So, yes, it's Jerusalem time.
Some time ago I pre-ordered a copy of this book in the three volume (+ box) paperback version. I just thought it looked cooler than the hardback, which had come out a week & a day earlier (September 5, 2016). Also, I really like books in little boxes. *
And when it arrived, I thought it was a thing of beauty.
...about 2/3rds of the way through the first volume.
I meant to get back to it.
But I didn't.
And now it's been five years...almost to the day, oddly enough. Five years...stuck on my eyes. And so I said to myself, "Self, it's time to get back to Jerusalem." I decided to read Blake: Prophet Against Empire first, as I thought that would give me some greater insight into what Moore was doing with this. And I decided to read Blake's Jerusalem as well...knowing that most of it would slip through my fingers, but figuring that it was still worth doing. Besides, I really love William Blake, but only know Songs of Innocence & Experience (go figure) and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in any depth whatsoever.
As it turns out, I wasn't able to finish Blake's Jerusalem (yet), but I shall not delay: today I begin Jerusalem again.
I'm sorry to admit that at the moment (before opening Volume 1) I recall very little of what I read before. I remember a guy who rode a bicycle that had rope around the rims instead of tires. I remember some kids running around Heaven. (Or, no doubt, "Heaven.") A few other random scraps. But nothing cohesive.
So I think this is going to feel like the first time. Like the very first time.
So let's go.
Oh, yeah. The page count: 1,266 pages. And much to my surprise, when I went to The Text to get that count, I found that that bookmark (above) is NOT in Book One, it's in Book Two, so I got a lot farther than I thought I did on my first run at this novel. The bookmark is on page 618, in fact, so I got pretty close to the halfway point before I pooped out. (49% of the way to be precise...and a mere 15 pages away from the halfway point.) Also, a curious thing: the Books aren't numbered separately, but continuously. (Book One ends on page 363, and Book Two begins on page 364, etc.)
So I think I'm going to be sticking to my 20 page a day rule, which means that it will take 63 days to get to the end of this novel. Here's hoping it's as much fun and as rewarding as I think it will be.
* Not kidding.
Day 1 (DDRD 1,412) September 13, 2021
Well. That wasn't what I'd call easy reading. For one thing, the text is dense...just in terms of words per page. I timed myself, and it was taking about 2 1/2 minutes per page as opposed to the normal 2, which means that I'm going to be reading about 50 minutes per day instead of 40...which means an "extra" 70 minutes per week, an "extra" (almost) 5 hours per month. And maybe it was just because I didn't get enough sleep, but I really had to push myself to get through the words. Not that they weren't enjoyable, because they were. It's a really intriguing story. Oh, and lest I forget...the dialect. It definitely slows you down a bit, since you have to decipher what's being said or move past it without getting it--and I don't do that.
Anyway...it was a hard pull today.
But I read to page 20.
Day 2 (DDRD 1,413) September 14, 2021
Read to page 40.
A bit easier going this morning. For one thing, the characters of Mick and Alma step forward, and both of them are quite interesting people. Alma seems to be a bit more than odd, well beyond the borderline of "crazy," in fact, which of course is quite appealing. She's also, among other things, a painter, and at one point she tells her brother, Mick, "That's why I'd better make these paintings great, to change the world before it's all completely f*****." The censoring is by my phone's dictation function, which I thought was kind of funny, so I left it in.
As for Mick...he seems to me to be a stand-in for Alan Moore. He's gentle, he tries to help a random stranger who is freaking out, and he has visions. He also has a social conscience and a perspicacious attitude towards society, as shown here:
"If you had a population that were miserable and restless because they had nowhere bearable to live, then the preferred solution seemed not to be spending money on improving their condition but on hiring more police in case things should turn ugly...."
Yep. So all in all a good day's reading. It was also the end of the Prelude, which I have to admit I didn't know I was in.
BTW, did you know that you can buy this book on Kindle for $9.99? 1,393 pages for ten bucks. Sheesh.
Day 3 (DDRD 1,414) September 15, 2021
Read to page 60. Spent most of the time with Ern "Ginger" Vernall, who is working on a restoration project at St. Paul's Church. And this time around I was actually reluctant to stop reading, because this stuff was just fascinating. For one thing, the knowledge that Alan Moore had to acquire about art restoration in the 19th century is more than a little bit stunning. For another thing...well, I don't do spoilers, so I can't really tell you, but let's just say some Truly Weird Shit Happens. But (1) I was babysitting and (2) I really needed to make some progress on an advance copy of a children's book by Christoffer Petersen, so I put Jerusalem down (towards the end of baby's nap) and put in a little bit of time on The Starlighter. (Coming soon to an e-book reader near you.)
Day 4 (DDRD 1,415) September 16, 2021
Read to page 80, and it was another easy day wherein I could have gone for more. I was sad to see Ern's story come to an end...or what I presume was the end...but once I had a few pages under my belt, the "new" character, Marla seemed interesting enough.
Day 5 (DDRD 1,416) September 17, 2021
Read to page 100. And Marla is out, Freddy in. Much easier reading now, to be sure, but I am starting to hope that we get a return to one of the earlier characters soon. Mick / Alma, Ern, Marla, Freddy. I'm ready to hear back from someone. Forgot to mention that we had a brief glimpse of the Bicycle Man yesterday...or possibly the day before. Just enough to know it was him...not even a mention of his rope tires.
Day 6 (DDRD 1,417) September 18, 2021
Read to page 120.
Interesting perspective on why some souls are denied (for lack of a better word) ascension:
"He'd nothing troubling his conscience that was keeping him down here...." (109)
And just a bit later:
"That's what kept him down here and prevented him from moving on, the fact he couldn't let it go like that and just be rid of the whole stinking lot of it. The fact that Freddy carried it around inside him, all his shit...." (113)
Or, as Nietzsche said, "Every man is a prisoner of his own length, breadth, and width of consciousness." Or something like that.
Have to say, I have been enjoying this book quite a bit lately, and it has been no chore to knock back twenty pages per. On the other hand, Freddy only has one more page in this bit, and I am really hoping that we are going back to one of the characters we've already met in the next section.
Side Note: This book is disintegrating in an interesting way:
Shoddy workmanship, that. But I'm guessing that after 5 years, the statute of limitations has run out. Ah, well.
Day 7 (DDRD 1,418) September 19, 2021
Read to page 140.
Day 8 (DDRD 1,419) September 20, 2021
Read to page 160.
Still meeting new characters, but did "re-meet" one...more or less. There's a conversation between a monk and Freddy on pages 142-143 which loops back to pages 95 - 96, though this time it's from the monk's point of view. I'm still hoping to have another chat up with Ern...or Mick and Alma.
There was also this bit, which is pretty fucking sad but true:
"Life pulled you in and that was that, you were in meshed in all its circumstances, all its gears, until you reach the other end and got spat out, into a fancy box if you were lucky. There seem very little choice in any of it." (159)
I've also happened upon an online commentary on Jerusalem--A Journey Through Alan Moore’s Jerusalem by Matthew Kirshenblatt (available HERE) which is interesting. Our Matthew is one of the Sequart fellows. I've read and enjoyed a couple of the Sequart books back in the day when I was getting Amazon Unlimited. Matthew's observations tend to be very top heavy with summary, which is more than a little bit annoying, and there are quite a few typos in every entry, which is more than a little bit distracting, but he is a good reader, and he does point out some things that I missed in my reading. So I'll probably keep jumping over to see what he has to say on each chapter.
Day 9 (DDRD 1,420) September 21, 2021
Read to page 180. Finally got round to a recurring character...and it's the black guy with the rope-tired bicycle, Henry George (aka Black Charley). Interesting, too, that he makes a brief appearance in the “Modern Times” chapter which precedes the one I'm on, "Blind, but Now I See." I'm not sure, but I think this might be the first time we've had two consecutive chapters set in the same time period.
In other news, I've found several other blogs focused on Jerusalem. Here are two which look interesting:
A Reader’s Diary: On Alan Moore’s ‘Jerusalem’ by Zak Salih (HERE)
&
Annotations for Jerusalem by Alan Moore by I Don't Know Who (HERE)
Because, you know, I need more to read, don't I?
Oh, also, I found my first Jerusalem typo today:
So there's that.
Day 10 (DDRD 1,421) September 22, 2021
Read to page 200. Still on Henry George, and I have to say that (1) I really love this character and (2) I can't believe that I read this before and forgot about it. There is a moment in this chapter that is so touching that I can only conclude that I must have somehow drifted off whilst reading and not really wrapped my brain around it the first time through. (No spoilers, but let's just say that Mr. Newton is involved. No, not that Mr. Newton.)
Day 11 (DDRD 1,422) September 23, 2021
Read to page 220. Sorry to leave Henry, but yes, getting to know Benedict, getting to like him. Also, a glimpse of Alma. And a reference (almost) to Ern, who is (if I got it right) Alma's great great grandfather or something like that.
Day 12 (DDRD 1,423) September 24, 2021
Read to page 240.
Yep, things are coming together now. Finally got some Alma (hooray), but also a bit of Marla (from Benedict's perspective this time) and even a reference to the brother. You know, I could easily read more than twenty pages per day at this point, but I think I'm going to stick to this. Especially since I am also trying to put down 20 pages a day of The World Goes On.
And about that. I just read a bit in TWGO in which a character who is giving a lecture is kidnapped, forced to stay in the building, and then only let out to give another lecture before being returned to his captivity. Well. In Jerusalem, Benedict passes by a place and talks about how there was a rumor that a musician was forced to live there and only let out to play, and then Benedict thinks how that wouldn't be so bad, really, if he was kidnapped and only let out to read his poetry to an audience.
Strange world, ennit?
A few other things of interest:
The aforementioned Benedict (Perrit, a Published Poet), hands over a 20 pound note (given to him by Alma when he "touches" her) for a pint, and thinks about the image of Edward Elgar which appears on said note. (It has, I am told, since been replaced by the image of Adam Smith..."since" being June 30, 2010) and makes reference to "The Dream of Gerontius." Of course I looked that up, found that it is a lovely piece of music well worth your time to listen to...assuming that you have an hour and a half you don't mind filling with it.
Benedict also makes reference to a place that goes by the name of Jimmy's End. I thought that was interesting, since my oldest son's name is Jimmy, and thought I'd have a look for it. Turns out that there is a short film called Jimmy's End...written by Alan Moore...who also does a bit in it. So that will have to be seen, won't it? *
Lastly, here's a lovely paragraph by Mr. Moore:
* Which may be a bit problematic, actually. Check this out:
Not to mention this:
But hey, this is the 21st century. The Moore is out there.
Day 13 (DDRD 1,424) September 25, 2021
Read to page 263...which means 100 pages to go in Book I!
Although at this point the reading is going so well that it most certainly is no chore.
In Today's Twenty I left Benedict and...JOY!...entered (re-...kind of) the story of Ern Vernall...with his son, Snowy. Who is Alma and Mick's...um...grandfather? Not sure, but he's in the line-up, for sure. I really like the way things have started to wind together now. I think I would have been happier a couple of hundred pages ago if I'd had some inkling that it would work out this way, and I was thinking, "I would have liked it if the Table of Contents had given me a little more information...like whose story would be featured in each chapter." So I thought I'd go ahead and do that...maybe even redact it to the beginning of this Reader's Diary.
Anyway...
Prelude
Work in Progress - Alma & Mick
Book One - The Boroughs
A Host of Angles - Ern Vernall
ASBOs of Desire - Marla
Rough Sleepers - Freddy
X Marks the Spot - Brother Peter
Modern Times - Oatsie
Blind, but Now I See - Henry George (Black Charley)
Atlantis - Benedict Perrit
Do as You Darn Well Please - Snowy Vernall (Ern's son)
...well, I assume. I haven't finished this chapter, though, so I'll have to check back in on that. And on the three chapters that I've not yet read--which I'll fill in as I get to them:
The Breeze That Plucks Her Apron - May Warren (Showy's daughter)
Hark! The Glad Sound! - Tommy Waren (May's son)
Choking on a Tune - Mick (Tommy's son and brother to Alma)
Whilst working that (⬆) out, it occurred to me that there are some other things that would be very useful: (1) a Family Tree, (2) a Time Line, and (3) the addition of the "minor characters" in each chapter, so that you could see how the crossovers work out. I'm pretty sure that (3) would spoil too much of the reading for a first timer, though. I don't think (2) would, and I'm sure that (1) wouldn't. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that Alan Moore didn't include this himself. My guess is that it already exists on the internet SOMEwhere, so before thinking about going to the trouble of doing it myself, I'll go have a bit of a look.
But first, two things:
Benedict has this thought--
"He's been so anxious for success and validation that he'd come to think you weren't really a writer unless you were a successful one." (246)
--which is obviously nothing new or particularly startling, but is something I need to internalize if I'm ever to get myself back to writing anything other than blog posts. I've let my lack of success, my lack of support, my lack of faith that I have many years left to me, my despondency over the wretched state of the world...etc...get to me, and for the first time in my life since I was a young child I've not been writing. I know that my writing isn't important to anyone else, but I also have to recognize that it's important to me, and I have to be willing to put in the effort to look out for and take care of myself.
So that was kind of a big one. The other thing is this bit. Just as I was reading this--
--Jacqueline, who had been playing funk music in her room, put in the soundtrack to Mary Poppins and started playing "Let's Go Fly a Kite." And it was an exact match: as I read the word "kite," Mary & Company sang the word "kite." Glitch in the Matrix, man.
P.S. And as for that Family Tree hypothesis...yep. Someone going by the name of u/obiwanspicoli on reddit did this:
So there you have it.
Day 14 (DDRD 1,425) September 26, 2021
Read to page 283. We've left Snowy behind, but not by much. In fact, the next chapter, "The Breeze That Plucks Her Apron," pretty much picks right up, going from the baby born at the end of "Do as You Darn Well Please" into the woman she's grown up to be having her first baby. There was a pretty vivid description of the childbirth that I found more than a little difficult to read, but all in all I have to say that I am now astonished that I had a hard time reading the first pages of this novel. At this point it just hums along, and I am beginning to regret that I'll be finished reading this volume in just a few more days...and a bit apprehensive that Book II won't be as accommodating. (Memories of the Stall Out, for one thing.)
Meanwhile...I happened upon an interview with Alan Moore--"Northampton Calling: A Conversation with Alan Moore" by Rob Vollmar (which you can find HERE) which looks quite interesting. In the first part of it, Moore mentions a book which had a great influence on his writing of Jerusalem: Lud Heat: A Book of the Dead by Iain Sinclair. And now I want to have a look at that, of course. Not available at the library (or at U of L or Bellarmine), but there is a Google Books preview, so I'll have a look at that and hopefully it won't be so good that I have to buy it.
Also ran into The Alan Moore Lecture 2013, in which Our Alan visits Northampton College to read from and talk about The Mirror of Love, which I have on a shelf (somewhere) but have yet to read. You see what happens? All reading is fission for me.
Day 15 (DDRD 1,426) September 27, 2021
Read to page 303. Had to finish the May chapter. And no spoilers, but Alan Moore did make me cry.
Day 16 (DDRD 1,427) September 28, 2021
Read to page 321. Now into the Tommy Warren chapter...Tommy being May's son. Interesting in that (1) we have been following a pretty straightforward chronology for a while now and (2) when we first met May, she was 20 years old and beautiful. Now Tommy refers to her as "short and stout" and as "...some cackling old horror."
Life happens, right?
Day 17 (DDRD 1,428) September 29, 2021
Read to page 341, thus began the final chapter...which, no surprise, circles back round to Mick (with hints of Alma).
Day 18 (DDRD 1,429) September 30, 2021
Read to page 363, which means 🥁🥁🥁 I've finished Book I. There's a revelation about Mick (no spoilers here) which is very puzzling, and which I didn't remember anything about from my first reading. So yes, I am anxious to find out what that means. Also, I must say that this was a perfect place to break off Book I. There's a sense of symmetry (we began with Mick and we end with Mick), even a sense of completion, but also a big question which wants me to follow it into Book II. Which I shall most certainly do tomorrow.
God willing.
Day 19 (DDRD 1,430) October 1, 2021
Read to page 380. And it was a hard left turn, for sure. Once again the text is difficult, and I'm having some memories of my first reading of this part--or most of it, anyway--which suggest that it might not get much easier. But I'm also remembering that the first day or two of Book I was not easy, and hoping that things will even out here as well. I have the feeling that we'll be sticking with Mick (now three year-old Michael) for most of Book II, but we'll see how that goes.
Day 20 (DDRD 1,431) October 2, 2021
Read to page 400. Mick / Michael is still wandering through "upstairs." Speaking of which, Alan Moore's concept of Upstairs as essentially being a dimension adjacent to our own--the corner of a room being the projecting corner of a table, for instance--actually provides some sense for the whole idea of Heaven being "above" us. Since that concept obviously ceased to make sense once a modern understanding of cosmogony occurred, this is an interesting way of reconciling the idea of ascension, for instance, with that modern understanding.
And that. *
* My ex-mother-in-law...who journeyed from absolute disdain for me initially into fondness which could easily be called love in the last years of her life (long story involving non-Catholic + Catholic courtship, 17 years of marriage & three children, and a divorce due to newfound lesbian tendencies)...used to end quite a few of her sentences with "and that." It causes me a pang of sorrow (remembering the last time I saw her, shrunken and dying on a hospital bed, as I whispered good-bye to her) and a bit of a laugh to remember her voice as she said these words. Funny, just writing that I immediately thought, "That's the title of the last novel that I'm ever going to write." I haven't been doing any novel writing lately...though I have been thinking about it. So who knows. It might happen, I suppose.
Day 21 (DDRD 1,432) October 3, 2021
Read to page 420. Which means I finished the first chapter of Book II and started Chapter 2 ("An Asmodeus Flight"). Sorry to say that I'm still having to push myself a bit to get through the pages. Which is not to say that it is uninteresting or even tedious, just that I haven't felt myself caught up in the narrative.
BTW, I picked up Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius (Op. 38), which Wikipedia describes as "a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by Saint John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory." (Wikipedia) This was mentioned by Mick ( / Michael) way back in Chapter 7 (Atlantis), Book I. I tried to listen to it via a YouTube video right after reading the allusion in Jerusalem, but you know, lately I have just been feeling really unsatisfied with music played through a computer's speakers. So I requested the cd from the library.
I started to listen to the first (of two) cds whilst reading the end of Chapter 1 of Book II ("Upstairs"), and pretty quickly decided that this was not something to be listened to as background music. For one thing, the music is much too dramatic to be listened to casually (which essentially means ignoring it for the most part, right?). For another thing, the lyrics are sung in English, and I really can't help being pulled towards that...but this is definitely a case where you need to be reading along, so double screwed on that. I decided to finish Today's Twenty and then get back to it full time.
And?
Well, listening to the first cd with lyrics in hand was a more intense experience. The music is very dramatic. There are a couple of times when I'd think, "Elgar's about to tip over into melodrama here," but I was wrong...he pulls up short of it, leaving the poignancy intact. I was also thrilled to see that Bryn Terfel has a part...a couple of parts, actually...in this. Not the lead part, though...and since this album was released in 2008 (I think...conflicting information), that seems strange, in that BT had released 38 albums by then, and you'd think that he'd have wanted more space at this point. But hey, maybe he's a humble guy...or maybe he just really wanted to be a part of this thing. At any rate, I'm anxious to listen to part two / the second cd, and I'm already getting a listening party ready for Jacqueline, as I think this is a thing she would like. (She favors sacred music...and funk.) Details as they happen.
P.S. I just discovered that the text of this work is based on a poem by Cardinal Newman. I started to compare the text of the poem to the lyrics, and it looks like Elgar did a bit of editing...so I may have to read the poem in its entirety. See how this reading fission goes? Yep.
Day 22 (DDRD 1,433) October 4, 2021
Read to page 440. The reading might have been a little bit easier today.
Day 23 (DDRD 1,434) October 5, 2021
Read to page 460. Started Chapter 3 of Book II..."Rabbits." Hmmm.
Day 24 (DDRD 1,435) October 6, 2021
Read to page 480.
I'm thinking about how many stories of import are centered around walking around. Like The Catcher in the Rye, Ulysses, and Jerusalem, for instance. (Not to mention the the almost completely overlooked novel A Matter of Reason.) Hmmmm.
BTW...
Began my DDRs on November 2, 2017. 2020 was a leap year. So that means Day 1461 will be my 4th Year In (365 x 4 + 1). So less than four weeks until then.
Day 25 (DDRD 1,436) October 7, 2021
Read to page 500. Which puts me just six days (118 pages) away from where I pooped out the first time through. And you know, I can see why I ran out of steam. Or poop. This morning, I ended up stopping three times in my reading. I normally run through all twenty pages in one fell swoop. But I found myself tiring of the story. Part of it is the fact that we're no longer switching from one character to another, it's just all Michael and the Dead Dead Gang kids. But I don't really think that's the major part of it. I think that I'm just not finding this part of the story, wherein the kids just kind of wander around the ghost world (or whatever it is) very interesting. I don't need a whole lot of plot to keep me going, but there's almost none of that..and no a whole lot of interesting dialogue, either. And, come to think of it, not much in terms of insights or observations on life that give me some food for thought. No food for thought means no poop, and no poop means pooped out. I'm going to keep at this, of course, as I will not under any circumstances allow myself to quit on a Daily Devotional Reading, but I sure hope things take a turn before too much longer, because if they don't this is going to be just work, you know?
Day 26 (DDRD 1,437) October 8, 2021
Read to page 520. Really had to push myself to get through these pages, but did it without coming up for air this time, at least.
150 pages into this volume and the chapter I just started, "Flatland," shifts perspective to one of the other characters in the Dead Dead Gang, Reggie Fowler. So a little bit of narrative relief, perhaps. But the story proceeds pretty much the same way that it has for the past 130 pages: a bunch of dead kids run around, get into a little bit of trouble here and there, and then get out of it unscathed. I'm very sorry to say it, but I'm bored with the story at this point.
Day 27 (DDRD 1,438) October 9, 2021
Read to page 540. Today's Twenty seemed less boring than yesterday's. Could be the shift in perspective (from Michael, which has gone on for 150 pages, to Reggie.) Could be that I'm in a different space myself. Which is not to say that it was a thrilling read by any means, and we still seem to be going around the same old mulberry bush. There was one bit which caught my attention, even though it's not particularly new, and even though Moore has come up with the thought several times before in this novel. It goes like this:
"All the disheartened spirits that he previously knocked about with, he had realized, were not condemned to purgatory by anything except their own shame and a mercilessly low opinion of themselves." (530 to 531)
Food for thought, that, ennit?
Day 28 (DDRD 1,439) October 10, 2021
Read to page 560. Closing in on where I left off the first time though. Here's a line that hit me:
"...the soulless and disinterested windows of the Bath Street buildings wore a genuinely dreadful look, as though they'd seen the worst and were just waiting now to die." (542)
It made me think about myself, how after divorce two, and especially after "heart event" one, I have struggled with the idea of what to do with the fragile years remaining in my life...how useless it has often seemed to even try to continue to go forward. I, who once prided myself on never quitting, either quit or came damned close to it. Nevertheless, I have persisted.
Day 29 (DDRD 1,440) October 11, 2021
Read to page 580.
Day 30 (DDRD 1,441) October 12, 2021
Read to page 600. So tomorrow (God willing & the crick) I'll go past my previous high water mark.
I've been thinking about what bothers me about this book...or, at least, Book II of this book. And I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that while Alan Moore has created an intricate cosmology, it really ends up being more than a bit silly. The idea that the lives (or fate, if you must) of human beings are determined by angels playing a game like billiards, for instance. I mean...that's pretty stupid, isn't it? For one thing, it's just a bit random. For another thing, there are currently almost 8 billion people living on the Earth. And I just read an article which suggested that previously 117 billion people have lived and died here. That's a whole lot of billiard balls, isn't it? Of course, if you have all eternity to play in, I suppose you could say that that's irrelevant, but it still just doesn't add up for me. Although I suppose it is one way to suggest that each and every human being is unique and precious, all of that.
There are other things that bother me. Like the Dead Dead Gang members tunneling through the layers of time to get to another moment. Yeah. Just how do they know how deep to dig to get to where they want to go? And what happens to the holes that they have left behind?
Anyway....
Tomorrow, tomorrow.
Day 31 (DDRD 1,442) October 13, 2021
Read to page 620. So yep, passed where I stopped the first time through.
So there's that.
I was talking to A PERSON today who asked me what I was reading and if I enjoyed the book. I said that I really liked Book I, but was uncertain about Book II. She said that she didn't understand why someone would continue to read something that they didn't really enjoy. I replied that I was hoping that it would get back to being as good as Book I, and she responded, "I'd give something about fifteen minutes before I gave up on it." And I understood, certainly. But it also made me feel kind of bad. Like I was being foolish in pursuing the second half of this book, which I haven't enjoyed very much for the past two hundred pages or so. On the other hand...sometimes you do have to struggle with works of art. It's quite possible that something will happen in Book III which will make me say, "Oh, THAT's what was going on there. I get it now." Dunno. For now, though, I just feel bad. And kind of stupid.
Day 32 (DDRD 1,443) October 14, 2021
Read to page 640.
Funny. I was just commenting on the holes left behind when the DDG "kids" dig through time...and I'm 94% sure that this was never addressed previously...but in Today's Twenty there were two instances wherein after coming back through the hole, Phyllis stopped to knit it back together. Hmpf. Ask and it shall.
Day 33 (DDRD 1,444) October 15, 2021
Read to page 660.
Day 34 (DDRD 1,445) October 16, 2021
Read to page 680.
So yesterday when as I was leaving the library a book cover caught my eye:
So I picked it up and had a closer look at the title, which was When We Cease to Understand the World. Well. You had me at cease. I'd never heard of Benjamin Labatut before, but I decided to have a look at it anyway. And after seeing that it was also a New York Review Book (probably my all time favorite publisher), I decided that I would check it out...even though I am way underwater with books right now. And wonder of wonders, I actually started nibbling at it right away when I got home, and it was pretty captivating. I read about how Zyklon A, "a precursor to the poison employed by the Nazis in their concentration camps" had been used to create Prussian Blue.
And in Today's Twenty, I read this:
So that was a bit dissettling. And I think I'm going to see what else Mr. Lebatut has to say. Sorry, Mobius Dick, Dr, Z: The Lost Memoirs of an Irreverent Football Writer, Theo Angelopolous: Interviews, Yevtushenko: The Collected Poems 1952 - 1990, Event Leviathan, and The Wicked + The Divine Volume 1. The universe has spoken.
Day 35 (DDRD 1,446) October 17, 2021
Read to page 703. Did a few extra pages so that I'd have less than 100 pages to go in Book II. The reading seems to be a little easier at the moment. I was particularly drawn in to the story of Marjorie Miranda Driscoll, aka Drowned Marjorie. The description of her death was truly frightening, and made me feel the closeness of my own death in a way that was very discomfiting.
Day 36 (DDRD 1,447) October 18, 2021
Read to page 720. Still primarily with Marjorie's point of view, and towards the end of Today's Twenty I really perked up with the introduction of Lucia Joyce...and the subsequent mention of father James and friend (and paramour, more or less) Samuel Beckett. Perhaps also helping raise my spirits is that I'm now just 80 some pages from finishing Book II, and a hundred pages further on than I got the first time I attempted to read this book.
ADDENDUM: So of course I had to peek at Lucia Joyce's Wikipedia page after writing the above, which caused me to wonder if she'd had any children. She hadn't, which caused me to wonder if there were any living descendants of James Joyce. So I looked up the page for his other child, son Giorgio Joyce, and saw that he'd had one child, Stephen James Joyce, but that he'd had no children and had died January 23, 2020, so no, there are no living descendants of James Joyce. Whilst looking at Stephen James Joyce's short biography, I saw that he'd been angry about a ten euro James Joyce commemorative coin issued on April 10th, 2013, by the Central Bank of Ireland, and I wondered why that would have upset him so. Turns out that not only did the coin misquote Ulysses, but that the image used for James Joyce was truly hideous...
And of course all of that made me think, "I should really read all of James Joyce again." So that might happen. It's only four books, after all, the whole oeuvre is only...192+ 180 + 736 + 656 = 1,764 pages (more or less...lengths vary pretty wildly), so we'd only be talking about 3 months or so to traverse the length of the man's writing life. Or the majority of it, since there are a few odds and sods along the way. Matter of fact, that's not a whole lot longer than Jerusalem, come to think of it....
Day 37 (DDRD 1,448) October 19, 2021
Ah, the 19th of October. 45 years ago today I was a scared teenager arriving at Ft. Dix, New Jersey for Basic Training in the U.S. Army.
Read to page 740.
When I first read this--
"...it was impossible to retain memory of your exploits in the higher world once you'd returned into your life again. Otherwise everybody would remember from the moment of their birth that this had all occurred a billion times before." (722)
--it made me happy, because the idea of reincarnation is very appealing to me. It eliminates the fear of death (at least in terms of the annihilation of consciousness), it gives purpose (evolving to a better self-hood) and it rests upon the assumption that there is at least a benevolent universe, and perhaps even a benevolent God in charge of the whole show. But then I started thinking more, and I realized that if I understood what Moore was saying here...that we've all been born over and over again...then he had pretty much destroyed his whole concept of the afterlife, which has absolutely no room in it for rebirth. In fact, the whole point of this Upstairs was to be the place one resides post mortal life. And the fact that everyone is shocked when they discover that Michael is going to return to his mortal existence belies the idea that people are reborn all of the time.
So there's that.
Day 38 (DDRD 1,449) October 20, 2021
Read to page 760. Al...most...there....
Day 39 (DDRD 1,450) October 21, 2021
Read to page 787 so that I'd have less than 20 pages to finish it off tomorrow. So now I have 16 pages to go.
Day 40 (DDRD 1,451) October 22, 2021
Read to page 803, which means the end of Book II. And here's hoping that Book III gets me back to a story that fully involves me. I have to admit that it was a bit of a struggle to get through most of Book II. Dead kids traipsing around "Heaven" just didn't really work for me. For many reasons, most of which stemmed from just not believing that this particular version of the Afterlife worked very well. In fact, seemed quite silly. Angels playing at billiards. No, not my kind of cosmogony. Here's hoping.
Day 41 (DDRD 1,452) October 23, 2021
Read to page 820. Of 1,266. So 446 pages to go, which should = about 22 days, which means I should be finishing up Jerusalem on November 14th. Which doesn't seem like all that far in the future, so I guess it is TIME to decide what comes next, isn't it? Quite a few choices, but I am actually leaning towards Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. I started it some time ago, intending to read it with #1🌞 & his wife, but both of them pooped out fast and then I did, too. But it was a very interesting book, and a nice melding of fiction and history. Yes, that very well could be the next book.
As for Today's Twenty of Jerusalem, it's a distinct shift as I begin Book III, for sure. We are now hearing from the angel's point of view. The builder. Mighty Mike. So a lot of confusing stuff at the first, then narrowing down to a more direct narrative. At one point, on page 811, there's a Warren family reunion/party, and one of Alma's guests is "another lady artist: an American girl called Melinda." Which is, obviously, Alan Moore's wife, Melinda Gebbie ...with whom he did several comic books, like Lost Girls, of which I have only read the first published installment from Kitchen Sink Press / Tundra (1995). Which is apparently going for as much as $200 these days, so if you need this, 🤙.
Day 42 (DDRD 1,453) October 24, 2021
Read to page 840. Chapter 1 continued to wind around, perspective shifting, until it was the book itself narrating directly to me (you), and had this to say: "...you do not know that you are a text. You don't know that you're reading yourself. What you believe to be the self-determined life that you are passing through is actually a book already written that you have become absorbed in, and not for the first time. When this current reading is concluded...you pick it up again...." (824)
Which is just another manifestation of the "everything is fixed, and you can't change it" philosophy which seems so pervasive in this novel. Needless to say, I have issues with that perspective.
All of the amorphous metaphysicality finally came to an end, though, and Chapter 2, "A Cold and Frosty Morning," brought us back to Alma and an actual story. Or at least enough story for me. Not that much story, actually: Alma takes a bath. But I found it interesting. Not in a voyeuristic way. But I like Alma a lot.
Later.... Well, I'm probably the last one to get this, but as I was thinking about Alma smoking a joint for breakfast and brushing her tangly hair, it hit me: she's Alan Moore. Alma...Alam...Alan. M.
I was also thinking that Book III seems to be much more like the story I was enjoying in Book I, and while I'm still not sure why we needed Book II, I am glad that I stuck with it. Which made me think, there's something to be said with sticking with things even when they get unpleasant or fail to be what you were hoping they would be. I know that I'd still be married if 50% of my spouses had thought that way. Just sayin', sir. Or ma'am.
Day 43 (DDRD 1,454) October 25, 2021
Read to page 860.
I just finished reading Mobius Dick by Andrew Crumey yesterday... and immediately decided that I wanted to read more Andrew Crumey. In MD, there was quite a bit about quantum physics and parallel universes and the uncertain nature and being of Reality, and in Today's Twenty, Mr. Moore went through the same. Not a huge coincidence at all, but an interesting bit of buttressing.
Speaking of, here's a thing I thought was necessary to remember from page 310 of Mobius Dick:
So I guess you know where that leaves us in The United States of America 2021.
Day 44 (DDRD 1,455) October 26, 2021
Read to page 880. Really enjoying wandering the streets of Northampton with Alma. And getting ready for her art exhibition--the works based on her brother Mick's story of visiting the afterlife-- really makes me want to paint. But I probably won't.
Also, here's a Very Good Thing:
"She'd realized in that instant that the world about her was not necessarily the way she saw it, that amazing things might constantly be happening under everybody's noses, things that people's mundane expectations stop them from perceiving. ...she'd formed a vision of the world as glorious and mutable, liable to explode into unlikely no arrangements if you simply paid enough attention; if your eye was in." (881)
And THAT is why I am so fascinated by Catholicism, I think.
Day 45 (DDRD 1,456) October 27, 2021
Read to page 894. Yep, for the first time in a month and a half of reading Jerusalem, I pooped out before I made it to twenty pages. As a matter of fact, this is the first time in a VERY long time that I haven't put down twenty pages in my Daily Devotional Reading. And why is that, you ask? Because Today's "Twenty" included the first parts of the chapter entitled "Round the Bend," which is written in a James Joyce Ulysses style. Like so:
Which (I think) translates to
"She's aware the very world beneath her feet, the landscape that she walks
and wends upon, is made of nothing but her sleeping father's body,
of his merciful remains while he himself dreams underground. She can recall
her happy girlhood, when she was his inspiration, dancing through the string of
miniature apartments that they were forever suffering eviction from, and
papa sat at his desk hand writing his morbid masterpiece while she
skipped merrily; while she performed her cabaret. ? a private ? "
Using a stopwatch, I timed my reading of one full page of text for this chapter. It took me 4:30. It would normally take around 2:00 for a page of this length. Also, although I did try to understand every word on the page, I certainly did not...and my overall comprehension of the page upon finishing the entirety of it was quite slight. Which, of course, makes me wonder why Alan Moore is doing this to me. He is literally making me read every word at least twice as I "translate" it...and sometimes more, as I have to have another go or two or three or four to figure a word out. For instance, it took me about five minutes to figure out that the word at the end of line two above was "body" and not "bawdy."
Of course, writing in this way does give you a sense of the Irish accent, so I suppose that's something. But when Joyce did this, it was at least in part because he was layering the effects of his words, making at least one other level of meaning emerge. I don't see that Alan Moore is doing this, though. It just seems to be a sonic effect. And it is a bit exhausting, actually.
This chapter is about 50 pages long. I don't think I can maintain a 20 page per day pace with this material, though, so I may have to live in it for another week or so. Which thought does not make me very happy, but the alternative is to just breeze past it, in which case I would get almost no meaning from the words. Which also does not please me.
This chapter is, by the way, written from the perspective of James Joyce's daughter, Lucia, who spent a significant portion of her life in mental institutions. (She also dated Samuel Beckett, who gets a few brief mentions here.) So obviously Moore's baffling language does serve to show how distant we are from her mind, how we have to struggle to understand her experiences...and, no doubt, vice versa. I can appreciate that, and maybe even admire it...but I'm still not all that anxious to read 50 pages written in this style.
OCD / Anal Retentive reader that I am, though, a part of me wants to go back and finish the 6 pages left of "Today's Twenty." But I think I'm going to resist that urge and take the rest of the night off.
P.S. I just had a thought. If I were a bit more of a glutton for punishment, I would go back to the beginning of this chapter and "translate" the entire thing...just for anyone out there who wants to read Jerusalem in its entirety but doesn't want to struggle with this chapter. If only that were a valid excuse for a Go Fund Me page, I might actually do it. But not for free, no, no, no.
Day 46 (DDRD 1,457) October 28, 2021
Read to page 900. Which ain't much (is pages), and I do plan hope to go back for at least a few more later...but right now I'm just weary. And it seems to be getting more difficult, too...to the point where there are a number of times wherein I can't make heads or tails of what is being said, and I find that I just have to give up and move on. I do get the general gist of what's being said...but there are quite a number of black holes in my comprehension. Very frustrating. And to what point? I'm thinking I may go back and have a look at a page or two of Joyce's Ulysses, just for comparison's sake. At this point, it's hard for me not to conclude that Alan Moore is just obfuscating for no higher purpose...which just seems silly and perverse to me. I don't want to keep that conclusion...but it is all that I have right now.
Also...Mr. Moore had a few references to a comic book artist named Ogden Whitney. I'd never heard of the fellow, but he sounded interesting so I took a look at the local library holdings, and there was Return to Romance: The Strange Love Stories of Ogden Whitney. I picked it up yesterday and started reading it this morning. The introduction was by Liana Finck, and it was one of the most unbearable introductions I've ever read. It actually seemed to be primarily aimed at dissuading me from reading the book which followed it, but then unexpectedly veered into "I love Ogden Whitney's romance stories." After running the tiller all over his flower garden. She was so annoying that I thought I'd see who she was (so to speak), and found out that she is a cartoonist of some renown. The library had a couple of her things available via e-comic book, so I borrowed Passing For Human and began to read it. It's interesting, and I will probably finish it, but it's also pretty...well, let's just say that it falls in the genre of Portrait of the Artist as Seriously Fucked-Up and let it go at that. More news as it happens.
Meanwhile, back at Ogden Whitney....I read the first story, and it was pretty painful. The depiction of both men and women is savage. Women exist to attract men, and men don't really give a shit about women unless they are attractive. So the lead man (whose name I've already forgotten) has a wife who cooks wonderful meals and cleans the house, but he's pissed at her because she doesn't look good and doesn't want to go out...probably because she's fucking exhausted by keeping the house shiny. They divorce, and then she proceeds on an extreme plan to get pretty so that she can win him back. (What?) And she works herself to a nub at the gym and loses thirty pounds, gets a new wardrobe and new hairdo and make-up...and he falls for her and they get back together. What a load of horse shit. The art, which is what I was interested in, isn't anything to write home about at this point. It's serviceable, for sure...and a lot better than some of the shit that passes for comic book art nowadays...but there's nothing about it that makes me think that Ogden Whitney is one of the greats or anything like that. I'm going to try to read more of this book...but I have the feeling that it's not going to be easy, either.
Sigh.
By the way...the numbers for each day's heading are in an interesting sequence right now. Check it out:
Day 46 (DDRD 1,457) October 28, 2021
How about that?
Day 47 (DDRD 1,458) October 29, 2021
Jet i and I both struggle to maintain consciousness whilst making our way through Jerusalem Book III, Chapter 3.
Read to page 910. And it wasn't much fun at all. Though I did meet Alan Moore's version of Ogden Whitney, who I wouldn't have recognized without the the library book I mentioned previously.
So there's that.
Day 48 (DDRD 1,459) October 30, 2021
Whilst struggling through some more pages of this chapter 3 today, it occurred to me that I didn't and would like to know more about Lucia Joyce. So I Googled. Ended up at Wikipedia. Found a reference to a biography: Carol Shloss's Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake. The LFPL had a copy. (Just the one.) Requested it. Hope I get to read at least a bit of it.
The fission process continues unabated.
Also, a little experiment:
Oy huv tea wander wuy (uh wuy) doth Sore Uhlun torch her mien dust foam love riding fur awful feedy pug gas wan eenyful gut is pint uffder tree pug gas? Eats uh mister tree, foal shire.
Which translates to
I have to wonder why (oh why) does Sir Alan torture me in this form of writing for all of fifty pages when any fool got his point after three pages? It's a mystery, for sure.
(Use the magic decoder to reveal the translation.) *
I think that's pretty much as obscure as Alan Moore's writing in his chapter. And you know what? It actually wasn't much of an effort to write. Thus once again proving my axiom that any fool can hide things so well that a wise man can't find. Which doesn't make the hiding noble--or even worthwhile--does it?
Hmmm.
Read to page 921.
* Magic decoder = highlight and hold.
Day 49 (DDRD 1,460) 👻🙀💀🎃October 31, 2021🎃💀🙀👻
Read to page 940. Yep. Because I made it to the end of "Round the Bend" and started "Burning Gold," and plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is. The last half-dozen pages of "Round the Bend" featured Lucia Joyce having outdoor oral sex with Dusty Springfield...and Patrick McGoohan riding by on a motorcycle chased by a roaring Rover. So there's that. A little research shows that all three of these historical personage did indeed spend some time in mental institutions, though I haven't found anything that says they were all at the same place at the same time...much less that there was any kind of relationship between Lucia and Dusty. Which is troubling, as these are real people who have real family members alive today (I presume)...but maybe Alan Moore researched the shit out of this and found that there was indeed a factual basis for this. If not...then I don't think it's fair game.
Anyway. I skipped ahead and read the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS section at the end of the book, and therein Mr. Moore makes reference to "the impenetrably made-up mess of chapter twenty-five." (1263) Which got under my skin a bit, as it seems to imply that Moore intentionally made the language of this chapter "impossible" to understand. That doesn't seem like fair game, you know?
But I was unsatisfied with my dissatisfaction, so I went looking for more. And found an interview--"The 21st Century Hasn’t Started Yet: An Interview With Alan Moore" by Séamas O'Reilly, Nov 18, 2020 (and available in full HERE) which had some interesting things to say about Chapter 25:
"...during the later parts of the Lucia Joyce chapter, through the agency of Dusty Springfield — ...that’s the chapter with all the impenetrable sub-Joycean language, you may even miss it — I was suggesting that once Modernism absorbed all of the romantic writing, it went onto connect with pop, basically. ...One of the things that writing the Lucia Joyce chapter taught me — well, firstly, it was never do that again. [Laughs] I mean that writing that was what led me to take 18 months off to do Dodgem Logic, just because I was exhausted, intellectually after that chapter, and it still isn’t a patch on Joyce."
Which adds two things to the mix: (1) that obviously Alan Moore was very serious about the writing of this chapter, since its 48 pages drained him and (2) that, as I have previously made mention of, it's not anywhere close to Joyce's work in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
More:
"I understood when I was going in the door of the Lucia Joyce chapter that this was only ever going to be a distant approximation of Joyce’s language, but it’s still probably the most accomplished piece that I have managed."
So he sees this chapter...which I've done nothing but deride...as his best writing to date.
Hmmm.
I haven't finished the interview yet, but I'm going to do that in the near future. I think.
Meanwhile, by my reckoning, I "should" be on page 980...which means that Chapter 25 has put me 40 pages behind my schedule. And of course that got me (OCD/AR Reader Syndrome) to thinking ...maybe I should push myself to catch up? It's early in the morning as I write (9:55 am), and I think I could pretty easily knock back another twenty pages today, maybe even more, now that I'm out from under the weight of Chapter 25.
News as it happens.
NOTE TO SELF: Look for The KLF: Chaos, Magic & The Band Who Burned A Million Quid.
P.S. Two things:
(1) Aforementioned KLF book is available via Scribd at https://www.scribd.com/document/388656743/Th-K-Ch-Ma-and-1
(2) There are a shitload of interesting videos with John Higgs--including some with Alan Moore. Also, there's a podcast with Higgs and Russell Brand which I'd like to get hold of, but it looks like you have to subscribe to something or other to clap your ears to that, alas.
NEWS--From an Ever Writer to an Ever Reader:
I've been looking into this John Higgs fellow. In addition to the KLF book, he also wrote these things
which, as you can probably guess, I am intensely interested in. Of course, neither book is available via any library I can find in my area, nor from my usual online bookstores. Found copies on eBay and Alibris, though, so...it might have to happen. But I have So Many books already....
As It Happens: Read to page 960. Which puts me a mere 20 pages from where I "should" be. And hey...it's only 4:29 pm. But it's also Halloween and there are a couple of football games to watch, so I don't think I'll make it any farther today.
By the way...I was just thinking about how I haven't seen any proofreading errors in this book in some time, and then, of course...
So there's that.
Day 50 (DDRD 1,461) November 1, 2021
Day 1,461 also equals, because of Leap Years, the end of my 4th Year of Daily Devotional Reading. In that time, I only missed reading one day, when I was in the hospital because of my diseased heart, and I have read 13,449 + 6,970 + 2,429 + 960 = 23,808 pages to date, which is an average of 16.3 pages per day. (And when I first started, my goals were much more modest...I think at first 7 pages per day and then 10. So to be edging my way up towards an overall average of 20 pages per day seems pretty excellent to me. Also, in my first 1,000 days I read 13,449 pages, and even though I'm not even halfway through my second 1,000 days, I've already read 10,359 pages from 1,001 to 1,461. (That's an average of 22.47 pages per day, by the way.) I know it's just reading, but it also demands some discipline, some stamina, and some commitment. All things I'm big on.
Anyway....
Read to page 980, and probably will read at least a bit more later today. Also read a fairly long preview of the KLF book and it looks very interesting. Also listened to a few songs on the KLF album The White Room (free on YouTube), and it was at least interesting enough for me to leave the window open for a return engagement.
ADDENDUM: And SCOOP! there it is! Read to page 1,000. Which means I'm back on track. There was some most excellent stuff in the past twenty pages, too. First, a little mediation on comic books:
"At age thirteen, David's idea of heaven was somewhere that comics were acclaimed and readily available, perhaps with dozens of big-budget movies featuring his favorite obscure costumed characters. Now that he's in his fifties and his paradise is all around him he finds it depressing. Concepts and ideas meant for the children of some forty years ago: is that the best that the twenty-first century has got to offer? When all this extraordinary stuff is happening everywhere, are Stan Lee's post-war fantasies of white neurotic middle-class American empowerment really the most adequate response?" (985)
And then there was the start of Chapter 28:
Not only is it a play...which makes for a nice little break in form...but check out that character list! Oh, yes. Of course it made me want to go down into the basement to fetch that large biography of John Clare that's been waiting down there for me for some time...but I don't really see how that can happen what with all of the other lovelies on my plate right now.
Day 51 (DDRD 1,462) November 2, 2021
Read to page 1,020. And it didn't seem like all that much at all. For one thing, because it's a play with Samuel Beckett as a lead character. For another thing, because the text of a play is less dense than the text of a novel. And for a third thing, because I've been reading 40 pages a day for the past couple of days. Speaking of...I might read a bit more of this later on today. There are about fifteen more pages of the play to go, and I would like to finish it off. To see what happens.
Also, that itch to unearth the John Clare biography...and to find some of his poetry...is getting stronger. It's been some time since I spent any moments with John Clare. In fact, it's been since I visited my son in Belfast (study abroad semester) and hung out in the library reading a book about Clare while Jimmy was in class.
Fission.
ADDENDUM: Finished the play / read to page 1,035. A pretty disturbing play, what with the rape of children and then having them committed to mental asylums. Yes, plural. Is this really what happened to Lucia Joyce? Well, I don't know if I'm man enough to handle it, but I just checked this out from the library--
--so maybe I can get back to you on that.
And by the way, only 231 pages to go now. Looks like my projected November 14th finish date is well within reach now.
Day 52 (DDRD 1,463) November 3, 2021
Read to page 1,060. (Wanted to even things up.)
Just for the record, I wrote about a sky with ten-a-penny nails in 1975.
Day 53 (DDRD 1,464) November 4, 2021
Read to page 1,080.
Found another typo:
--which I liked much more than said typo.
Day 54 (DDRD 1,465) November 5, 2021
Read to page 1,105. Of 1262, since I already read the Acknowledgements. So 157 pages to go. Which is only 8 days!
Two things from today's "twenty."
(1) A character had a dream about meeting a guy from his neighborhood, which reminded me of the dream I had a night or so ago about meeting my friend Don in a parking lot. At the back of the lot was a tall granite wall, just barely climbable, and without to do about it, we started climbing it side by side. When I got within arm's reach of the top I grabbed a brick I had apparently placed there, then tried to slide it down the wall. I remember being surprised that it didn't break when it hit the bottom. Don asked me something about it, and I answered, but then I knew I had to go back down to the parking lot. I remember a moment of vertigo and fear, then I went sliding down the granite surface and landed unscathed. I used the brick to do something involving a bicycle. I think Don climbed over the top of the granite wall.
(2) I was talking to Pat yesterday and amongst other things we talked about how people repeat the patterns of their parents and other family members, and Pat said, not for the first time, that she wondered if we had any agency in our lives at all or if it was all just playing out according to our biological inheritance. And that has been a central theme of Jerusalem, for sure. Except more extreme. Ha ha, that should be Moore Extreme, shouldn't it. Mr. Moore seems (at least here) to think that everything that is playing out has already played out, that there is no agency whatsoever, that we men and women are merely players. Sometimes it's hard to disagree with that. Which is why the phrase Fuck You! was invented, I believe.
Day 55 (DDRD 1,466) November 6, 2021
Read to page 1,125. Meant to read more, but went to see The Eternals and it pretty much drained my brain.
Also, did some excavating and dug this up in the basement:
Day 56 (DDRD 1,467) November 7, 2021
Read to page 1,145.
Day 57 (DDRD 1,468) November 8, 2021
Read to page 1,170. So less than 100 pages to go now.
Finished Chapter Whatever I Was Reading and started "The Jolly Smokers," which is written in the form of a poem. As for the contents of a poem, I'm not so sure. The language is quite prosaic for the most part, and the subject matter...well. The primary "plot" of this narrative poem is that Fat Kenny demands that the fellow staying with him give him a blowjob as payment for room and board. The fellow (Den, I think, but I'm not sure and don't have it in me to look it up) does so, then they both take a bit of a drug. * And there's no Reading Into It needed here (remember, prosaic): "Fat Kenny's semen sluices down his throat." So not exactly what I'd call poetry, actually. Not that I get to say, just not my 🍵🄣.
Reading this "poetry" almost made me think about something that's been irritating me as I make my (slow ride) way through Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III: Century, wherein two characters sing in panel after panel. I find it quite irritating and have no idea why this is happening in the story. Which reminded me of other comic books in which Moore characters have broken into song. The singing itself is irritating enough, in that there doesn't seem to be any reason for it, but what makes it worse is that (sorry to say) I don't think that Mr. Moore has an ear (or a tongue) for lyrics. I'd agree that he is a very poetic prose writer, but that doesn't make him a poet. Or a lyricist.
Just sayin', sir.
* The drug, by the way, is salvia divinorum, and it sounds very interesting. I found an article (HERE) on it in Wired that made me want to give it a go...but I guess that I don't do that anymore.
Day 58 (DDRD 1,469) November 9, 2021
Read to page 1,195. Did a little extra primarily because I needed to make sure that Marla was okay. Some very rough stuff in this chapter. Two subjects that turn my stomach and make me really angry: rape and anal sex.
Okay, don't want to go any further with that.
On the light side, here's what Alan Moore had to say about the board game Risk (which I spent many an hour of my youth playing): "the game of global strategy that made World domination by Australia seen unavoidable...." (1171)
For the most part, I wish Alan didn't try to be funny--his wordplay is often on the definitely not funny end of the spectrum, forced and sophomoric, but in this case, he hits it. (But really, Alan, lay off of the puns. They're just kind of sad. Not to mention distracting. That "roman candle" one still keeps popping up in my mind...and not in a good way.)
Day 59 (DDRD 1,470) November 10, 2021
Read to page 1,220. So you know what that means. Two more days and I'm finished.
Today's reading got 'round to Alma's art show, and it was a magnificent piece of writing. As I read, I began to think, You know, I don't even resent Alan Moore making me read all those pages about the kids running around in Heaven (whatever) any more. And I even forgive him for that James Joyce chapter. (Which means, in all, that I'd forgiven him for almost 500 pages which were less than enjoyable for me.) I even started thinking, Maybe I should read Ulysses next.
Okay, now somebody talk me down.
Oh, also...I did take Jerusalem for an outing this morning. And check this out:
That means that technically I've finished the novel, right?
Yep, it's Ogden Whitney's Herbie Popnecker. I stood there and read it (and snapped this picture). It was a pretty amusing 8 pager in which Dad yells at Herbie because he never does anything and makes him get out of the house. Herbie then goes to the zoo where he talks to a tiger and prevents him from attacking a zoo employee, then helps a senator whose plane has crashed in the ocean, and finally prevents a group of aliens from invading the earth. He then goes home and his dad asks him what he's been doing. He replies, "Nothing much, just walked around." Made me want to read some more, but that's probably not going to happen, sorry to say. At any rate...thanks for that, Alan. I doubt that I'd have tumbled onto Herbie Popnecker without you. (Not to mention that it's a pretty big coincidence that I happened upon this story at this time, right?)
Day 60 (DDRD 1,471) November 11, 2021
Read to page 1,246. Still on to Alma's exhibition, and it is still just marvelous. Now only 20 pages left. And you know, I'm starting to think, "Why not just finish it off today, then?" Which might happen. Though I don't yet know what my next DDR is going to be. Today I thought, "Maybe I should just stick with Mr. Moore and read Voice of the Fire?" I never did make it through that one. So looks like I'll be making another Last Minute Decision. That's the beauty of multi-volume works, isn't it? At least for the duration, I know what comes next.
Day 61 (DDRD 1,472) November 12, 2021
Read to page 1,266. Yep, finished.
And, in the end, Alma sums it all up:
"That's what art's for. It rescues everything from time."
Yes it does, Alma. It certainly does.
I still don't know what I'll be starting tomorrow.
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