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I hope no one minds me starting this topic. I am enjoyong this book so much and Rough Sleepers is my favourite chapter so far.

So interesting how characters weave their ways through the different chapters!

That's something I'm interested in too. Rough Sleepers seems to be providing so much detail about what is actually going on. A lot of it is confirming my hypothesis and having visited the William Blake room at the Tate Britain on Sunday I have even more confirmation (I think!)
Moore's idea of and description of the Puck's Hat plants is great. The pips made me shiver and I don't think that I'll look at the pips in fruit the same way again. First mention of something called the Destructor too. I saw it on the map and now wonder what its role is.
So many questions!

Freddy is a sympathetic character for me. I like him a great deal. He seems benevolent in an unspecified way i.e. he doesn't carry out any kind acts but his mind seems innocent in a complex way. He seems to carry a great deal of regret and a sense of guilt that weigh him down too.
The overlap with Marla was well done and the pool table scene at the end of the chapter really captivated me. Its a new spin on the old idea of Gods playing with mortals in Greek mythology and more contemporary stories and poems. The way that it was written meant that I was in the room with the others watching the builders. I can see it so clearly!
I hope to see more of Freddy and to find out what those pockets on the pool table represent, although a couple seem clear given their symbols.

These two chapters are a great example of the different styles of writing Moore employs. I did find X Marks the Spot rather slow going although it was interesting. And I loved Peter's meeting with Freddy!

I really liked "Rough Sleepers", as well. I loved the way the true situation was so gradually revealed, little clue after little clue. There were the trails they left, then the manipulation of seemingly impossible objects, and then time itself. There still seems to be so much distance between the strands of this story that it makes every intersection even more exciting! I loved seeing how Freddy and Peter met and interacted, even though separated by so many years. And now it's time to start "Modern Times." At the close of each chapter, you have NO idea where or when you will be in the next one!

Karen wrote: "I hope no one minds me starting this topic. I am enjoyong this book so much and Rough Sleepers is my favourite chapter so far."

Thank you, Karen, for starting the thread. I have been so mad at the novel that every time I read a page it is a battle. :-)

I am torn between banging the book or burning it. This is the milder form of my reaction which is drastically different from people in the group.
I do know that books reach people in different ways. This one is making my arms ache, and my ears ache because I both listen and read it at the same time, but this simultaneity is not helping with the comprehension ... and, god forbid, reading pleasure.

There have been two more stories, one per chapter, and not a single line has actually captured my attention and won my heart. . Well, I will be lying ... a sex scene was somewhat piquant and stimulating, but I do not have to read literary fiction ONLY for this semi-exciting scene.

I know you would be mad at me, but it looks like the author is suffering from the heightened perception of the reality where every minuscule, insignificant detail is worth mentioning. No, it is not. Normal brains, if they are not under the influence of a certain chemical substance, will not perceive the world in every minute detail. Out brains will not be able to properly store and process this information. We can can handle some heightened states from time to time, but all the time!

The second story of the pilgrimage simply defies the purpose of the literary narrative. The annoying detail-driven dense style of writing is not changing, but somehow it is Early Middle Ages!

If the author is driven so much by the details, then why is he not paying attention to Saxon English that was the lingua Franca for this period? I do understand Early English is very much different from the incessant stream of details he is using in his book, but some authentic wording would have recreated the epoch and would have created a semblance of proper continuum.

So far, A DETAIL per page that is worth noticing is only angering me with every page because the author is obviously wasting my previous reading time. It looks like and sounds like a hard-core case of compulsive verbosity. This books is turning into the battle that I intend to win, but I am afraid it will get a lambasting and scathing review.

Extensive vocabulary that is not put to proper usage is nothing to me.

I do understand I might be the party pooper, but these are my sincere impressions so far.

Zulfiya wrote: "I am torn between banging the book or burning it. This is the milder form of my reaction which is drastically different from people in the group.
I do know that books reach people in different way..."

Sounds like you are really liking this book.

I understand. I came to the book having been reading Ian McEwan and Jane Austen so the style was a shock and I struggled with the prelude.
I've found that immersing myself in it and not thinking about it until after I've read a section works best for me. The verbosity and 'improper usage' seems like playfulness and I have highlighted several descriptions which I wanted to reread as they are surprising, thoughtful or beautiful. I have a sense that Moore isn't interested in adhering to a 'literary narrative' and that is why he does what he does. And you are right 'normal brains' don't perceive the world the way that Moore writes, but isn't that part of the function of reading? To see the world differently I think is part of why we read?
Its also easier to handle because I am reading on a kindle app. If I find I really like the book then I will buy a hard copy to share and refer too.
I have a friend who loves literature and has said to me that life is too short to read books that you're not getting anything from.

Zulfiya wrote: "I am torn between banging the book or burning it. ..."

Well, I had the e-book version, so I couldn't burn it without destroying my tablet. So now you know you're not the only one; I quit reading it. I found the prose to be self-indulgent, every description to be an attempt to outdo the last one, and every noun to be anchored to multiple adjectives whose only purpose seemed to be to yank the noun underwater and drown it. For me it was like navigating through chaos.

I kept comparing it to Gaslight (our previous long read) and those amethyst eyes set in amber. Needless to say I favor Gaslight type prose.

But that's the wonderful thing about books -- an audience for every writing style and type of story.

Zulfiya wrote: "I am torn between banging the book or burning it. This is the milder form of my reaction which is drastically different from people in the group.
I do know that books reach people in different way..."

I have never been able to read and listen to a book at the same time. A book should have one reader at a time.

I do like to both read and listen, but separately. If I listen to some chapters and then read it later (or the other way), I get more understanding/retention/appreciation.
But two voices at once is a problem, and never seems to work for me. Perhaps my ears and eyes think differently.

This is based on other books, not Jerusalem, which I haven't read yet.

Dan wrote: "Zulfiya wrote: "I am torn between banging the book or burning it. This is the milder form of my reaction which is drastically different from people in the group.
I do know that books reach people ..."


This is based on other books, not Jerusalem, which I haven't read yet.

It is the first time I am doing it. I have never done it before, but the text is so intense that if I read or if I listen, I will lose 95 % of it,

On the other hand, his writing and this book in particular reminds me of works by Bryan Lewis Saunders. Please, do not judge. :-)

I promise, I will keep reading :-)

Karen wrote: "I have a friend who loves literature and has said to me that life is too short to read books that you're not getting anything from.."

Oh, I am getting a lot from it:-) . So, it is not a waste of time.

No judgement, Zulfiya. Quite the opposite.
I recently tried reading while listening to The Recognitions, by William Gaddis - a book complex like Jerusalem. The voice in my head competed with the voice in my ears, and I found it a mishmash. So I put down the phone and just read the book. And while I hardly understand everything, I'm moving right along. I don't know what percentage of the book I am "losing". It's my first read, and I am quite enjoying it, even though I sometimes wonder what is really going on - which in my case is perhaps the whole point of the book.

It's the cover. That's it. I blame the cover for being so damn gorgeous!! That's what pulled us all in!

I feel like I'm in the minority here because I think "Rough Sleepers" is so awesome, I've read it four times now. First, I was so blown away by how deftly Moore handled introducing us to Freddy. Did anyone realize he was what we would call a ghost. I didn't. I can't remember when I finally realized something was off...when I went back, started over, and there it was, on the very first page of the chapter. That was well done indeed.

And then, the talk about being "up there in the twenty-fives". Or "you're better off down in the forty-eights and forty-nines". Being an urban person, my brain automatically assumed the references pertained to streets. But no, it turns out they are talking about years. And the waitress in the pub, the impression is that the waitress is ignoring them, but no, she can't see them. At this point, I was still thinking that I'm being introduced to a couple more living, breathing characters. Yes Moore kept me clueless for quite a while.

In my rereads, the slender, delicate threads continue to surface, which is something I'm loving about this book and which I hope continues. I enjoy the puzzle box aspects.

For example, when Freddy talks about lying next to other rough sleepers, you think back to Marla seeing two sets of feet, and then just one. Of course, she does see two sets, but Freddy notices that she sees him, and he gets up and leaves. The same during the sexual encounter. Somehow Marla and Freddy can connect in some kind of ephemeral recognition.

Another: When Freddy thinks about how no one was to blame about how he had lived his life and that there was justice in the way he had ended up. "Justice above the streets". This is a phrase we've read before...when Ern has his communication with the Angel.

He meets the monk, who we meet later in the next chapter. He senses a bad place, in the same area that Mick does.

He talks of The Destructor, which we see on the map. To me, I'm thinking, is that some sort of Hell? It's not far from where that poor kids runs into Mick and describes his experience "up the pub". I want to know more about it.

It's during his conversation with his old friend, that we truly feel some of the poignancy of Freddy's heart and mind. He knows he could "move up". That it's not impossible. That there is hope in that progression. But Freddy refuses. Not because he thinks it's impossible for him, but because he feels unworthy; that nothing he can do now will truly atone for his past life; that what he has is what he deserves. In other words, his shame keeps him exactly where he is, in this almost Dante like Limbo.

I want to know more about the Pucks Hats and the association with Mick eating fairies. He must be talking about a Pucks Hat. At the time when, as a little child, he died from choking on a cough drop. Dead far longer than it should have been possible for him to revive.

I'm writing on an iPad, so I'm going to break up my long-winded comments because I really want to talk about that celestial game of billiard, which is another of my favorite parts.

Rough Sleepers is also my favourite chapter so far. I'm up to Atlantis, but am rereading Modern Times because I don't remember much of it and can't understand why I didn't like Oatsie.

Rough Sleepers is my favorite, as well. It took me awhile to figure out that Freddy was a ghost. I think I was first puzzled by the "trailing pictures," but I just kept going. I don't have my Kindle in front of me at the moment, and I can't remember at what point the lightbulb went on over my head, but at that moment, everything just fell in to place. It was actually very cool!

It's killing me that I bought this on my Kindle, because if ever I needed to flip back frequently through a book, this is it! It's driving me crazy! Maybe this will help me become more facile with the Kindle, because surely there's some way to do that more easily than I have been. Also, I so want to reread the chapters I've already read, but I just don't have the time!!

I'm not currently reading this with you all because I actually read it earlier this year (mostly listened to the audiobook, which really put some added life into the characters, and referenced the paperback set from time to time). But I had to pop in and say that I loved Paula's message #17. I also loved the Rough Sleepers chapter and it was cool how while reading it I knew something wasn't quite right but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I had the same thoughts about the "25s" being street numbers, among other things that have been mentioned.

Later on in the book, I came back and reread a lot of this chapter and so many things then made sense. I didn't realize a lot of it while reading this chapter, or even immediately after. I love how this book has all these threads and there were other instances where I would go back and reread certain parts and find that all of a sudden they made sense. So cool. I would definitely love to reread this book someday.

Anyway, it's been fun reading everyone's comments and seeing people's reactions to the book. I'm curious if anyone is doing the audio of it? It's narrated by Simon Vance and it's really fabulous. :)

Yes, the old "Sixth Sense" ploy.

Linda wrote: "I also loved the Rough Sleepers chapter and it was cool how while reading it I knew something wasn't quite right but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I had the same thoughts about the "25s" being street numbers, among other things that have been mentioned."

There are a lot of things that sound not quite right. There is something "fishy" in the book, or so I feel. It is not what it looks like would be the best description of what I feel.

Ok, I'm back and ready to talk about my favorite part of the book so far - that cosmic game of billiards. The biblical, mystical, apocryphal awesomeness of it all.

It begins as Freddy when he mounts the Jacob Flight. My first reading, I passed right over it, but picked it up in a reread when I was more attuned to mystical aspects of the novel and the billiards game played by the Builders (angels). Jacob Flight is capitalized. Which to me means significant. And it's called a ladder. Jacob's Ladder. Right out of the Bible. A connector between Heaven and Earth with an angel at each rung. It reminded me of an old religious song "We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder" meaning we are working to be worthy of returning to the presence of the Divine. Or God.

So Freddy climbs Jacob's Ladder to the billiard room, where he sees that the Builders playing tonight are the four Master Builders. When he mentions Mighty Mike, it was another jolt for me. The Master Builders are Archangels. Mighty Mike is the Archangel Michael. And Yuri must be the Archangel Uriel. Archangels aren't sweet gentle spirits, like how other angels are described. Archangels are powerful. They are warriors, direct conduits of the Great I Am. Depending upon which religious school of thought you subscribe to (if any), there is a belief that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Revelations) are archangels.

The images of light that look like wings, the references to pigeon wings (for the 3rd time) really creates a striking atmosphere. And then when "Mighty Mike" makes direct eye contact with Freddy as he rescues the ball that Freddy knows represents Marla, that was a wow moment. Freddy has been noticed, seen, by the Divine. Where this is leading, I have no idea. And we also know that Marla survives her encounter with Fate.

This chapter was absolutely masterful.

Thank you for your post about the celestial billiards game. I had picked up the Archangels, but hadn't thought much about the other aspects that you refer to.

Ok. I went back and reread "X Marks the Spot". To be honest, on the first reading, it was a bit of a yawner for me; however, the rereads of these early chapters has made me more aware of the small undercurrents connecting the various narratives.

It reminds me a bit of the old science books in school (I'm dating myself here), where you had those transparent overlays. Each overlay had a piece of the whole. As you laid each overlay on top of the earlier one/s, more and more of the total picture would emerge. It wasn't until the last transparency had been placed that you finally saw the entire picture. I think this is one of the things I've been enjoying the most so far. How much longer it continues - and how long Moore can keep it up without jumping the rails and losing that connectivity - remains to be seen. I hope he can do it. But it's a long book.

Anyway, in this chapter, we meet Peter, the Monk, who carries an unknown artifact given to him (we find out later), by someone he met in Jerusalem, who tasked him with delivering it "to the centre of your land". Peter has determined that the centre of his land is Mercia and the centre of that is Hamtun, and now needs to find the centre of Hamtun.

Those little connecting threads we have talked about appear almost immediately. The "dream" of the old woman who wants to know if Peter has "brung et" and describes it as "what thing there is by all four corners as yet marks the middle". A reference, again, to corners (which we've read in earlier chapters, and the "middle". It gives a flavor of sacred geometry (reference back to Ern).

Hamtun appears to be a kind of Brigadoon, a town that few have been to, no one speaks of, remote, yet bustling with energy and enterprise - "remarkable only in that it never was remarked upon". And queer as well, what with the reference to how it is easy to get to, but difficult as murder to get out of. And the description of it early in the chapter:

"In the country's ancient heart, this curious essential nature hid and made itself a secret, slyly marvelous and dangerous in its caprice as if it did not realize its frightening strength or else pretended it did not. Behind the madman glitter of its eye behind its rotted smile, he thought, there was a knowledge it had chosen to conceal with mischiefs, frights and phantoms. At once monstrous and playful, antic even in its horrors, there was something in its nature Peter found he might admire or fear, yet all the while still chuckling in wonderment at its defiant queerness."

There's an elaborate description of Peter's exploration of Hamtun, which, personally, was overdone, and made it more difficult to retain the atmosphere and "vibe" of the town. I think Moore loses his threads in all of the cascade of words. But they do surface again. There's a deeply pagan, very old, aspect to Hamtun. The woman who wears a Thor stone...she speaks of an old temple.

A thread surfaces when Peter muses: "Were all of England's tangling lines met here, he wondered, tied into a knot at Hamtun by some giant midwife as it were the country's umbilicus?"

Again, these references to the center, the heart - and Peter has been tasked with finding, as it were, the center of the center.

The thread capturing the idea of a larger perspective, only to be seen at a greater height (reference again Ern looking down from a great height and seeing the cathedral from a different perspective) surfaces as Peter muses: "this was not so unlike his own faith in a life that was beyond this brief span and in some means over it, at a superior height from which the traps and snares of the world were more clearly seen and understood".

I enjoyed the explanation of Peter's faith, and his differentiation between faith and belief. His meeting with angels.

References again to pigeons, which are clustered around the ruin of the old church/temple. He passes through a bad place, one that has the quality of harm and malice (which has been described several times in earlier chapters). Reference to a single dwelling set apart from others (also referenced in earlier chapters).

I found his experience of a life relived over and over fascinating, but very disturbing as well. As if life is an endless loop replaying itself. The effect this abandoned dwelling has on him is very strong.

"What had unnerved him mostly at the croft-house was the notion that his passing of it was no sole-event, but only one within a line of repetitions, so that there was called unto his mind an image that was like an endless row of him, his separate selves all passing by the same forsaken nook but many times repeated, all of them within that instant made aware of one another and the queer affair of their recurrence, that the world and times about them were recurring also. It was a ghostly sentiment he had about him, as though he were one already dead who was reviewing the adventures of his life...".

This reminded me of Freddy and the other ghosts, who had all of those trailing images of themselves. Not a surprise that he meets Freddy and asks for the "center" (we learn this in Freddy's chapter). And he knows that Freddy is a ghost. Indeed, he understands Freddy and, in a few words, really captures the poignancy of Freddy's essence and his plight: "Perhaps it was a lost soul, neither blessed nor else condemned and so residing in another state, here in its haunts of old. He wondered if it were eternally required to wander thus, or if the spirit knew some further destination...". And, of course, we know that yes, Freddy does know of a better "destination", but his shame holds him back.

As he watches Freddy go on his way, again he is struck by a feeling that all of this is due to some master plan, preordained: "he now thought it more like a plan on parchment that a carpenter had made". This reference to a carpenter, is of course, very striking and resonates through our earlier reading. The implications of that are there for us to interpret.

He saves a young girl from harm, and one wonders if, by doing so, some significant series of events will result.

The final pages are very moving - and my favorite section. Peter, although he doesn't know it yet, is dying. He is in the deepest despair, wondering if this journey will ever end. Will he find this center? "He knew that he had once or many times before arrived here to find nothing. He was ever in the action of arriving here and finding nothing". But at that very end, he sees his friend, the one who set him upon his long and arduous journey, who throws his arms joyfully aloft (and there is that suggestion of opening wings - referencing back to the descriptions in the celestial billiard game). And he says "Yes! Yes! Yes, it is I!. I exist! Yes, it is here in this place of excess that with a cross the centre shall be marked. Yes it is here where is the exit of your journey, where both ye and I are come together. Yes, yes, yes, unto the very limits of existence, yes!"

And his friend, this angel, points to the church behind him, St. Gregory's. Peter just manages to stumble towards it, encounters two monks, describes his journey to them, gives them the sack with the relic inside (maddening that we don't know what it is), and has a final dying vision, as his soul rises from his body, and again with references to unfolding corners "he noticed for a first time how the corners of a building were made cleverly, that they could be unfolded in a manner whereby the inside of them was out".

I appreciated this chapter a whole lot more upon a second reading. The poignancy of a faith briefly shaken, but then restored, Freddy, the sense that existence can overlap and repeat itself until some kind of great ending is achieved.

I have no idea what the heck it all means, but there is much to chew on so far. I don't know if Moore can keep it up, but I hope so. As I said, my feeling was that this chapter really needed a reread in order to see the forest itself, instead of all trees.

Paula wrote: "It reminds me a bit of the old science books in school (I'm dating myself here), where you had those transparent overlays. Each overlay had a piece of the whole. As you laid each overlay on top of the earlier one/s, more and more of the total picture would emerge. It wasn't until the last transparency had been placed that you finally saw the entire picture. "

Beautifully put, Paula! I have the same feeling although I never thought of those transparent overlays.

Paula, what an excellent overview and analysis of this chapter. It has made me want to reread it more closely.
On thinking about the chapter I recalled the episode at the well when Peter is terribly thirsty. I found the blood red water shocking. It really drew me into Peter's perspective, and as it was described I was, for a moment, overwhelmed with horror and imagining what horror lay at the bottom of the well. The relief of the explanation was palpable. Along with the power of the description, the episode at the well has associations for me of the Crusades and how water ran red with the blood of those slaughtered in the name of Christ.
It also reminded me of the significance of the name Peter and its links to rock or stone in Greek and Hebrew. Of course it is the name of the first disciple who later went to Rome, becoming the first pope according to the Catholic Church. This is supported by the famous passage in Matthew 16: 13-19 which describes Jesus as saying:
"And I tell you that you are Cephas (Peter) (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."
This association makes me wonder what Peter's role will be as we get further into the book.

Karen wrote: "Paula, what an excellent oveview and analysis of this chapter. It has made me want to reread it more closely.
On thinking about the chapter I recalled the episode at the well when Peter is terribly..."

Karen, reading your comments gave me chills. I remember well the passage that reads "and on this rock, I will build my church", but not the rest of it. The apostle Peter did come to mind when I read the chapter, but I didn't fully appreciate the association until you expanded the idea. It gives so much more depth - thank you for that. And it does set the stage, as it were, for what exactly Peter has established by bringing his artifact/relic to Hamtun.

I was horrified initially by the well episode and how Moore set up that single sentence "It was blood." It was its own paragraph. So shocking. And then later, after Peter's discovery, again a single sentence that was it's own paragraph: "It was dye."

I also really appreciated your bit of history about the Crusades. All of your comments enrich the chapter for me. I look forward to more of them!