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A review by mattait
Providence Compendium by Alan Moore
3.0
Hm. A tough one this. One that probably requires a second reading to really decide whether it succeeds or not. Thoughts on a first reading then: it's dense. Jam packed with Lovecraftian lore and literary history, unfriendly to the casual reader looking for a solid horror yarn. On that count I'm not sure it succeeds, unlike the much shorter and tighter Neonomicon which packs a real gut punch, grotesque and unpleasant as that is.
Some of that may be down to Jacen Burrows accomplished but uninspired art which is great at setting place and the deliberate pace, but lacks the imaginative flair to pull off the "cosmic horror" - his renderings of Lovecraft's "unknowable" seem all too known and familiar at this point, which highlights the problem of most visual representations of the lore; without a truly deft touch and/or idiosyncratic vision to match Lovecraft's own, any depiction will fall well short of "vast, cosmic mystery" and belly flop into horror movie cliche. Lovecraft is often criticised for his reliance on vague adjectives, endless synonyms for "unfathomable" adding up to (for some) an authorial shrug: "well, you know, our pathetic human language just isn't up to the task, here, try 'indescribable corruption of natural law' on for size!", but of course he knew what he was doing, leaving it up to the reader themselves to figure out, or not.
Luckily Moore's writing and plotting is able to pick up some of that slack, nicely depicting the protagonist's growing disorientation while it feeds our own with some genuinely disquieting revelations, and one revolting pivotal scene which manages to cover every point on the perversity scale and a few even it didn't quite stretch to.
Of course Moore has some big ideas to tackle here, his major thesis apparently being that Lovecraftian lore and its offshoots represent a new, modern, North American (U.S.) folklore encompassing all that culture's ugliness, prejudice, and contradiction, and I suppose the buried fear of its ultimate futility. Pretty invigorating stuff! Most of this is spelt out in the protagonist's diary entries at the end of each (comic) chapter, and it's here that I think I had my biggest problem with the book. The effect of these entries for me on this first read was to bring the narrative to a shuddering halt, blowing up any tension and momentum earned in the more traditional comic book section preceding. They're a mixture of recap and expansion, very expository, and they often feel redundant, even vaguely condescending (true, this is one of the protag's characteristics) in that they sometimes feel as if Moore doesn't trust the reader to cotton on to what he's attempting, even though much of that is latent in the main narrative. And where it isn't, I couldn't help thinking well, why isn't it?
Which circles me back round to the beginning, and my feeling that a second read might be necessary to decide what purpose these interludes serve (Moore never seems anything but deliberate), and whether they work in that context to deepen the narrative. I definitely have a preference for horror in which the subtext (if you want to look) is buried within the story - I doubt Lovecraft himself had any idea at all of what he was doing (certainly that's Moore's contention in Providence) beyond writing the stories he was able to write by way of his own peculiar pathologies and prejudices, and that's their power for better or worse. I don't naturally incline myself towards Providence's kind of metatextual tom-fuckery, interesting as it is, so I lay that down as context for this review. Still, I am going to read this again.
Some of that may be down to Jacen Burrows accomplished but uninspired art which is great at setting place and the deliberate pace, but lacks the imaginative flair to pull off the "cosmic horror" - his renderings of Lovecraft's "unknowable" seem all too known and familiar at this point, which highlights the problem of most visual representations of the lore; without a truly deft touch and/or idiosyncratic vision to match Lovecraft's own, any depiction will fall well short of "vast, cosmic mystery" and belly flop into horror movie cliche. Lovecraft is often criticised for his reliance on vague adjectives, endless synonyms for "unfathomable" adding up to (for some) an authorial shrug: "well, you know, our pathetic human language just isn't up to the task, here, try 'indescribable corruption of natural law' on for size!", but of course he knew what he was doing, leaving it up to the reader themselves to figure out, or not.
Luckily Moore's writing and plotting is able to pick up some of that slack, nicely depicting the protagonist's growing disorientation while it feeds our own with some genuinely disquieting revelations, and one revolting pivotal scene which manages to cover every point on the perversity scale and a few even it didn't quite stretch to.
Of course Moore has some big ideas to tackle here, his major thesis apparently being that Lovecraftian lore and its offshoots represent a new, modern, North American (U.S.) folklore encompassing all that culture's ugliness, prejudice, and contradiction, and I suppose the buried fear of its ultimate futility. Pretty invigorating stuff! Most of this is spelt out in the protagonist's diary entries at the end of each (comic) chapter, and it's here that I think I had my biggest problem with the book. The effect of these entries for me on this first read was to bring the narrative to a shuddering halt, blowing up any tension and momentum earned in the more traditional comic book section preceding. They're a mixture of recap and expansion, very expository, and they often feel redundant, even vaguely condescending (true, this is one of the protag's characteristics) in that they sometimes feel as if Moore doesn't trust the reader to cotton on to what he's attempting, even though much of that is latent in the main narrative. And where it isn't, I couldn't help thinking well, why isn't it?
Which circles me back round to the beginning, and my feeling that a second read might be necessary to decide what purpose these interludes serve (Moore never seems anything but deliberate), and whether they work in that context to deepen the narrative. I definitely have a preference for horror in which the subtext (if you want to look) is buried within the story - I doubt Lovecraft himself had any idea at all of what he was doing (certainly that's Moore's contention in Providence) beyond writing the stories he was able to write by way of his own peculiar pathologies and prejudices, and that's their power for better or worse. I don't naturally incline myself towards Providence's kind of metatextual tom-fuckery, interesting as it is, so I lay that down as context for this review. Still, I am going to read this again.