I
was first exposed to Alan Moore through his 1996 novel Voice of the Fire. His
writing style immediately struck a chord within me. I have always found pleasure delving into
writing that was linguistically different and challenging. I discovered that
works like Clockwork Orange by
Anthony Burgess Trainspotting by
Irvine Welsh and Song of Solomon penned
by Toni Morrison, brought with them not only a challenge, but also an
insatiable need for more. This style
allowed me to become part of a true inner monologue of a character, and in
doing so; I often found part of myself in those characters. Along the way, however, I had developed a naive
concept that the writer was showing me who the character was through their
personal descriptions and statements. I
was looking at dialect and linguistics from a scientific (almost mathematical)
side. It was so black and white in my
mind that I had forgotten these words were always intended to be part of the
character; not dissected and set aside for later criticism. Some characters may explain how grass is
green, the dirt is brown, and a tree is a combination of the two but the
characters of Voice of the Fire
showed me something entirely different.
They unveiled a layer of psyche I had overlooked in my personal
adventures throughout the years of reading.
These characters described a setting that yelled out to me loud and
clear “No the grass wasn't all green! In
fact there were some weeds that chocked and killed a portion of this not square
yard. And that tree, well that tree has
a disease that has deadened a few limbs and really its leaves are just barely
there”. Unlike any writing I had ever
been aware of (though I am quite certain it was always there) Moore’s characters
did all this and more without every saying it but by the way they spoke through
my pages. I suddenly became a new reader
with an understanding that writers do not write characters to be interpreted;
but rather to be someone. And most
people aren't as flat as “the grass is green”.
Fisk,
Phil. Alan Moore. Photograph. The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, December 2012. Web.
28 April 2013.
Moore, Alan. Voice of the Fire. Marietta: Top Shelf Production, 2009.
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