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From Hell: Last of the Old Gods

  
 
PatrickMM
00:56 / 13.05.03
I finished From Hell for the first time yesterday, and I was awed by it. I was expecting a Victorian costume murder mystery, and despite Alan Moore's name on the project and its reputation, I was bit skeptical. But then I read chapter 2, with Gull's journey through the Masonic ranks, and I instantly reevaluated the book, and started to seriously enjoy it. The whole thing was great, except for the art which was a bit dodgy at times.

However, one thing is bothering me about the book.

I got the impression that William Gull was the last person in that society in touch with its pagan and ancient roots. When he gives Netley the tour, he's the only one who has any idea of the significance of the buildings, and is in touch with humanity's ancient roots. As Jack, he becomes like an ancient God, who scares humanity as a faceless manifestation of all their fears. He becomes a figure of both worship and fear, much like the old Gods.

Then, during the sequence where he is bouncing around time, Gull ends up joining the old Gods, in the sense that he is no longer feared, and he exists as a remnant of a different time. In this sense, he is the last of the old Gods, the last man to hold the knowledge about the true nature of London. He joins this pantheon, and without him the world moves on.

The thing that throws me off is if Gull is the lone holdover from this older era why does he keep seeing the future as he commits the murders. I thought they were incredible scenes, but it doesn't make sense that in his exultation at the murders, he would see the future, instead of the past.

One theory I've got is that as he commits the murders, Gull is getting closer to the end of his purpose, and as a result, his status as a God will be gone. So with each murder, he gets a bigger glimpse of the world that will happen without him, and at the end, after he is done with the murders, he is fully exposed to the new world that he has left in his wake. Has Moore ever said anything conclusive on it, or what are some other theories?

And, a lot of the book struck me as very similar to The Invisibles. The "What is the fourth dimension" time structure is virtually identical, and the sequence where Gull is bouncing around time at the end, then becomes a God, is extremely similar to Robin merging with the supercontext at the end of Volume II.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
01:30 / 13.05.03
Gull's mission is to tighten the yoke on the irrational and Dionysian element of culture, and in his language, the irrational is female. He's cementing the domination of man over woman. He dominates the irrational by drawing it out of the "body," where it is hidden, but functional, and smearing it all over the walls. But he says this pretty clearly -- you probably got that.

He sees glimpses of the future, rather than of the past, because he's creating the modern world.
 
 
waxy dan
07:19 / 13.05.03
He sees glimpses of the future, rather than of the past, because he's creating the modern world.
I thought that he was failing in his efforts, and that was why these glimpses were so terrifying to him. That he began to realise that the world that he was fighting to retain was still crumbling around him.

Though it's been a few years since I read it, so I might be remembering it all wrong.
 
 
The Natural Way
09:02 / 13.05.03
No, I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure Moore wanted to demonstrate a link between the dark, muderous streets of Whitehall and the modern world. It's what his shamanism trip's all about - excavating the past in order to imbue the present with power and meaning. Actually, it's kind of what From Hell's all about. The chain of synchronicitous events underlines this idea.
 
 
The Natural Way
09:03 / 13.05.03
And the art's fantastic, foolish krunce.
 
 
Warewullf
09:46 / 13.05.03
I read somewhere that Moore ( I think) said Gull was "birthing the 20th century". Trying to shape it's eventual form, I believe.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
10:22 / 13.05.03
Is there a better ending to a comic series than 'Dance of The Gull catchers'?
 
 
waxy dan
13:11 / 13.05.03
I read somewhere that Moore ( I think) said Gull was "birthing the 20th century". Trying to shape it's eventual form, I believe.

That's what I figured. I just didn't think that he succeeded. His being a last ditch effort to preserve the patriarchal conservative society. Hmmm... Having now typed that out, I think I may be way-off.... I should just go back and read it again.
 
 
the rake at the gates
15:00 / 13.05.03
i always saw it as gull burning his mark on the city, reinforcing the pattern he shows to his driver, thats why he sees the future, as he will become part of it, his actions become part of the city and exsist forever in fable/history, thus becoming a multiple point in the fourth dimention
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
16:48 / 13.05.03
Good way of putting it, jjazz. I don't think Gull failed at all. All the terrifying, subconscious motivations of sex and violence, which he saw as "female," are out in front of culture in the 20th century in a way they weren't before, and Moore traces them to JtR.

Also, I could be wrong about this, but if the Gull scenario is true (and there's some reason to think that it's not), then it would be the first case of a modern government ordring the cold-blooded murder of its own citizens to protect its powers. Is it also the first gigantic media spectacle?
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
16:50 / 13.05.03
All the terrifying, subconscious motivations of sex and violence, which he saw as "female," are out in front of culture in the 20th century in a way they weren't before

I should have said that this robs them of their power. They wok best in the subconscious.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
18:03 / 13.05.03
"all the terrifying, etc etc"

such at what, and how?
 
 
PatrickMM
18:30 / 13.05.03
Gull's mission is to tighten the yoke on the irrational and Dionysian element of culture, and in his language, the irrational is female. He's cementing the domination of man over woman.

That makes a lot of sense. I guess I assumed as I was reading it that because Moore is clearly supportive of the "female" creative impulses, Gull must be also, but it makes sense that as a doctor, he would be more in favor of reason.

However, I would also argue that Gull has a lot of the female characteristics, and the mere fact that he holds the knowledge about the old Gods makes him somewhat loyal to them. I guess Gull is a synthesis of the old and the new, both a scientist and a believer in extreme phenomena. So, when Gull gives up his science, and gets put in the asylum, he no longer has a purpose in modern society, and he goes off to join the pantheon of old Gods.

And the art's fantastic, foolish krunce.

I loved most of the art, but I had a problem telling all the prostitutes apart, which made segments of the book a bit confusing. I assume this won't be a real issue on the re-read though.

And, yes, the Gull Catchers was an incredible end to the series.
 
 
LDones
19:39 / 13.05.03
Gull's self-stated 'mission' in the book was to trample female and matriarchal ideas underfoot and keep them there for another few centuries - Like King James and the temple of Diana. And, by the book's account, it's a mission given to him by God.

I'll agree with the idea that he doesn't actually succeed at these aims, though he does seem to succeed at some wildly larger working - like any great work, it ends up much larger and far different than you imagine at the outset.

Gull is purposley burning his mark into history. The flashes of the future are strange and terrible to him because of their cold, dispassionate grandeur - and because it's way fucking weird. In the exhaustive marathon of liner notes in the rear of the book, Moore states that the 1880's are truly emblematic of the progress of the Twentieth Century, en microcosm, all the elements are there. And from there he states that the esses of the 1880's is the Jack the Ripper debacle. So Gull's actions and the reaction of the world to those actions make up a microcosm of the Twentieth Century (according to Moore).

The Gull in From Hell is an architect for history itself, erecting a legacy not unlike Hawksmoor's churches, permanently squatting on the timeline - As Gull dissects Mary Kelly's body (God, what a chapter - I've never been so queasy and still so engaged while reading a book), it comes into focus more greatly - he seems to identify the female (mystery) aspects of his own work, cradling the corpse in his arms, sadly saying that he has made these women essentially immortal when they would have been dead within years. He seems to transcend his initial purely mysoginistic, power-oriented aim, bceoming a Great Architect himself, for a new age (terrible as that idea is).

Gull transmutes both society and himself through his divine working - I think the idea of him as Last of the Old Gods is interesting in light of his aim and it's (supposed) eventual outcome. That's one of the wonderful and terrible things about the book for me - that these horrible, gruesome violations and murders are put down as a god-given purpose in the murderer's existence - his Magnum Opus - and his work changes the world forever. And I end up empathizing with him through it all. Terrifying.
 
 
dlotemp
22:12 / 13.05.03
Don't you hate it when you come to the end of a thread, anticipating the moment when you can articulate your comments, and then find, with bitter jealous eye, that someone named LDones summarizes your thoughts better than you could have. Good grief.

Bravo, LDones. I think that is a cogent and accurate theory. It's certainly my take on the book.

I'd only like to add that Gull's despicable acts are obviously fulfilling the transition of a Magus, ie. wizard, from the positive Tree of Life and into the negative Tree of Life. See Promethea for a better example. Essentially, the Magus commits great acts of depravity to bring both sides of the Tree of Life into the spell. Gull is casting a spell across the centuries. I'm not a magician so forgive my brutish explanation.

Also, i'd like to point out that another famous murderer is a key artichet of civilization. Cain, son of Adam and Eve, and killer of Abel eventually become the first artitect of cities in the land of Nod. If not for the murder, he would never have been expelled and might have stayed a sedentary farmer. Murder seems to come before civilization in the flow of things.
 
 
LDones
03:27 / 14.05.03
Heh. I'm just glad it makes sense to somebody other than me.

Slightly OT: Your last point, and part of the point of the story, surely, seems to echo a sentiment from Stanley Kubrick's 2001; that murder proceeds ascendancy or awakening, and precedes widespread cultural change or evolution.
 
 
John Brown
05:15 / 14.05.03
I don't have much to add to what's already been said about Gull's purposes in committing the crime. He's asked to do a job, sees it as an opportunity to do more than his duty, and converts the murders into a spell to try to maintain the status quo as he sees it: power in the hands of those who have it, reason over emotion, male over female. That's all pretty clear.

Also clear, I think, is that when he has those visions of the future, he's more than a little disappointed by what he sees. I'm thinking of the scene in which he finds himself in a typical office, but I can't recall exactly what he says. What remains particularly interesting to me is the ambiguity of the source of his disappointment. Some day I'll have time to go back and read it all again.

I continue to wonder, too, how much his madness (to the extent he was mad, at the end) is attributable to a sense of futility. He seemed so sure of the importance of what he was doing, but perhaps he found that he really had only "made a small noise."
 
 
waxy dan
07:30 / 14.05.03
Stanley Kubrick's 2001; that murder proceeds ascendancy or awakening, and precedes widespread cultural change or evolution.

Just got reminded of this on the Authority thread as well. Moore followed that theme before in Miracleman. In order to build the new (and somewhat inhuman) utopia, they first had to build a hell. Issue 16 was one of the most moving and truly terrifying things I've read, especially as an exploration of what the superhuman could/would do. Quote was something like "in all of human history, there has never been an Olympus, never been a house of the gods, that was not built on human bones".

This is the old thesis, antithesis, synthesis cycle again, isn't it?

That crops up a lot in Moore's Swamp Thing, and even in the Invisibles as well.
 
 
The Falcon
14:45 / 14.05.03
And William Blake.
 
 
Jack Fear
14:58 / 14.05.03
I loved most of the art, but I had a problem telling all the prostitutes apart, which made segments of the book a bit confusing.

Of course, in at least one case the confusion was by design—a great head-fake setting up what was, for many readers, the most baffling aspect of the Gull's vision at the climax—the sight of Mary Kelly in Ireland, alive and well after all.
 
 
waxy dan
14:58 / 14.05.03
Is that quote a reference to Blake? I haven't read him. Could you recommend something following this theme?
 
 
The Natural Way
17:01 / 14.05.03
I should have added: I'm not saying Gull's spell turned out exactly as he had hoped, but Moore does demonstrate a web of synchronicity extending beyond the event, backwards and forwards through history. The ingredients were too hot - too volatile.
 
 
LDones
20:04 / 14.05.03
That's a good, concise way to put it, although I feel like saying that Gull wasn't necessarily the one handling the materials - there's a sense I get that he's just the messenger (at least until the end) - so inasmuch, they were just precisely hot enough for the intended chaotic effect. (Though maybe he was just an 'ingredient' himself in the larger concoction of the Great Architect/universe's aims - in that perspective definitely too hot, too volatile - for men or Godforms. I love how Gull is so excellent at everything he does - He's like a superhero. )

I read (most of) From Hell while stranded in New York after the WTC attacks. It really got my head in a bind on already burning thoughts about major events reverberating in all directions of the 4th dimension, and the human ability to casually sense and reacto to time and events in a non-forwardsbackwards manner.
 
 
the Fool
22:21 / 14.05.03
I'll agree with the idea that he doesn't actually succeed at these aims, though he does seem to succeed at some wildly larger working - like any great work, it ends up much larger and far different than you imagine at the outset.

I think he does succeed in his intented aims, the flashes from the future are just the unforseen consequences of these actions. He is horrified by what he has given birth to, as it is not what he thought it would be, an abortion. It is not some extended victorian age of 'gentility', he gave birth to Hitler, and Stalin, Mao and other monster of the 'rational'. He gave birth to world wars waged with machines of destruction. He signals the rise of the machine, the birth of the information age. He signals the celebrity of the serial killer and becomes a god of murder, his myth entering the supercontext at a very dark point indeed.
 
 
dlotemp
23:02 / 14.05.03
Fool - that is a wonderful, if chilling, summation of Gull's gibbouos progeny. I think Gull does succeed in his main goal of birthing a new century.

Question to all - was that really Mary Kelly in Ireland at the end? Is there supporting information for this identification? I ask because that last section always puzzled me. I wondered if it was Maude Gonne, the muse of Yeats and the Irish Rebellion. She claimed to experience out of body events; of course, she also claimed that smoking marijuana allowed her to travel astrally across the english channel to visit Yeat's soul.

Has Moore accurately identified that woman at the end of Chapter 14.
 
 
The Falcon
01:11 / 15.05.03
It's in 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'.

'the road to paradise is built on the bones of the dead', iirc.

I can't recommend Blake's longer poems enough. The aforementioned is a good start.
 
 
LDones
03:38 / 15.05.03
In the liner notes, Moore semi-confirms it by saying something cryptic about that particular scene (after first declining to illucidate at all) : "Oh, and conerning that scene on page twenty-three of chapter fourteen: It might be worth pointing out that... Mary Kelly was known by various nicknames that included Ginger and Fair Emma. Just in case that helps." If I remember correctly, this is referenced when the witnesses/acquaintances of the deceased are being interviewed in Chapter 11 (or possibly later, I forget where). Also note that the woman's children are named after Mary's murdered friends.

It seems as though it's intended to be Mary Kelly, or a historically-related red herring of sorts, but wether she's alive and well and with numerous children or in some ether-realm of after-life or ideal concepts when Gull intercedes on her/does his fly-by is open for interpretation.
 
 
mr Squiggle
04:23 / 15.05.03


Moore talks about the Ireland vision here
Ten years wading through the material, the literature, not just Jack the Ripper but all of these fuckers. All these miserable little apologies for human beings. They're not supermen. They're not supermen at all. They're not Hannibal Lecter. You know, they're Peter Sutcliffe, they're a bloke with a dodgy perm. And some horrible screw-up in his relationship with his mother or something. They're little blokes.
 
 
David Roel
11:20 / 15.05.03
This is the explanation you want. Last item discussed.
 
 
Mister Six, whom all the girls
14:22 / 15.05.03
Blake's run on Uncanny left me cold, though.

I'm deeply overjoyed that the thread participants are split on whether Gull was succeeding or failing. I agree that Gull is 'creating the 20th C,' but I think it terrifies him.
 
 
grant
19:34 / 15.05.03
Blake's run on Uncanny left me cold, though.

Urizen could beat Havoc any day of the week.
 
  
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