By: Alan Moore Publisher: Top Shelf Productions Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Top Shelf Productions Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: January 07, 2004
Product Description: In a story full of lust, madness, and ecstasy, we meet twelve distinctive characters that lived in the same region of central England over a span of six thousand years. Each interconnected tale traces a path in a journey of discovery of the secrets of the land. In the tradition of Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, Schwob's Imaginary Lives and Borges' A Universal History of Infamy, Moore travels through history blending truth and conjecture, in a novel that is dazzling, moving, sometimes tragic, but always mesmerizing. This edition presents Voice of the Fire for the first time in hardcover format, with full color illustrations by Jose Villarrubia.
never received item I never received this item, would like to make a formal complaint and would like to receive my book.
an epochal masterwork profoundly brilliant, a tour de force. If you are reading this review then you should probably read this book. unlikely to ever be widely popular for all of the obvious reasons and some a bit more obscure, bound to offend many- most of whom probably need to be offended anyway.
the chapter detailing the first crusade from first person perspective should be required reading for anybody who still uses the term to denote something positive, regardless of whether the climactic revelation is factual or historical or not.
whatever criticisms might be leveled against it, valid or otherwise, this is a masterpiece. i don't think i'll keep it in my house because i wouldn't want my children to read it (before they're ready).
A Shamanic Journey in Northampton In ancient times, the keeper of the fire in human prehistoric tribes was the figure of the shaman. He or she channeled the powers of the spirits, and the Land, and of the human collective unconsciousness into lore that his or her people could understand -- mapping out a landscape in order to properly perceive, and therefore survive the world around them. As such, the shamanic figure was of necessity a storyteller.
As others have said, Voice of the Fire -- the essence of which the metaphorical storyteller gets his or her stories is not an easy journey, or vision-quest in any sense of the word. You, as the audience, have to follow the path set for you. It begins in prehistoric times from first-person point of view of a developmentally challenged young man who perceives language and therefore reality differently from those around him; to a cunning and cruel Bronze Age woman; to the time of Roman Occupation of Britain, the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the witch-trials of the 1700s, Victorian times, a crime in the 1950s, and finally the more present day of 1995.
All of this takes place in England's Northampton. And as you follow the path from the prehistoric to the modern, in some ways the journey becomes easier and in other ways more difficult. The shaman, or elements of the shamanic are always ever-present, as is the mythology and history of the land. You can trace the pattern of history, and psycho-geography -- of the way the generations of people left their psychic mark on the land around them just as you can follow the tattoo paintings on a shaman's flesh. The beginning is full of almost pure metaphor and the core ideas are introduced by the narrator, becoming more direct, yet somewhat diluted in time.
As writer, as storyteller, as shaman in the intermediary sense of the word, Alan Moore channels the spirits of those that came before him, and that of the Land itself. It is the mythopoeic odyssey of people, and places. It is hard to follow, and it is unique. The reader must travel through the spiritual landscape, in a personal dream quest not unlike those of the characters around them. There is no other way. It is the only way.
Novel concept Alan Moore's first prose novel, which combusted onto the scene some ten years ago now, still has yet to receive much attention. This occurrence is strange, but understandable. The book, to give a brief overview, is a collection of twelve short stories taking place in twelve different time periods (stretching from 4,000BC to AD1995), all sharing the same setting of the central area of England that eventually becomes Northampton.
Moore, who is so famous I can trust to odds that you know the top three or four works he's most famous for, as revolutionized the comics industry in terms of storytelling, style, and tone time and again. And yet Voice of the Fire remains low on Amazon.com's list of books sold, its decade in the 84,450s list include the English Teacher's Book of Instant Word Games and a certainly captivating Dictionary of Financial Terms.
This, inasmuch as concerns what the public is fed through the New York Times Best Seller List, is unsurprising. Moore's book begins with a 40+ paged chapter about a Neolithic cave-boy's exile from his hunter-gatherer tribe. An emotional and moving story to be sure...if you can make it to the end. The story is told in the first person, using what Moore estimates to be less than five hundred words--his creative attempt at mimicking Neolithic speech and thought.
If you're wondering what to expect from the story: expect fire. And blood. Horror. Nightmares. And more fire besides. Be it ancient, Roman, Norman, or modern, Northampton has never been a very safe place to live, an issue Moore addresses personally as the protagonist in the final chapter, written in a stream-of-consciousness style.
Expect a smorgasbord of writing styles. Moore takes the driver's seat with his characters, and with a Dickens-esque talent to create new personalities the reader sees this single geographical area from such varied points of view as a murderess who plots to get rich quick, a Roman agent come to find a local money counterfeiter, and even a disembodied head upon a gate. Many of the novel's characters are based off of actual historical figures, giving the whole work a cryptic echo that weaves in an out of the story. This echo, this voice of the fire, is the most captivating part of the book, and for which reason I obnoxiously give this book its 5-star rating. Learning history is fun. Learning history within the context of history--even if it is fiction--is perhaps one of the most thought-provoking experiences one can have with a book.
I recommend this book to any reader who has an interest in history or anthropology. For writers, read this if you want to study up on character development or telling first-person stories in a myriad of ways. Moore fans, just read this; he's done it again.
Strange read This is a rather difficult book and it will not fare very well for a casual reading. It forced you to think, to look and rather more to feel what it is around you. It actually demand a lot from a reader, which is not a problem as long as the pay off is this good. This is one of the most visual book I read. I think the writer have a picture of the events in his mind and describe it, rather than just thought of it as a prose. The think is, this will not work very well if the structure of the book allow it to be. And amazingly, I think it works quite well. The last chapter of the book make me look around in my dark room, feeling a breath of someone else on my neck. Just don't read it when you are alone.
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