoons by Ogden Whitney (in Forbidden Worlds and his own publication).

I love this book - and can't wait to see what other Chunksters make of it

Karen wrote: "I was born and live in Coventry"

Wow, you're only 30 miles away - you can easily go and visit some of the sites in the book, you lucky thing

Yes. I plan too, although a lot of the descriptions can easily be applied to parts of Coventry: both those that I grew up in and those that I live and work in now.
I love the language and the imagery although at times it was overwhelming and I have had to reread parts - which is a pleasure not a chore really. What struck me was how even the most insignificant element of a scene is described. I'm thinking of the description of the ashtray in the pub and of Alma's hair trailing across the table. Moore's powers of description and use of imagery are stunning.
I have also found that the best way for me to read the writing so far is to give myself up to it; allow myself to drift with the currents and not to think too much in terms of plot.
I haven't found it 'flat' or 'unappealing' quite the contrary. Although if the rest of the book is as packed with imagery and description I might struggle as it can be tiring.
I like the dreamy quality of the prelude and the time hops are just part of the incoherence of dreams. I have vivid dreams myself and like thinking about them and how they relate to waking life so I can enjoy this section without too much difficulty.
Alma and Michael are both people that I want to get know better and I think about them when not reading even though I have only read the prelude!

Karen wrote: "Although if the rest of the book is as packed with imagery and description I might struggle as it can be tiring"

Rest assured the style (and most especially the content) is really varied. The writing style however is uniformly wonderful.

Not being familiar with the locale of the book, I have done the next best thing, which is to put my little Google maps person onto the streets of Northampton and drive around looking at the area and the street names. Moore's map at the front of my book is not as good as I'd like, so I was really pleased when I was Googling around in maps to come to the point where Chalk Lane and Doddridge Street really do meet. I will be Googling around Northampton more as I read, I'm sure.

That's an inspired idea Janice(JG)

I'm really intrigued by this intro section. I haven't read ANYTHING about this book, including jacket blurbs, so I have no idea what type of book this is. The prose is so rich that it leaves my head spinning. I'm reading on my Kindle and have started highlighting passages. Amazing imagery! There is a lot of detail, but he breaks it up with character and plot developments so that it doesn't become boring.

I love the section in the dream sequence where Alma's sketchy comprehension of the overheard snatches of conversation provides "a coat-rack of precarious hooks from which she could drape tentative connecting threads of conjecture and wild guesswork linking up one notion with another."

There's another great extended metaphor comparing navigating the street to riding the rapids. (One downside of Kindle is no page numbers).

Mick's dream/vision about being in the ceiling with fairies, and the crazed young man's insistence of being "up in the roof of the pub" make me wonder if there will be supernatural doings in the story. We shall see!

I am almost finished "Work in Progress". I'm finding it difficult but fascinating - not worrying too much about understanding everything. Just letting it flow over me.

As Alma and Mick walk around the neighbourhood, and think about what is there and what was there and what may be there in the future, I am starting to get a mental picture of the area. It feels very much like T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as it moves back and forward in time, describing an environment just as desolate as Eliots.

Oh yes, The Wasteland! The coat rack imagery is terrific, but there are so many wonderful images. The book is very painterly and makes me wonder whether Alan Moore is a painter too. He uses
lots of similes from Art.

Karen wrote: "Oh yes, The Wasteland! The coat rack imagery is terrific, but there are so many wonderful images. The book is very painterly and makes me wonder whether Alan Moore is a painter too. He uses
lots o..."

Of course he is an artist. Most of his work is graphic art.

I'm pretty sure his graphic novels are written by him but illustrated by collaborators. It's certainly his writing for which he is best known.

That said, he painted the picture on the cover of 'Jerusalem' so he clearly does some painting.

Loving this so far! Such dense prose and fabulous descriptions!

Cordelia wrote: "It feels very much like T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as it moves back and forward in time, describing an environment just as desolate as Eliots. "


It is very allusive in tone at least. I also experienced literary "déjà vu" when I read the next two chapters, The first books that came to my mind were The Spire and Hawksmoor.

P.S. I just opened a thread for the next part of the book, so if you have already read the next two chapters, feel free to post your impressions and thoughts.

Bear with me, I'm writing this on an iPad, so I'm going to break it up it several posts.

You know, when I first started reading, I was almost immediately turned off by little Alma with the thoughts, vocabulary, and analytical reasoning of a full adult (of course, this all went away when all was revealed later in the Prelude). My hackles started rising, but then, the waves of sensory impressions kind of swept me away. I love how we experience the Emporium Arcade; not by what is actually there, right then, at that moment. No, rather, we are given vivid word paintings of what "should" be there, but is not. It's a nice little twist, experiencing and learning about something by its absence, rather than its presence.

Then we are given those intriguing glimpses into the mystical. The "angles", the "Frith Borh". The fresh smell and feel of newly worked wood. Alma singing "All Creatures Great and Small". Just a glimpse of the mystical, the ineffable. Who wouldn't want to experience that? A dream? Or a vision? A window opening to Forever?

I loved this, truly loved it. I'm hoping it is a theme, or a foundation of this work.

Reading Moore, I'm reminded of Dickens. I suppose it makes sense. Moore is a graphic artist (of course, he doesn't actually do the drawings, but he definitely thinks in pictures); Dickens felt a deep connection to the theater. Both are highly visual arts. There is a kinship there. At least to me.

Paula wrote: "Then we are given those intriguing glimpses into the mystical. The "angles", the "Frith Borh". The fresh smell and feel of newly worked wood. Alma singing "All Creatures Great and Small". Just a gl..."

I felt that the "Prelude" was an introduction to prepare us for what we were "reading" our way into.

Moore introduces the concept of Synchronicity. I don't think it's an idle or tangential element. At least, I hope not.

I haven't read any Moore, but his description of Michael walking through the Burroughs on his way to Alma's showing, and the intense feelings of malaise and depression he experiences...it reminded me a bit of Stephen King, who specializes in creating and evoking "bad places".

And speaking of the Showing, was anyone else intrigued by Alma calling her painting depicting her dream "A Work in Progress"?

I agree with the comaprison to Dickens. I'm a big fan of Dickens and yes, it has a similar feel; although Moore is fantastical and painterly in a way that Dickens wasn't in my opinion.
I went to the Foundlings Museum in London today and there were resonances for me in some fo the stories and details of the Foundlings. The geography of Bloomsbury also has a resonance for me with this book. A similar layered feel, a depth of history and culture and diversity.

Stephen King too - the bad places. This was intensified as I read further on into the book.

It really is worth sticking with. The book speeds up and becomes far more narrative driven. This is particularly the case with book two which I have almost finished. I am glad that you reminded me of the dream because it is important to the rest of the book I think.