This is about Mansoul, the second book of Alan Moore’s Jerusalem. If you missed part 1, you can read it here. There might be spoilers for Book 1, but I won’t spoil Book 3.
- Unlike Part 1, this section has a single linear narrative, albeit with multiple voices. Little Mick Warren, choking on a cough sweet, finds himself in However, it’s not linear from our perspective of time; the characters jump around from era to era of Northampton’s history. This includes interactions with many of the characters from Part 1, sometimes during the chapters from Part 1.
- This section really needs an editor. It’s rather repetitive in places, with several whole sections repeated in their entirety. Not only that, but there are a bunch of chapters which don’t seem to serve any narrative purpose at all. Like going to see Oliver Cromwell for like 50 pages. I was flicking forward to see how long I had to go on several occasions, and that’s a shame because when the book is good, it’s great, but there are definitely bits that are hard work.
- It is very literary, in the sense that it reads like a book, a fantasy story, maybe for kids. And just as Mansoul is a bigger, brighter, more mythical version of the Boroughs, this is a bigger, brighter and more mythical version of a children’s book. In fact, it later emerges that it is, in fact, a book, albeit one being written by one of the characters in it. Because all time exists at the same time, the events unfolding are already recorded in a book written by one of the characters which is well-known to the other denizens of Mansoul. This theme will recur later, but I can reveal no more for risk of spoilers.
- I was right about there being a present-day plot emerging in the early chapters, revolving around Marla, the young meth addict and prostitute who appeared in chapter 2. Her story left off on a cliffhanger, and she reappears here in quite horrifying fashion.
- I’m pretty sure that the bird-man from the ‘In the Drownings’ chapter of Voice of the Fire makes a cameo appearance here. Which means Jerusalem is a crossover. And if we consider that Showpieces takes place in a mythical Northampton, mostly in Jimmy’s End, mentioned here in Jerusalem… are we looking at the emergence of a Mooreverse? Or more accurately, a Moorehampton?
The Dead Dead Gang, our central characters for this section, are an archetype. The Bow Street Irregulars spring immediately to mind, or Oliver Twist’s gang or the orphans from Annie…. At the same time, though, another striking parallel is with Little Nemo in Slumberland. In fact, this would be Moore’s third time riffing on it, after Promethea’s ‘Little Margie’ sections, and Big Nemo from last year’s Electrocomics project. This is particularly clear in the An Asmodeus Flight chapter, and Moore’s own illustration on the cover. And in fact, Windsor McCay makes an appearance later on.- At the same time, there are hints of further connections between the Dead Dead Gang and the cast of Book 1 – John’s secret about Alma’s uncle Jack’s death; Bill’s relationship with Alma and Warry; the nature of the relationship between rabbit-garlanded Phyllis Painter and young Bill, who we suppose to be her little brother.
- For all they supposedly don’t get on, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison sure do have some similar ideas. The magic thing, for one. The motif of seeing time from outside happens often (Superman Beyond, Promethea), and that from that angle human lives look like worms thing that comes up multiple times here was part of the climax of Morrison’s The Invisibles. More than that, though, the motif of being uncertain which is reality and which is the dream, and discovering that one is unwittingly at the centre of world-shattering events, was the set-up for Moore’s recent Joe the Barbarian series, one of his better recent miniseries.
Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments.
Part Three, Vernall’s Inquest, coming soon. And boy, is there a lot to talk about…
Lecturer in Religious Studies at the Open University | Co-founding Editor of the Religious Studies Project | Editor, Implicit Religion | Bulletin Editor of the British Association for the Study of Religion.
But wait! Before you go, let me tell you that my book came out in paperback this week! If you have been waiting because the hardback was too expensive, now you can get it for about £25. 
I wrote a piece for the Open University Religious Studies blog on the 70th anniversary of the first Flying Saucer sighting, and the relevance for thinking about religions. 