Like many of Alan Moore's works, you kind of have to let it encompass you before you begin to closely read it. There are sheer levels of meaning and nuance in these arcane scrawlings. You will probably not get it all in the first reading and viewing, but perhaps more on a subconscious level as most poetry goes.

The first story, called "The Birth Caul" deals with a "birth caul" and what it means and how the meaning of that spreads out to humanity, while the second story, "Snakes and Ladders" deals with the layers of English history and imagination in at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square. Both stories speak to that subconscious level. The book ends off with an interview with Alan Moore about his works and even something about his mystical paradigm and then there are some lovely sketches in the back created by Eddie Campbell, who also was the interviewer in the previous part.

The Interview is the most intriguing and it even explains what the title stands for to an extent -- that thing within us that linguistics cannot structure and tends to be changed by -- that essence of us. Call it magic, or inspiration, writing and creativity always seeks it ... something that this work does.

Campbell's drawings are black and white, with fine detail and they bring you further and wildly in the poetic underworld Alan Moore creates, with a few elements of his life woven within to make it almost semi-autobiographical.

This is an interesting book and I know I haven't caught all of it. It is ultimately a text that, hidden by a deceptive looking text-book like cover, shows how we and generations of us bring meaning to everything, to land, and our homes, and the language of imagination that seems as though it is just one person that dreams it all.

Not quite like other works of his, this work serves as another valuable insight into Alan Moore and his creations.