Moore: “‘I have doubted that people will even be able to pick it up”
Known as the co-creator of V For Vendetta and Watchmen, as well as being an honest-to-god wizard, Alan Moore tends to attract controversy. We’ve known that he’s been writing a novel (his second, actually) since 2008. Now, his daughter has announced that he’s finished his initial draft, but at 1 million words, reading it might be the least of your concerns.
“‘I have doubted that people will even be able to pick it up,” Moore said in an interview in 2011. Entitled Jerusalem, it explores the history of the half-a-square-mile area where he grew up. It jumps between local history, to myth and fantasy, and back again. The chapters reportedly swing wildly in style, with one staged as a play, and another written in the pseudo-English language used by James Joyce in Finnegan’s Wake. “Any editor worth their salt would tell me to cut two-thirds of this book but that’s not going to happen,” Moore said. We likely won’t get any more comments from Moore himself, as he swore off interviews earlier this year.
To put Jerusalem‘s 1 million words in perspective, the Bible racks up 780,000, while War and Peace only manages 560,000. While it has yet to be edited, I can’t see Moore allowing too much to be trimmed, if any. Sure, you can wimp out and get the e-book version, but a novel seething with this kind of madness demands to be leather-bound and chained to a desk, like some grimore. Frankly, I’d expect nothing less from Moore.
Source: The Guardian
Published: Sep 15, 2014 03:30 pm