… a book review of The Interpretation of Murder
What would you do if you wanted to read:
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- A critical interpretation of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be…” soliloquy
- Freud’s psychoanalytical concepts based on the Oedipus complex
- About the critics, followers, competitors and rivals of Freud, and the fiery relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud
- About American society and culture in the early 20th century
- A fast-paced murder mystery
You would probably buy four to five books covering the varied range of subjects. Another more entertaining option would be to get a copy of Jed Rubenfeld’s Interpretation of Murder.
With a very distinct Arthur Conan Doyle feel, the author has crafted an intelligent and captivating thriller. Unlike many thrillers’ which are mostly circumstantial fiction, the Interpretation of Murder is a well-researched and informative book. The climax of the book is also well-contrived, though the enthusiastic reader may find the end slightly long-winding. But if a book touches so many varied aspects as allowed by Rubfield, you need to dedicate atleast 75-pages to tie the strings of a multi-faceted work and multifarious characters covering more than 400-pages.
The mystery is not very difficult to unravel, and towards the end a discerning reader may actually solve it without the author’s revelations. While this may intercept a distinct sense of satisfaction or a lingering feeling of “Who Dunit?” that reading a thriller or murder mystery usually entails, there is definitely no sense of disappointment. In fact it goes to the author’s credit to have interwoven so many details and characters with such finesse that the novel’s climax seems highly plausible.
One of the most lovable characters in the novel is Detective Littlemore and the reader may almost be wishing the success of the relentless endeavors of this diligent young officer. Nora Acton and Dr Younger are other prime players around whom the story revolves. The episodes involving Freud and Jung can trigger a desire to know more about the prime characters and conflicts surrounding psychoanalysis. The reference to Shakespeare and Hamlet can be very endearing to students of English literature.
All in all, the novel can keep you happily engaged for a fortnight while increasing your knowledge on tit-bits about the play Hamlet, the science of psychoanalysis, and the life and times of America in 1909 AD. As a first work by the author, it’s definitely worth commendation and it leaves a lot of hope for any other published works by Jed Rubenfeld. A befitting sequel can be worth watching out for.
About the book:
The Interpretation of Murder opens on a hot summer night in 1909 as Sigmund Freud disembarks in New York from a steamship. With Freud is his rival Carl Jung; waiting for him on the docks is a young physician named Stratham Younger, one of Freud’s most devoted American supporters. So begins this story of what will be the great genius’s first–and last–journey to America.
The morning after his arrival, a beautiful young woman is found dead in an apartment in one of the city’s grand new skyscrapers, The Balmoral. The next day brings a similar crime in a townhouse on Gramercy Park. Only this time the young heiress, Nora Acton, escapes with her life–but with no memory of the attack. Asked to consult on the case, Dr. Younger calls on Freud to guide him through the girl’s analysis.
Their investigation, and the pursuit of the culprit, lead throughout New York, from the luxurious ballrooms of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, to the skyscrapers rising on seemingly every street corner, to the bottom of the East River, where laborers digging through the silt to build the foundation of the Manhattan Bridge.
Drawing on Freud’s case histories, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the historical details of a city on the brink of modernity, The Interpretation of Murder introduces a brilliant new storyteller who, in the words of The New York Times, “will be no ordinary pop cultural sensation.”
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