The Great When - Alan Moore

A novel by the great master of serious graphic novels.   A novel in the psychogeographical footsteps of Iain Sinclair with the imaginative spin of Michael Moorcock's Mother London.   What could be further up my street?   What could be better?   Nothing could be either: The Great When is a rush of thrills and delight from start to finish.

It is the coming of age of Dennis Knuckleyard, an orphaned teenager in 1949, working and lodging in the premises of second-hand bookseller and former starlet Coffin Ada.   Ada sends him to buy a set of books by Arthur Machen.   Dennis gets them for a snip.   But the box contains a book that shouldn't be there - a book Machen made up in two of his weird works.   Ada wants shut of it - immediately.   Dennis tries to return it to the vendor - only to find him being carried off to the morgue.

The next thing he knows, Dennis is being pursued through nighttime London by two of gangster Jack Spot's henchmen.   Down one backstreet Dennis stumbles against a crate which turns out to be a gate, a portal into a very different London.   This is Long London, a richer, more vibrant, more magical version - and somewhat more dangerous.

Back in the duller world of reality Dennis tracks down artist and mage Austin Osman Spare, former disciple of Aleister Crowley, who we met in the prologue.  Spare gets much inspiration from Long London, which he visits often.   He agrees to go there with Dennis to return the book which shouldn't exist.   First they go drinking in London's postwar Bohemia, beloved of Dylan Thomas and Andrew Sinclair (who also wrote of an alternate London in his Gog and Magog, which I sadly found unreadable).  Dennis soon meets his own Gog, Gog Blincoe, a wooden man from Long London who hangs round with a street vendor and art enthusiast called Ironfoot Jack Neave.   These are the good guys, who help Dennis rescue teenage prostitute Grace Shilling from the notorious Spot.

Spot wants to be introduced to the embodiment of all London villains, Harry Lud, a manifestation from the other London.   This doesn't go well for Spot but it seems to cure all Dennis's problems.   Jack, however, has one last visit to make, one last enemy to overcome...

Brilliantly written, every sentence brimming over with life and arcane knowledge.   I cannot wait for the next Long London novel, due out later this year.

Occult London - Merlin Coverley

 A well-written and entertaining survey of some of London's premier occult landmarks.   I was however surprised by the sites left out - Cock Lane, for example, scene of the first sensational poltergeist infestation (though not the first incidence, which is about 100 yards down the road from me in South Leicestershire).   That said, Merlin Coverley's other work helps set his field of interest.   He is a psychogeographer in the footsteps of Iain Sinclair.   His sources are Peter Ackroyd, William Blake and Geoffrey of Monmouth.   He is interested in the mythic London lying behind and beneath the facade we see today.

Though Mortlake is a bit off-piste for Coverley, he covers Dr John Dee briefly and accurately.   Again, there is much more to be said about Dee but Coverley only claims to be an introduction.   In that sense, his guide to other, more comprehensive studies is invaluable.   I have been researching these subjects for more than fifty years and there were sources here that were completely new to me.

Like Covereley's companion volume Psychogeography, Occult London is a small, short book, but it is well worth a slow and careful read.   Lack of space has required Covereley to weigh every word, carefully consider what to include and what to refer the reader on to elsewhere.   Like his concept of London, the result is multi-layered and endlessly fascinating.