#Cultural History Motive for Murder?

 

6. by Stephen Kern (no photo)

Finish date: 09 January 2022
Genre: cultural history
Rating: C
Review:

Stephen Kern is an Distinguished Research Professor so I should not have been surprised how ‘academic, scholarly’ this book was But I was a bit bushwhacked. My rating is still C because the book delivered exactly what was intended but it was a difficult read.

Good news: Kern examines a specific factors or motives for murder.
Insightful to read the differences between
19th C Victor Hugo/Charles Dickens:
overbearing religious training producing killers like Frollo Hunchback of ND and Headstone Our Mutual Friend
20th C Patricia Highsmith/André Gide protecting loss of identity (Tom kills Dickie Greenleaf) in The Talented Mr. Ripley and the desire to commit a ‘motiveless crime’ (Lafcadio pushes man to his death on a train …for nothing. In other words: “I kill, therefore I am!”) in Lafcadio .

Bad news Not really bad….but you should be warned this book is not for the fainthearted!

Personal There is a lot to be learned in this book and if you see it in the library….take a look!
The best advice I can give is to skim the chapters and select the items that refer to a books (literature) that catch your eye. I will certainly look more carefully in CF, detectives and  novels for the
true motive (class difference, greed, fear, revenge, hatred, sexually repressed, traumatic childhood) for murder!