People, who worked with me last weekend, will recall me wandering around clutching a copy of the graphic novel "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. I was so engrossed in it, that you couldn't get a coherent sentence out of me, other than my pointing out pictures in the book, whilst saying "fucking hell, check THAT out"....

I have been familiar with "V for Vendetta" for a long time, but this was the first opportunity I had to read it (I know that there is also a film by the same name, but for reasons to numerous to write down here, I have no desire to watch it, because I think I would spend the duration, hurling abuse at the screen, so I am just going to pretend it doesn't exist).

I got sucked into V, upon reading Alan Moore's introduction, which contained the most British sentence I have ever heard;

"I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it anymore"

The book continued in the same tone of dark, slightly suppressed, very British anger, but was oddly the most uplifting thing I have read, seen or heard for a very long time.

"V for Vendetta" is a kind of beginners guide to Anarchist Theory. Much as I hate dystopian novels (see a previous Blog I wrote on the subject earlier this year) I really dig this one. The action takes place in a nightmarish, future London during 1996-1998. The main paranoia during the 80s (when V was written) was the threat of nuclear war. V is written under the premise, that had a Labour government got into power during the 1980s, then all the American Missiles in The UK would have been removed, and as a result; we would have never been a target for annihilation. In the 1990s portrayed in V, the rest of Europe (and pretty much all the world from the looks of things) has been destroyed apart from The UK, which having been plunged into the chaos of nuclear winter, has been over-run by a Fascist government,...

People, who worked with me last weekend, will recall me wandering around clutching a copy of the graphic novel "V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. I was so engrossed in it, that you couldn't get a coherent sentence out of me, other than my pointing out pictures in the book, whilst saying "fucking hell, check THAT out"....

I have been familiar with "V for Vendetta" for a long time, but this was the first opportunity I had to read it (I know that there is also a film by the same name, but for reasons to numerous to write down here, I have no desire to watch it, because I think I would spend the duration, hurling abuse at the screen, so I am just going to pretend it doesn't exist).

I got sucked into V, upon reading Alan Moore's introduction, which contained the most British sentence I have ever heard;

"I'm thinking of taking my family and getting out of this country soon, sometime over the next couple of years. It's cold and it's mean spirited and I don't like it anymore"

The book continued in the same tone of dark, slightly suppressed, very British anger, but was oddly the most uplifting thing I have read, seen or heard for a very long time.

"V for Vendetta" is a kind of beginners guide to Anarchist Theory. Much as I hate dystopian novels (see a previous Blog I wrote on the subject earlier this year) I really dig this one. The action takes place in a nightmarish, future London during 1996-1998. The main paranoia during the 80s (when V was written) was the threat of nuclear war. V is written under the premise, that had a Labour government got into power during the 1980s, then all the American Missiles in The UK would have been removed, and as a result; we would have never been a target for annihilation. In the 1990s portrayed in V, the rest of Europe (and pretty much all the world from the looks of things) has been destroyed apart from The UK, which having been plunged into the chaos of nuclear winter, has been over-run by a Fascist government, going by the name of "Fate".

British People have never really gone in for Fascism, or Totalitarianism of any kind, we are just not wired that way, however in the case of the events leading up to "V for Vendetta", it is quite easy to imagine how Fascists would be given the opportunity to take over. As one of the "good" characters in the book Eric Finch, (interestingly enough, shortly before killing the hero) says;

"We couldn't let the chaos after the war continue, any society is better than that, we needed order" so the background of the story, (unlike most ridiculous dystopias, especially those set in The UK) is actually fairly convincing.

V wears a Guy Fawkes mask to conceal his identity, and one of his first actions, is to blow up The Houses of Parliament. The whole Guy Fawkes reference made "V for Vendetta" a nice seasonal read for me. November the 5th, Bonfire Night, and the annual burning of Fawkes' effigy has always freaked me out somewhat.

Throughout the book, V blows up a lot of London's prominent buildings, and cool as he is, he often conforms to the cliché of a violent Anarchist which could quite easily be seen by readers such as myself as offensive. However, his violence is counter-pointed by his psychological observations about Anarchy and the non-violent behaviour and principles of his apprentice and eventual successor; Evey Hammond.

The morality in "V for Vendetta" is often rather ambiguous, (which I like a lot). For a hero, V does a lot of horrendous things, aside for his fondness for blowing things up, and murdering people in a rather sadistic fashion, he also physically and mentally tortures the 17 year old Evey Hammond over a period of time, in order to "free her because he loves her" In spite of this, I found V to be one of the most believable and admirable fictional characters, that I have come across in a long time.

The two most likeable and conventionally "good" characters in the novel are Evey Hammond ( a teenage prostitute who V rescues from the secret police who are going to murder her, and he subsequently trains to become the new V) and Eric Finch, a detective who is charged with finding out who the terrorist V is, and bringing him to justice.

The reason that I think that "V for Vendetta" is a Beginners Guide to Anarchist Theory and not just an enjoyable comic about blowing stuff up, is because of the twin epiphanic moments that involve Evey and Finch during the novel.

Evey is falsely imprisoned by V, and Finch takes LSD in the derelict concentration camp, in which V was held and experimented on. In these extreme conditions, both characters reach the Kierkagaardian conclusion that everyone who turns to Anarchy experiences at some point. I am slightly thick, so I am limited in my abilities to describe this properly here; I suggest that if you want to learn more about what I mean by this, you read "V for Vendetta" (but don't watch the film, which I am sure sucks).

Aside from all this, there are some really nice motifs in the novel; the obsession with the number 5 and the letter V, the roses. The fact that Rose Almond; the future assassin of the president occupies dressing room 4 of the night-club where she dances. It is this type of symbolism that keeps the novel from sprawling and gives it a symbolic epic quality.

Before I finish writing, I feel I need to mention my fondness (or lack of it, in the case of the evil Helen Heyer) for the female characters in the novel. "V for Vendetta" could quite easily be a totally blokey book, considering its content and format, and especially considering how old it is (Moore and Lloyd started work on it in 1980) and as such, there is a real risk that the female characters could have been weak or boring (but hot, obviously) side-characters, as so often is sadly the case. However they are just as complex and dodgy and heroic and evil and good and screwed up as all the males in the novel. In fact the most relevant and inspirational character, Valerie, the dead actress from cubicle 4 in the concentration camp, who is the main influence on V and his ideology, is not only female, but gay. There aren't nearly enough heroic lesbians in literature, so kudos to "V for Vendetta" for including one (and in Valerie, they really did include a good one).

Whilst obsessing over the novel on Sunday, I was interrupted by a co-worker, a wonderful Basque Lady who said "V for Vendetta? Anyone who says they don't enjoy that, well they just don't like reading" which pretty much says it all really.