Alan Moore, Jerusalem, Book I

Alan Moore's Jerusalem, Book I: The Boroughs, is, though only a third of this massive, complete novel, a giant thing spanning many centuries, but never leaving the small English neighborhood in which it is set. There are many strange deviations from conventional reality, characters who are seen as mad by their contemporaries but who seem to be seeing what is actually happening around them. Ghosts wander old haunts, only to be occasionally seen by their new occupants.

There is a surfeit of detail, of texture, of characters and families and buildings and streets, all slowly overlapping. The pages are large, with tiny margins and small type. It is somewhat overwhelming, and you'd better not be in any particular hurry to get through it, but the writing is so consistently engaging as it switches from narrative voice to narrative voice that I was pulled along easily. I'll have to order volume II...