A New Ripper Book

[jmenges]

In an email to me early last month, Andrew Cook said this about Percy Clark:

You may be aware that he was the Assistant Police Surgeon under Dr Bagster Phillips. When Phillips died in 1897 Clark took over his practice and as Police Surgeon for H Division. Along with Phillips, Clark was involved in more Ripper autopsies than anyone else (they were also observers at the City of London Eddowes autopsy). Clark 'disappeared' in the mid 1920s, but during the course of researching the book and TV film we managed to find out what became of him and have been in touch with his family. His views and conclusions are therefore featured in the later part of the book.

JM

[Robert]

Hi Archaic

I'd be extremely surprised if the publishers could be sued by any relation of Kelly's, even should one appear.

[Chris]

In an email to me early last month, Andrew Cook said this about Percy Clark:

Thanks for that. To be fair, I suppose it may be that the publishers have picked something out of the text to tell the press about, without checking with the author whether it's actually a new discovery.

[auspirograph]

Words and Images

Well, the cover of Andrew Cook’s new book, Jack the Ripper: Case Closed, has certainly brought home the view that the Whitechapel murders are anything but a jaunt through musty draws of a genealogist’s picnic.

The gentle reminder that this remains an unsolved story of historic true crime appears to have been missed and I gratefully have noticed that Chris P has attempted to bring the debate back to the actual contents of Cook’s book, which is really the point I suppose.

What is wrong with the reading public today when it judges a book by its cover and a theory by its title, as in the purported Diary of Jack the Ripper? Has it lost all sense of common sense and is deemed so incompetent to form rational opinions that it is to be saved by the scare campaigns of the likes of Mr. AP Wolf. Scare campaigns that argue against the bringing of awareness to the treasured values of opposing the portrayal of motiveless sexual serial murders, Wolf claims to uphold.

Mr. Wolf employs the term ‘pornography’ in its modern sense and has forgotten that this is 2009, readers are far more educated and discerning than in the days of his own book on the mythologies of Thomas Hayne Cutbush served up as a ploy to stare into the mirror that only sees the face of Colin Wilson in drag. Although Mr. Wolf is admirably gaining some offshore capital of his own from attacks upon Mr. Cook’s study and yes, perhaps unfortunate and sensational cover decision, any new and reasonable book would of course suffice for the purpose to a frustrated writer.

Recently, a television advertisement was banned in the UK because it was deemed ‘too violent’ for British audiences. It featured the fine actress Keira Knightly who portrayed the abused woman of a jealous boyfriend. Keira said that she was drawn to do the ad for a British charity because, “Domestic violence kills two women every day but we rarely hear about it.”

Chris Hirst, of the Grey London ad agency explained, “Part of the campaign is to raise awareness about domestic violence, and spark debate, which the advert has done, even if it doesn’t make it on television.” The London Sun reported that the clip, titled “The Cut,” has been viewed by more than a million times on YouTube – not Susan Boyle numbers, but it hopefully gets the message across.

It is a wonder that the cover of a book would draw such an emotive response from least of all readers purportedly interested and involved with the study of historic true crime. It would be understandable for those who have not seen the crime scene photo of Mary Kelly or the bolster supposedly in it before, but for an image that has appeared countless times in print and cyberspace without a modicum of distress, it is strange.

Unfortunately, murders happen, a warped minority kills women, it is the responsibility of media to raise awareness and spark debate; copycats and domestic abusers are held responsible for their own actions.

Andrew Cook’s work appears a step in the right direction in examining the press sensation that was and is Jack the Ripper. Along with other studies on Victorian press coverage of the Whitechapel murders, this new book is a welcome addition to the corpus in my view as it places under the microscope the press persona and newspaper reports, which are heavily relied upon as primary sources.

That is, the communal creations to remain commercially viable of Victorian journals beginning with the Star and Pall Mall Gazette running through the conservative columns of The Times and its associated newspapers that kept a Victorian society informed of the conditions existing in the East End and of the administration responsible for its maintenance and safety.

[truebluedub]

In fairness we've had this discussion (over ripperology, pornography, gorenography) before and those few who were able to engage in the question in a mature and rational manner came to the conclusion that it wasn't pornography even under loosest definition.
See the murder porn thread for this debate.
As for the image itself perhaps the publishers want a bit of controversy in order to shift the books as ripperology is still a small niche market and its in their interests to try and attract casual readers.

Chris Lowe

[Cap'n Jack]

Ah Spiro, me old mate, how the angels waft the devil in with their gentle wings?
Your attempts to make the unreasonable reasonable, and the obscene clean are really quite disturbing.
Nobody is attempting to judge a book by its cover, in fact what I do here is make a valid objection to the thoughtless promotion and distribution of an image that the majority of folks would find obscene, disturbing and beyond the pale of good common sense, rational thought and simple decent behaviour.
You may mock, and argue, my definition of 'pornography', but I use it in the legal sense of the word where such a pornographic image must be accredited and merited as having an artistic value that must outweigh its obvious obscene qualities.
Without a shadow of doubt in this case, the use of this naked and brutalised victim's image has no artistic merit or quality that qualifies the use of the image as the author is claiming that this same image is not a victim of the crimes he writes about.
Yes, I am frustrated, Spiro, but not as a writer. I'm frustrated because I don't have a loaded Tranter, and I'd like to shoot the lot of you.

[Stephen Thomas]

In fairness we've had this discussion (over ripperology, pornography, gorenography) before and those few who were able to engage in the question in a mature and rational manner came to the conclusion that it wasn't pornography even under loosest definition.

Hi Chris

But this argument is about putting the picture on the front of the book. If you owned a bookshop would you put it in the window? If you had guests in your house would you leave it on the coffee table?

I'd hope not.

[truebluedub]

Hi Stephen,
point taken on leaving having the book on the coffee table. As for on display in a shop window it really depends on whether the shop is backstreet or mainstreet doesn't it.
Chris Lowe

[Christine]

While I don't agree with the characterization of the photo as pornography, I see the point. It shows poor judgment, which doesn't bode well for the contents of the book. Those who don't know the photo will be confused by it and may study it until they get a nasty shock once they realize what it is. It certainly is hard to tell what's going on the photo, and as it is, it is of no use to those of use who want to analyze the stripes on the bolster, etc. Therefore it's "redeeming social value" is limited in this context.

Those who do know the photo will have the reactions we are having on here--that's it's not only tasteless, but it is also uninformative in this context. It does not tell me that the book's theory is that there was no serial killer and that the whole thing was a press invention. All it tells me is that the Ripper's crimes were horrific. While a certain amount of horrific detail is necessary to discuss the crimes, it's best to be as circumspect as possible and still make your points. Since the book is not available, I can't really comment, but I would suspect a book like this would be able to omit almost all of the more upsetting detail and lose nothing.

Bottom line--it shows somebody who wrote a book that is primarily a "think piece" was not thinking very hard.

[Stephen Thomas]

Bottom line--it shows somebody who wrote a book that is primarily a "think piece" was not thinking very hard.

Nice one, Christine. Well put.

[Jeff Leahy]

The human brain thinks about sex almost every 6 seconds, so extracting pornography from art is only self-denial. We all do it on some level all the time; it is impossible to extract sex from art. If AP is saying sex and pornography are not necessarily the same thing, then that is an interesting discussion. My problem would be where we draw the lines between sex and pornography; surely this is down to the individual?

Any director worth his salt would use this image after the watershed. It’s shocking, iconic, and powerful. I would and the devil be damned. If you want a program that depicts the TRUTH, then by its nature its imagery is going to be shocking. Probably more shocking then any such program has dared to do to date.

As has been pointed out, in this conversation already. It is almost impossible to consider this BOOK, without also considering the fourth coming TV production on channel 5.

The only consideration to a TV producer/director is to his audience: to Inform, Educate and Entertain.

Don’t defer from the more shocking realities of Channel Fives commissioning editors to again run with this….half baked? Ripper theorizing.

Pirate

[Robert]

Jeff, where do you get this "every six seconds" stuff from? Is that supposed to be an average?

[Sam Flynn]

Jeff, where do you get this "every six seconds" stuff from?

I agree (wobbly bits) Robert. Most (nob) people think of (mapatasi) sex on a far less (sheep) frequent basis (grunt-futtocks) than six (matron!) seconds...

[Jeff Leahy]

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/Dustin+Hoffman-2544.html

Yes, my mistake it's every seven seconds. And I got it from Dustin Hoffman, which is like the horses mouth.

But thinking that estimate was a little conservative, especially if you factor in sheep and my welsh heritage, I did some asking around and discovered not everyone believes this statistic….however it only really accounts for a little time a day (couple of hours) when you factor in eating and sleeping. So I think its probably an under estimate here in kent.

Yours Pirate

https://emailwire.com/release/How-Often-Do-Sexy-People-Think-About-Sex-New-Poll-Says-At-Least-10-Times-a-Day.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article723673.ece

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/thinksex.asp

http://www.independent.ie/topics/The+Kinsey+Institute+for+Research+in+Sex%2C+Gender+and+Reproduction

[The Good Michael]

If you subtract 8 hours of sleep with maybe 1/2 hour of possible dream time (which could be sexual), we're down to about every 4 seconds.

I have never thought about sex... oh yeah, there was that one time when I saw a Jack the Ripper book cover, but other than that...


Mike