Jerusalem

De: Alan Moore

Narrado por: Simon Vance

Winner, 2017 APA Audie Awards—Best Male Narrator

Fierce in its imagining and stupefying in its scope, Jerusalem is the tale of everything, told from a vanished gutter.

In the epic novel Jerusalem, Alan Moore channels both the ecstatic visions of William Blake and the theoretical physics of Albert Einstein through the hardscrabble streets and alleys of his hometown of Northampton, UK. In the half a square mile of decay and demolition that was England's Saxon capital, eternity is loitering between the firetrap housing projects. 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, a soiled simultaneity that does not differentiate between the petrol-colored puddles and the fractured dreams of those who navigate them.

Employing a kaleidoscope of literary forms and styles that range from brutal social realism to extravagant children's fantasy, from modern stage drama to the extremes of science fiction, Jerusalem's dizzyingly rich cast of characters includes the living, the dead, the celestial, and the infernal in an intricately woven tapestry that presents a vision of an absolute and timeless human reality in all of its exquisite, comical, and heartbreaking splendor.

In these minutes lurk demons from the second-century Book of Tobit and angels with golden blood who reduce fate to a snooker tournament. Vagrants, prostitutes, and ghosts rub shoulders with Oliver Cromwell; Samuel Beckett; James Joyce's tragic daughter, Lucia; and Buffalo Bill, among many others. There is a conversation in the thunderstruck dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, childbirth on the cobblestones of Lambeth Walk, an estranged couple sitting all night on the cold steps of a Gothic church front, and an infant choking on a cough drop for 11 chapters. An art exhibition is in preparation, and above the world a naked old man and a beautiful dead baby race along the Attics of the Breath toward the heat death of the universe.

An opulent mythology for those without a pot to piss in, through the labyrinthine streets and minutes of Jerusalem tread ghosts that sing of wealth, poverty, 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.

©2016 Alan Moore (P)2016 Recorded Books

Simon Vance brings Moore's words to solid breath.

An amazing work, an amazing performance. I read the book while listening to Vance read it along and aloud.

GREAT

It's all of it and everything. I was busy turns filled with wonder and horrified. There was one chapter where I was certain that I was about to die. Horrifying. Beautiful. It's a great book, and if you don't think it is then you're just not ready for it yet.

Among Alan Moore’s best.

Grim, funny, long and DENSE. Not for the squeamish or casual reader, but Moore’s command of the English language is second to none and makes it too good to put down. Excellent narration puts it over the top.

Alan Moore’s Opus Delivers

If you’re a fan Moore’s narrative puzzles, such as From Hell, Watchmen, & Providence, this book will more than satisfy your needs. A beautifully fillagreed epic meditation on the nature of life, death, space-time, art, wealth, poverty, class, sexuality, isolation, madness, and violence in Moore’s native Northampton, Jerusalem is simply astounding. Simon Vance does an impeccable job as always. Great book. Great recording. I’ll revisit Jerusalem for many years to come.

Even better the second time around!<br />

This is a story of connections, finding them is half the fun. Sixty plus hours just flew by, again. Beautifully written!