Posted in: Comics | Tagged: bleeding cool, Comics, entertainment
Alan Moore's Jerusalem – Only 600,000 Words Long Now
Recent PR for Alan Moore's new novel Jerusalem that I – amongst others – published included details that seem to have come from his previous novel, Voice Of The Fire. Originally I thought this was because Jerusalem was expanding on the themes of the first book, but it seems that it was a slip of the mouse.
So here's the actual description of Jerusalem, including its length and publishing format. At one point some suggested it would top a million words, but that has been reduced somewhat…
Rich and glorious, JERUSALEM is Moore's most ambitious and best authorial work to date.
Spirals between memories and tales from Moore's family history, fantasy elements and historical dramatisations from Northampton's past.
Begun in 2008, JERUSALEM has long been speculated on by Moore's fans and the literati – many have been following the book's story for years. At over 600,000 words, JERUSALEM puts itself in the Top 10 largest novels in the English language.
A grandiose tome about his hometown of Northampton, employing an extremely wide variety of styles, including a poem and a play.
In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England's Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap tower blocks. Embedded in the grubby amber of the district's narrative among its saints, kings, prostitutes, and derelicts a different kind of human time is happening.
An opulent mythology for those without a pot to piss in, through the labyrinthine streets and pages of JERUSALEM tread ghosts that sing of wealth and poverty; of Africa, and hymns, and our threadbare millennium. They discuss English as a visionary language from John Bunyan to James Joyce, hold forth on the illusion of mortality post-Einstein and insist upon the meanest slum as Blake's eternal holy city.
Fierce in its imagining and stupefying in its scope, JERUSALEM is the tale of everything, told from a vanished gutter.
Will be published in an Hardback and three volume paperback in a slipcase. Published in the USA by Liveright.