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Spent a good amount of time before Christmas ploughing my way through this tome and can say with certainty that, no, I didn't love this Jack. Apart from the few usual words about poverty in the East End, I couldn't find much interest in the victims. There was some babble regarding metal on, round or under them (I lost interest in this eventually, but apparently this has to do with Freemasons (!), which appeared to be the main theme of the book: HE was a Freemason, he WAS a Freemason, he was (wait for it) a FREEMASON! His evidence for this was thin to say the least: if you are looking for a plural of JU, the obvious would be JUs or JUes, not JUWES and his obsession with the inverted v falls on his world shattering piece of evidence "proving" that two inverted "v"s proved that Kate Eddowes' injuries were known to someone at the time (naturally the murderer) falls on the fact that inverted "v"s (or "y"s) indicated words added to a sentence when there was no room to write them in place, and indeed there are two words written above the line. The book is more about Freemasons than JTR, or indeed his suspect and deteriorates into what can be described as resembling a little boy's whining because the big boys won't let him join their club! In fact, any conspiracy theory regarding a cover up would not be dependant on the big boy's club. This was the age of Scott and Oates and Kipling. Freemasonery would not be necessary to cover up a scandal threatening Queen and Country, any ex-public schoolboy would put his life and reputation on the line.
Not without humour, though. We are expected to swallow Maybrick's difference in height to the 5' plus suspect (he was six foot two) on the claim that he bought grapes from Packer and had to bend down to the window, thus appearing much shorter.
I won't bother anyone with the fact that Maybrick is credited with writing all of the letters to the police on the grounds that he claimed to be able to write several different hands (which doesn't mean he could alter his handstyle at will, merely that someone who could for example write in the style of handwriting favoured by lawyers - rather like different fonts on a computer).
As for his liberal sprinkling of obscenities throughout the book, I feel this is designed to draw attention from his literary failings.
No, not worth its weight. In my opinion, anyway. A very tedious book!
Best wishes
C4
Not without humour, though. We are expected to swallow Maybrick's difference in height to the 5' plus suspect (he was six foot two) on the claim that he bought grapes from Packer and had to bend down to the window, thus appearing much shorter.
I won't bother anyone with the fact that Maybrick is credited with writing all of the letters to the police on the grounds that he claimed to be able to write several different hands (which doesn't mean he could alter his handstyle at will, merely that someone who could for example write in the style of handwriting favoured by lawyers - rather like different fonts on a computer).
As for his liberal sprinkling of obscenities throughout the book, I feel this is designed to draw attention from his literary failings.
No, not worth its weight. In my opinion, anyway. A very tedious book!
Best wishes
C4
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