Does anybody here feel the same way I do?

[Celesta]

In fact, when I wrote my Ripper book for the Swedish market, tears rolled down my face during the chapter about Eddowes. I am quite an oversensitive person, and the worst thing for me - and what really gets to me - in any murder case is the life stories of the victims rather than gory medical details or crime scene shots. Because it is at that point the people comes alive and you make a personal connection.

All the best

I don't know if you're an over-sensitive person, but, based on this post, you sound like a humane one. I think your post is well said, and I thank you for posting it.

[halomanuk]

Glenn my old friend,have you published the book in English because i would love to see it as i value your opinions highly and have been away for another while !!
And Celesta ..thanks for my birthday greeting ,i got it but couldn't respond at the time..thanks sweetheart xxxx

[Celesta]

My pleasure, Barry. Just hope you're alright. Glad to see you posting again.

Glenn, I want to read it, too.

Best,

Cel

[andy.s]

Yes I feel sympathy, not only for their deaths but also for the short miserable lives they no doubt had.
Victorian England produced extremes of wealth and extremes of poverty, for every mill owner an 8 yr old kid dodging under the loom and for every factory owner an 8 yr old kid up a chimney.
Circumstance dictated that an underclass had to exist and that underclass gravitated to areas like spitalfields and whitechapel.
While you had the pomp and ceremony, the ridiculous gloried rubbish that was rourkes' drift etc We showed little empathy for the unfortunates that fuelled the machine that built an Empire.
In our now more enlightened times i find i can take a moment to sympathise with someone who was born without a chance, lived a hopeless life and died in terror in a grubby London gutter...
R.I.P to all of 'em

[RonnieKray]

A very kind post andy.s.

[BLUE WIZZARD]

After reading the post on this site, It makes me proud to say that I am a regular here, the compassion and feelings for the victims not only for the death they experienced here but also the difficult lives they lived.

Without that kind of compassion we would be nothing but robots milling though clues, completely dead in the head, kind of like the new doctors that are coming into hospitals these days with no bed side manners, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

BW

Il y a quelque temps de sentiments ne peut pas engourdir,
Ni tremblement de torture.
(Lord Byron)

[Celesta]

RonnieK,

I feel sadness, but I also feel anger for the victims. In my mind, there's no statute of limitations on these crimes. I know we'll never know who the killer was, or if we do, we'll likely not be able to prove it, but if we were to know, I think there would be a cosmic sigh of relief. JTR didn't want his identity known---apparently--- and if the world were to discover his identity that would be a form of justice, or revenge.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Halomanuk and Celesta,

Sorry but it was a book project totally aimed at the Swedish audience since there exists no book on the national home market directly made for the Swedish audience. It was badly needed since many in Sweden still believe the Ripper was a cloak-dressed guy with top hat and Gladstone bag and with a Royal connection.
The book is turning paper-back this spring but no plans havbe been made to publish it internationally and frankly I don't think there is a need for yet another reference book on the subject in English. Rumbelow's and Evans' latest masterpiece is all you need.
But thanks anyway.

Anyone who writes about crime needs to possess an large portion of empathy if you're going to be able to describe these people, their struggles and their environment in a convincing way. Because that is what history is all about: turning people into flesh and blood and living creatures and not just crime victims or blood and gore.
Taking part of their life's stories is sometimes painful but also incredibly rewarding.

That is why the last Conference in Wolverhampton really got to me. One could feel it was in Eddowes' honour and you could practically feel her spirit hanging all over the place especially since that was her home turf. I was very much moved by it, and it was incredibly touching to see that sketch of her on all the Conference signs at the hotel, and I am sure she had a ball watching it. It was a very moving experience for me.

All the best

[Mary_Jane_Kelly]

thank you ronniekray for posting this thread, casebook really needed it.

my feelings towards the victims is nothing but love and respect. not only for the poor girls but also for the rest of the east end.

i can understand fully what people say about connections to the victims, because i also too have connections to them. not so much all of them, just MJK.

i am not really interested in the ripper or even that bothered about unmasking him, nor am i even really interested about the case in genaral. but i am drawn too MJK. i feel like i somehow know her.....

i am a true beleave in past lifes and one day i am going to get regressed because i think that maby i could have been her in my previouse life.


if you are not open minded or do not personally beleave in past lifes or regression that is fine and i respect that. so could you please respect me and not write insults in a reply.


all the best,

---MJK---

[Celesta]

Hi Glenn,

I'm sorry we won't get to read it.

It's important for people to understand that history is about the actions of real human beings---the things they did right and those they screwed up. If it's made to seem dry, reduced to just facts to be memorized and immediately forgotten after an exam, then the human connection can be stripped from it. If we don't understand that the actions of people of earlier times are pertinent to us, and to those who are in power, then our perspective will be too limited. Recent events indicate that when people in power, whether business or government, are ignorant of history, then we're all doomed to pay for the mistakes of those people, who never learned from the wrong turns of our forebears. So I think you're right in injecting the humanity back into the history.

As a child I couldn't be bothered with history unless it was about an era that interested me, but as an adult I can't imagine not having it as a passion. As a kid, I didn't know that by nursing my passion for a particular "cool" era in history was also nursing a passion for history.

Hope this is not too confusing. Got a bit of a headache.

Best wishes,

cel

[WARSPITE]

i agree celesta. I think they really suffered, in life and death,but in a way,their names are immortal now.