MEMORIES OF JACK THE RIPPER (of Clanash Farjeon - Ed Gargoyle Books) 
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-88-89541-24-1
Pages: 328
Published: September 2008 London. Late nineteenth century. Whitechapel district. I need not add more because your mind goes to freedom of association to the bloody crimes of signing unknown, the newspapers of the time attributed to the elusive "Jack the Ripper." Seven
certain crimes (but perhaps many more) that kept many people awake for more than one night. Seven women
slaughtered, butchered, mutilated and then abandoned by the able hands dirty in dark alleys. Perhaps as a warning, perhaps macabre challenge authority. Then, almost overnight, nothing.
The case was filed, but the menacing shadow of Jack continues to hang over us, almost two hundred years later, to become a modern version of "black man".
are still many people who engage in the reconstruction of these bloody events in order to give a face to the Ripper mystery. Needless
! It seems that this thing was born to be talked about.
But look around calmly. The killings followed each other around 1888, or in the middle of the Victorian era. This was an era very controversial, made up of social tensions and end the poetic lyricism. The romance was outdated, and although the romantic literature was still in vogue, intellectuals began to open up more social problems such as education of the masses or the difficult living conditions of workers and lower classes in general.
again in the history of class struggle the bourgeoisie opposed to the common people.
was a time when, in fact, lived next to a strong popular indignation exaggerated respectability of the upper classes.
This is the scenario painted by masterfully Clanash Farjeon, in which an unsuspecting psychiatrist will be one of the most famous and bloody history of criminology. The author reconstructs in detail the events from contemporary accounts, figuring it's the same murderess to reorganize their memories.
In fact, there is not much more to say in terms of stylistic and narrative. No doubt it is a great book, written very well although perhaps at a pace a little slow.
But I do not want to talk about what is written in the book, but rather what is not written and that everyone should understand.
Clanash Farjeon is not just a narrator. He advocates a "horror society" that has few precedents in the history of this important genre. In his hands, the horror becomes the instrument of denunciation, a paradigm, an excuse to talk about the social, of our day.
to look good, "the memoirs of Jack the Ripper" is more a psychological drama than a horror. Think about it: we find a man (the name is really irrelevant, since it could be anyone of us) crushed by their social role, castrated by the rampant and respectability in the middle of a midlife crisis. Immergiamolo in the context of social uncertainty described above and we will have created a monster.
Because in a society where the euphemism is a must, under the veil of politeness, delicacy and good taste, always hiding an accumulation of frustrations and repressed instincts that, like Freudian psychoanalysis has shown, must necessarily emerge in all their power to ease the psychological pressure. It is interesting to note that two years before the murders in Whitechapel, in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, with almost prophetic gift, has given the light "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Similarly
work cited in "The Memoirs of Jack the Ripper" we have another case of double personality: by day, the protagonist is an eminent psychiatrist, a night of cold and bloodthirsty beast.
Jack is necessary, therefore, as a mirror of Victorian London: so clean and tidy on the surface is so marked and restless soul.
In fact, anyone who has the media hidden behind the guise of "Jack the Ripper," was a pure. He was the one who has gone beyond the concept of good and evil, who has grasped the catharsis nell'efferatezza. One who has materialized aggression ubiquitous as repressed. In a sense, Jack has been created by society, by people, not just from the media, as a response to that state of affairs. The events take place so that they could not. Someone had to wear his clothes or would precipitate the whole social order. Because Jack is the face in shadow of a society that hides behind the "okay". Jack is a tragedy and scandal. Jack is redemption through barbarism is aware of his own shadow and not the fact that you can never erase.
Clanash Farjeon does not speak of 1888, neither of Victorian London. He speaks today, our city, of our situation. Keep an eye on the newspapers, people! Because Jack has never stopped killing.
(Review by) Valerio Bonante
