Resumo de Interpretation Of Murder

INTERPRETATION OF MURDER by Jed Rubenfeld has been the subject of much deserved pre-publication publicity. It is a tale made up of many elements: Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, eroticism, Shakespeare, murder, mystery, insanity, and an unusual but realistic character, the city of New York in the early 20th century. The book provides a view of 1900?s New York as you?ve never experienced, concise, complex and riveting. Rubenfeld has proven himself to be a master craftsman in the art of literature as he manages to integrate all of these factors into a fascinating and exciting tale that page after page puzzles, titillates, challenges and intrigues.

THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER opens with the arrival of Sigmund Freud in New York; he is there to give a series of lectures and receive a prestigious award at Clark University. However, a new character is strongly introduced, Stratham Younger, an American psychoanalyst representing Clark and a dedicated student of Freud's work. Also, a character of high importance and moral fibre is New York Police detective Jimmy Littlemore. Jimmy is new to the responsibility of police work and his most important professional asset is his lack of corruptibility.

Stratham and Jimmy are increasingly pulled closer to one another?s circle as events parallel each other and create circles of intrigue and investigation. A woman (a stranger to the city) is found, presumably strangled, in a suite at one of New York's most luxurious hotels. Jimmy Littlemore has just began the foundation of his investigation when the victim?s body mysteriously disappears. Stratham is then recruited by the police department to assist in the investigation of a vicious assault upon Nora Acton within the bedroom of her home, a wealthy young woman of highstanding parents. Nora Acton appears to be so traumatised by the trauma of the assault that she is diagnosed mute and amnesic; here enters Stratham Younger to treat her ailment in hope that she might be able to help the police.

Meanwhile, Freud appears to be the target of an anonymous campaign of innuendo and deception meant to derail the receipt of his award and the presentation of his lectures. The mystery behind these events leaves trails leading to and from areas as diverse as Gramercy Park, the impoverished Chinatown, a hospital for the insane and an engineering marvel known as the Manhattan Bridge. The plotlines dip and swirl around and across each other, with discussions of topics such as the Oedipus complex and Shakespeare's Hamlet woven into their fabrics.

Jed Rubenfeld is a Professor of Law at Yale University and an acknowledged expert on the topic of United States Constitutional Law, a topic barely broached in the novel, but his grasp of his material is immediate and first-rate. Rubenfeld's description of New York in 1909 is one that only could have been borne out of exhaustive research. Still, he does not permit his narrative to be swallowed up by its backdrop and surroundings. Each of his characters is memorable in his or her own way. There is a particular scene, a dinner party that takes place about midway through the novel, wherein a major character, previously only mentioned, appears in the flesh. Rubenfeld utilizes this introduction to delve more deeply into the personalities of other characters, even as they stand in silent thrall of the new arrival.

Jed Rubenfeld has a stout knowledge and possession of fact which helps him create this masterpiece, which although fiction, is compiled with fact and belief of conversations and events.

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