Finished re-reading Providence recently. The first time I read it I felt quite strongly that it was one of Alan Moore's better works. Revisiting it has caused the series to really jump up the ranks. For comparison, I think Jerusalem is the finest thing Moore has ever penned with From Hell being a close second. However, I now feel Providence has taken that second spot.

Providence, like many of Moore's most interesting pieces, looks at a fundamental shift of human culture and the conditions of modernity as both a personal and greater shift in an individual personality. The modern, though it was beginning to form earlier, has its true awakening and is seen as a traumatic fissure in cultural identity after the horrors of the first world war and the greater violence that characterised the early 20th century. But, it is also narratively realised through the trauma of our central hero. For Moore, Lovecraft's unique and uniquely ubiquitous fiction is one particular manifestation of the modern. In this book Moore asks if art of fiction changes the world or if the world changes art or fiction, a simple question with a myriad answers all memorably visualised as the book hurtles to its incredible conclusion.

One thing, if you are going to read this it is very much necessary you are familiar with Lovecraft's work and have a general overview of his influence. This book is of course not an endorsement of Lovecraft's heinous view of the world, it is very much a counterpoint. There is also some genuine criticisms to be made about the length of the chapbook entries and the font used to bookend each chapter (Moore needed an editor there), however, you will be rewarded if you push through them and read.