Reading the Chunksters discussion

Urban life comes alive in these chapters.
I did in fact found them more intriguing and engaging than the prelude, but to me, it is still an effort to impress rather than immerse and engage the reader.

I can also clearly and loudly state that it is my opinion only, and based on your replies, guys, it seems like you are more appreciative of the book that I am in its current state.

So far, with the three sections (prelude and two chapters), we were given the different cast of characters with their histories and families. The prelude and the first chapter slightly overlap historically as they both tell us about the same family but at different times.

What is your approach to tackling the diversity of the book - three separate plot lines with hardly any overlapping and narrative interaction?

Whiling reading chapter 1, I had a feeling of asynchronicity. I was reading about the nineteenth century England, but I got the feeling not of the Victorian England, but the late medieval England.
The chapter also strongly resembled in spirit and tone (and this is purely subjective) the novel by William Golding The Spire. They both share the topicality - the cathedral and the divine interaction or or hallucinations or the power of imagination or something of that sort. If any of you has read the book, please let me know if you experienced the same sensation because that feeling of the Golding's zeitgeist was uncanny.

The second chapter ends on a cliffhanger and features a certain "lady of the night" although some might describe her as a "floozy" who fancies the stories about Di, and Jack the Ripper and is a highly unreliable voice in fiction with all her visions of Ash Moses.

What is Ash Moses? Have we already met him in chapter 1? How instrumental is he in the set of events that lead to the cliffhanger?

Post away, friends.

In T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" St Paul's Cathedral represented the past, and the pub represented the present.

Having said that, I did find chap 1, "A Host of Angles" really strange. I'm still thinking it out - trying to sort out what it means.

I'm dragging my heels getting into this book. I don't know if it's me, the time of year, the fact that I can't relate much to Northampton (or England), or the book. There does seem to be a sort of inside-joke feel to the prelude and the beginning of this section. There's a real sense of aliveness, but I'm feeling left out of it. I have to decide if it matters that I don't get the sense of place that it seems to require, and just continue on anyway.

It could also be because I am reading two other heavy-duty stories right now (Paradise Lost and Wizard of the Crow) as well as Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, and the mix is just not working.

Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm dragging my heels getting into this book. I don't know if it's me, the time of year, the fact that I can't relate much to Northampton (or England), or the book. There does seem to be a sort of ..."

I think that it does not really matter too much. Just continue reading and let it flow over you. What you dont understand let pass. Dont try too hard to keep track of what and where everything is. It'll probably come right.

Cordelia wrote: "Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm dragging my heels getting into this book. I don't know if it's me, the time of year, the fact that I can't relate much to Northampton (or England), or the book. There does se...

I think that it does not really matter too much. Just continue reading and let it flow over you. What you dont understand let pass. Dont try too hard to keep track of what and where everything is. It'll probably come right..."

I think that sounds like good advice, tho' I think it will be slow going for the time being.

Janice(JG) wrote: "Cordelia wrote: "Janice(JG) wrote: "I'm dragging my heels getting into this book. I don't know if it's me, the time of year, the fact that I can't relate much to Northampton (or England), or the bo..."

I agree. It is slow reading for me too.

Cordelia wrote: "It is slow reading for me too. "

Oddly enough, I am not finding it slow going at all. I am using the map quite a bit but that's mainly because I'm a person who likes some visual assistance with orienting myself geographically.

Having said that, I was a little disoriented during "A Host of Angles" because of all the London landmarks. I finally figured out it actually was set in London not Northampton.

Drew wrote: "Cordelia wrote: "It is slow reading for me too. "

Oddly enough, I am not finding it slow going at all. I am using the map quite a bit but that's mainly because I'm a person who likes some visual a..."
yes. It is London, isn't it.

I enjoyed these two chapters more than the Prelude. A Host of Angles had a real Dickensian feel for me. Maybe the Medieval for you Zulfiya comes from the idea of building the cathedral and Ernest's occupation? I was profoundly moved by the incident at the top of the scaffold. I highlighted the description of the face so that I could go back to it. It is marvellous.
I love Marla and although I am usually repelled by the topic and setting of ASBOs of Desire, this was different. I noticed lots of overlap with the prelude and am starting to form a hypothesis about who these people are and how they are connected (other than the geography.)
I am enjoying the book more and more as I read it and am starting to feel a narrative pull to find out what the links are. I am hoping for a satisfying narrative arc that will make some sense of these disparate stories.
His writing also reminds of Angela Carter's work - she wrote about the marginalised, eccentric and frankly bizarre. Striking images too.

What do you make of the chapter titles?

They are allusive I think - not a perceptive insight I know - as the impression I have is that Moore is saturated in literature and art.

A host of Angles seems to refer to William Blake (angles to angels is a simple hop) and to his visions and work. I think that the story of Ernest Vernells is close to the chimney sweep in Songs of Innocence.

ASBOs of Desire links to two quotes (although not yet referred to). These are personal associations so of course I could be wrong, although I doubt somehow that Moore intends a fixed and authorcentric set of associations.

'Thoughts are to the Desires as Scouts and Spies, to range abroad, and find the way to the things Desired.' Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

By coincidence I was at the British Library just yesterday and saw a very early copy of Leviathan showing its frontispiece. It reminded me strongly of Jerusalem's front cover.

The second quote is 'The desire of the righteous ends only in good, but the hope of the wicked in wrath.' Proverbs 11:23. This seems appropriate given the acronym ASBOs and for me adds evidence to my hypothesis.

What do others think?

Drew wrote: "I am using the map quite a bit but that's mainly because I'm a person who likes some visual a..."

Another idea I have is that by providing the map and referring so frequently to specific locations Moore is encouraging readers to create a visuospatial representation (a mental model) of the location. This is another way in which he could be seeking to keep Northampton alive, by recreating it in the mind of his readers.

This is not difficult to read, and I'm finding it very interesting so far, but I don't see a lot of cohesion at present. I do see some tenuous threads connecting the Prelude to "A Host of Angles," but less so to "ASBOs of Desire." However, in a book of this size, we're really just getting warmed up, so I'm sure that the connections will be more apparent as we get further into it.

I really liked "A Host of Angles" and found the wealth of detail about life in that period fascinating. The thought of being suspended so far in the air without the equipment we have today is terrifying, and I'm not even afraid of heights! To have something supernatural happening before you, to be so frightened, and to be unable to escape is also chilling. To go from that to "ASBOS" was rather jarring, I admit. I still have no idea how such disparate characters are going to be connected, and where this is going, but I'm interested enough to find out!

I have read further on and the range of characters is already astonishing. I also have an idea about the connection, other than the geographical one.
And ues, the wealth of detail about the historical period in which each character lives is astonishing and very interesting.

I was reading ahead and have decided to stop doing that because it does color my impressions of the earlier chapters when I reread them. I will say I like rereading the earlier chapters because details which seemed to be created just to bring this "world" to life, are actually threads that connect from one chapter to the next. Each chapter adds further complexity to the web that Moore is weaving, and I'm fascinated by all of it.

I stopped reading ahead after Rough Sleepers, and started my reread of the earlier chapters instead.

I am fascinated by a particular thread running through the Prelude and connecting to A Host of Angles: The references to angles, corners, eaves. First we have Mick describing his vision to Alma. We don't really know what the vision was (I'm assuming that comes later in the book), but he begins by saying "I remembered I'd been in the ceiling. I'd been up there for about a fortnight, eating fairies. I suppose it was a sort of dream I had while I was out, although it wasn't like a dream. It was more real, but it was more bizarre as well and it was all about the Boroughs."

So now we have this intriguing thread plucking at our brains. It surfaces later in the Prelude as Mick makes his way to Alma's showing - when he meets the teenage boy, who is in shock from his experiences "up the pub", where no pub has been (in Mayorhold) for decades. The boy says "Up there. Up in the roof. I mean the pub. The roof's a pub." To which Mick replies "Up in the roof? Yeah, I've had that. Like when there's people in the corners trying to pull you up?"

Afterward, as Mick mulls over the experience, he thinks "He'd been wrong to tell the freaked-out teenager that it would all get better, because actually it didn't. It just faded to a deep held chord, a pedal-organ drone behind the normal noise of life, a thing that you forgot about and thought you'd put away forever, but it was still there. It was still here."

And also, there is Alma's dream within a dream about the pigeons flying up and out of the roof. And the host of angles who were building...what exactly? A court? Which makes me think of something that might be happening here. I have an inkling but with Moore, who knows? I'm fresh from a reread of Danielewski's first 4 volumes of the The Familiar, which has a similar structure. All of these disparate threads gradually coming together and forming a fabric (of what, we don't know yet).

Back to Jerusalem: Rereading the Prelude, these visions were my biggest takeaways, although in the first reading, I was more focused on getting acquainted with the location and characters.

Then I reread Host of Angles with those corners and roofs still in the forefront of my brain. It made me a little hyperaware of stuff I had missed before. For example: When Ern is recalling his father, John, who had lost his mind and died before it was necessary to commit him. First there is a reference to Dadd, who had painted fairies. It made me recall Mick's vision where he was eating fairies. Strange. Then Ern recalls that his father "gradually stopped talking, saying that their conversations were all being overhead by "them up in the eaves"." Then Ern asked his father if he meant "all the pigeons" (which threads back to Alma's dream/vision).

Then Ern has his incredible experience - and where does he have it? Up in the roof, up in the eaves. But prior to his vision, he is looking down from above at the people below who are no bigger than earwigs. He realizes he knew two monks were going to collide before it even happens. "To an extent he had been able to perceive the destinies of land-bound people moving back and forth on their flat plane from a superior perspective of a third dimension up above theirs...". Which makes us wonder: who is watching? Who is eavesdropping? And why?

What follows is the vision itself. I was struck by Moore's description of it. It seemed a little crude and awkward, but then I realized it was appropriate to the era and to how someone like Ern would articulate it. I mean, if any of us had an experience like that, we would have the same reactions. And we have the benefit of being able to conceive of such things through books, television, movies, etc. But here is poor Ern, who experiences wave upon wave of visions, a reconfiguring of his brain, and he has no prior exposure to even the slightest idea that anything like this is even possible. And the angel realizes this, and it is filled with sorrow and pity at what the effects of these communications will have on Ern. That they will drive him mad. But it must be done - because Judgement is coming.

I loved this chapter. And like the Prelude, it because richer during the reread.

I'm excited to see how all of these little threads come together in later chapters.

ASBO's of Desire. To be honest, the first time I read this chapter, I was bored by it. The sad case of a drug-addict prostitute living from fix to fix. During the reread, I was able to focus at a more detailed level. Early in the chapter, she answers the door and it's Thompson, who invites her to a showing - which is Alma's showing. Another little connecting thread.

I was also more sympathetic toward Marla after the reread. The hopelessness, the addiction that drives her every action. The constant worry about when she will score more drugs. It's the devil, the monkey on her back.

I also starting picking up on the fact that Marla seems to have some sort of "sense" of things that aren't really there. Not whole visions, but she has fleeting impressions that seem...odd. It's hard to know what is really some kind of 6th sense, or if they are drug-induced, hallucinatory byproducts. The vivid description of Princess Diana's wedding, which predated her birth, so she couldn't have seen it on TV in real time. However, she rebels against the notion that she didn't see it has it happened. So, does Marla have the ability to somehow experience or perceive events outside of time as we know it? The vivid daydream she has about two people having sex in her apartment. The two pairs of feet at St. Peter, but when she looks again, there is only one pair. The children, one with an elfin (fairy?) face, that don't seem to be of this world. The sense, as she walks toward that car at the end of the chapter, that this has all, somehow been pre-ordained. Knowing this, and meeting her fate head on with, somehow, no way to stop it.

The scrapbooks represent an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, there is the Princess Di scrapbook. Princess Di was every little girls dream fantasy. She was right out of a fairy book. A young "commoner" discovered by a Prince and whisked away to a magnificent castle, after a wedding that, again, is right out of a fairytale. But then there is the Ripper Scrapbook, which shows what can happen to women who prostitute themselves. It is a precarious trade that can go very wrong very quickly. So, the scrapbooks shows Marla's ideal dream of being a women versus her gritty reality.

Then the idea of Judgement comes into play again when Marla encounters Ash Moses (I'm hoping we find out where that name came from). He tells her that if she keeps on living as she does, she will be going to Hell. And she just laughs saying that "Hell for her would be being stuck in Bath Street forever, and he'd said Precisely." She is horrified by the idea that Hell is perhaps not some place you go to, but instead is being trapped in a private Hell designed just for you. Your own personal nightmare that goes on forever. I was chilled reading this, although it's certainly not a new concept.

When she goes out the first time, it's interesting that she has that same sense of malaise that Mick had when he walked through the Flats. There's obviously something there that the two of them pick up on. The feeling goes away when she finally gets out of there and up on Castle Street.

And I want to know more about that experience she had in the pool hall. She had a spooky reaction to it, realizing later that it reminded her of a time when she had been in a church. She even refers to it as the "holy pool hall". I'm thinking this must be a significant thread - because on the book cover you can see angels playing pool, which seems weird, doesn't it?

Then she runs into the poet. Is this the same poet referenced in the Prelude (attending Alma's showing)?

She decides to go home and work on her Princess Di picture, only to think she has been burgled because her scrapbooks are gone from the coffee table (although anything else valuable is sitting right there and her door was locked). What she doesn't remember is that she put the scrapbooks in her bedroom chest of drawers. They haven't been stolen at all.

It's tragic because, had she sat down with her scrapbooks, she would have stayed home for the night and nothing would have happened. But fate is working against her, pulling her back to the street and to that car that she is walking toward when the chapter ends. "She knew. She knew exactly what was going to happen in her guts she knew. There'd be a car along now, any minute. That would be the one. There wasn't anything what she could do to stop it." And she hears kids giggling in the dark. In the bushes.

And that weird house.

Paula wrote: "I was reading ahead and have decided to stop doing that because it does color my impressions of the earlier chapters when I reread them. I will say I like rereading the earlier chapters because det..."

I like your idea of rereading the earlier chapters! Just having you go back over these helped me pick up on some things I missed and connect some dots. In reference to your line about Mick's vision of "eating the fairies," it immediately made me think of (view spoiler)[those strange things Freddy and his friends were eating, Puck's Hats, that looked like fairies. And then when Marla sees the two pairs of feet at St. Peter's, I thought again of Freddy, who liked to lay down next to the hippies/bums/kids who slept there. (hide spoiler)] I think "Rough Riders" tied a lot of threads together.

I'm reading this on Kindle, which is great because the book is so huge and would be so unwieldy, but makes it more difficult to flip back to earlier pages, which drives me crazy!

Cindy wrote: "I think "Rough Riders" tied a lot of threads together."

Oh yes, you are right! Rough Riders did the same for me as well. But I want to reread it again before I start posting to that thread.

Paula wrote: "Cindy wrote: "I think "Rough Riders" tied a lot of threads together."

Oh yes, you are right! Rough Riders did the same for me as well. But I want to reread it again before I start posting to that ..."

Oops! I didn't snap that we weren't on that thread! I'll go back and put spoiler warnings.

Cindy wrote: "Paula wrote: "Cindy wrote: "I think "Rough Riders" tied a lot of threads together."

Oh yes, you are right! Rough Riders did the same for me as well. But I want to reread it again before I start po..."

I'm glad you are enjoying the book Cindy! I hope it continues to be as interesting as it has been so far.

Kimberly wrote: "I'm still super far behind, but as my class is over I'll have time to catch up now. So far, these three sections have seemed very disjointed, and I hope everything gets tied together nicely soon."

As you continue, you will start to see slender threads connecting the chapters in Book 1 (referenced in previous posts). All the little ways they intersect. Just read slowly with an eye to the details. Book 2 is where they all start to really gel, and you'll really appreciate knowing so much about the characters.

If there is anything you would like to discuss in more detail, I'd welcome it 🤗. Discussions have been a bit thin and our moderator doesn't seem to be around, but that doesn't mean we can't use this space to continue onward.

I am still trying to get caught up so I can join in the discussions. I decided to go back and reread the first chapters, and of course that is at the same time I'm going back to work in a new school, setting up my brand new classroom and diving into a new curriculum, and dealing with a little thing called Harvey! I promise I haven't given up on it, though. I will catch up, at some point!

I am still around too.