The Great When by Alan Moore is the first book in his Long London series which is still in production at the time of writing this. If the next volumes are on par with this then we are in for a treat.
Moore dedicates the book to Iain Sinclair and Michael Moorcock and their influence on this book is noticeable and welcome.
The Great When is Narnia meets Hunter S. Thompson. A parallel London; shocking, dangerous and overwhelming. Moore set out to create a fantasy world far removed from what he saw as the sanitisation of fantasy fiction and he achieved it. Unlike other such novels which feature a portal into another world, usually full of wonder, The Great When is an explosion on the senses and Moore brilliantly describes this acid trip-like experience which our protagonist, the wonderfully named Dennis Knuckleyard is subjected to alongside Austin Osman-Spare, the real life artist and occultist. Spare is not the only occultist to be given the Moore treatment, at front and centre of the story is Arthur Machen with throwaway nods to Aleister Crowley and The Golden Dawn which ties together Moore’s love of the occult with the psychogeography of London.
Moore combines the weird with the comedic, a love story at the heart of it, Knuckleyard is easy to like and relate to, a champion of the underdog with a crush on the streetwise Grace Shilling, a far cry from the terror of his employer, Coffin Ada. Moore achieves much with this book, much shorter and faster paced than his biblical Jerusalem, it is however, another appreciation of time and place and the spirits that inhabit that space. Moore has shifted the scene from his beloved Northampton (the centre of the universe) to London where, in Moore’s own words, the possibilities for storytelling are endless. This series could prove to be his best work yet.
Further reading
Categories: The Reading Room
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