So here I am, beginning a brand new novel by an author whose work I’ve enjoyed quite a bit over the years. I’m mostly familiar with his comic book work, but I’ve delved into his prose here and there and have been very satisfied. The Great When sets us in post WW2 London just after the release of Orwell’s 1984. Our main character, Dennis Knuckleyard, heh, an aimless young adult brings us a naive point of view of the London of his times. As the story moves on, we get to look on his surroundings with awe and wonder just as he does. But, in the prologue we are introduced to the idea of the reality of magic intruding into the world and that there may be something special about Dennis that he is unaware. Moore’s tone and style are cheeky and very, very British. He doesn’t hold back from the colloquialisms or esoteric euphemisms. If you are unfamiliar with these things, you’ll have to roll with the punches and just keep moving along. More than that though, Moore then gives us a glimpse of The Great When itself, a sort of magical, alternate reality London, and, dear reader– Watch out!
Piano keys plinkle through the air and tumble across the arthroscopic shag with bouncing rhythmical redundancy. Fleece swooshes in rectangular gyrations only to then smother the stuffing out of a fleeing throw pillow which coughs up translucent downy cotton balls precipitating upon the woodenly landscape of scattered occupation by ceramic coasters glistening with a glazed sediment of roasted sugary former beverages.
Pfah! Back into the real world we go. Gotta recover from that. (The above was written by me as a poor imitation and does not reflect the actual genius of Alan Moore.) There is a method to the madness of this leakage of the magical into the mundane, or this accidental intrusion of the mundane into the magical, as it may be. And without giving anything away, this idea is the conflict that our poor, dear boy Dennis becomes all caught up in.
There’s a lot going on here and Moore plays with themes of relationships and finding one’s place in the world. It’s really a beautiful piece of work that I feel will stick with me a long time. The setting is so well thought out and detailed I feel I could walk around this fictional London without getting lost. I know there are a ton of references and other local-isms that are completely lost on me, but it didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of the story. It actually served to ground this setting as somewhere real and foreign and alien but just understandable enough to love it. Once I got used to his writing style, I also ended up really loving the book. I hope you will too.
