|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 9:16 am: |       |
Hi there.
Some comments regarding Cornwell's book.
As being occupied with crime history myself (back in Sweden) and also having an academic background, I found a great deal of disturbing elements in Portrait of a Killer regarding Cornwell's handling of sources and regarding her "investigation" methods.
What strikes me - along with the majority of her critics - as most remarkable, is that she first obviously has decided that Sickert was the Ripper and then tries to build up her case on loose assumptions by manipulating facts and so called evidence to support this - indeed quite an unscientific approach. Instead of letting the source material speak for itself and lead the investigation, she does the opposite, and I'm afraid that makes her book less trustworthy.
Her book has it advantages, I think, in some ways. The chapters covering the social issues, the historic developments of the police force and her own forensic analyzises are well written and reveals a great deal of knowledge.
But what makes her "investigation" lacking in value, is her uncritical attitude towards her own material. Now, we all kmow that most Ripper experts have their own views on hwo was most likely to be the murderer (and bases their arguments on their theories upon this), but this is for the most part done in form of an discussion involving other theories and sources. Cornwell doesen't! To my great astonishment, she already in the book's opening chapters admits that she never had read anything that's been written about the Ripper and that she hasn't at all included these media in her research! If one studies her list of sources, it becomes evident that she totally (with some minor exeption) has ignored other books and authors in the field like Rumbelow, Evans, Martin Fido etc - they are not even included in the index list. I find it quite disturbing that she never discusses her own theories in relation (or in contrast) to their arguments and conclusion - instead she totally focuses on her own "findings" and isolates them. She obviously has the intention to create a monologue to convince the reader, not to create a dicussion with her or him - as a good author would. This is certainly not a method of argumentation that would have gained success if it was applied in the academic world or universities.
Regarding the DNA-investigation and the Ripper letters, she has only managed to show that Sickert most likely wrote some of the Ripper letters (and I don't doubt at all that he did), but that doesen't prove that the writer of the letters (or Sickert, for that matter) acually were the Ripper.As the motifs for the killings are concerned, there is no proof whatsoever that Sickert really had undergone these traumatic genital operations. But Cornwell takes this - and many other circumstances - for granted and treats them as actual facts. Like everything else in her book, it is all assumptions without fysical evidence (or even strong arguments) to support them. That's a shame.
As I am originally an art historian, I have tried to study the paintings Cornwell refers to as pointing in the direction of the Ripper. But I can't see anything that makes her conclusions relevant. Her discussions on this point seems very far-stretched indeed and the fact that Sickert did a number of paintings on the Ripper theme doesen't at all makes it more likely that he had "first hand information " about the killings (meaning that he was the actual murderer). A great del of artists before and after him have been strongly influenced by certain events, and like some of them (without being prejudiced) Sickert could easily pass for an eccentric, it sometimes comes with this field of occupation. But that - in addition to the assumption that he certainly was a psycopath - doesen't automatically makes him Jack the Ripper!
Any resemblance (if there is any!) in these paintings to some of the morgue photographs of the victims (which, as far as I've read, were published or displayed alredy during these years) doesen't prove for a fact that he was at the scene.
Now, I'm not saying that Walter Sickert wasn't JTR, I'm just (like many others) pointing out that she hasn't managed to prove it! As far as my own thoughts concerned, I myself agree with Ripperologists/crimonologists like Martin Fido and Richard Jones, that it was a mentally disturbed inhabitant of Whitechapel (who had his resident close to the area of where the killings took place), and possibly a polish poor immigrant, who commited the murderers. Then if he was in fact David Cohen/Kosminski/Kaminsky or some other similar individual not yet known is another question.
Thanks for now. I know that I'm sort of kicking in already open doors here, but since I'm new at this forum and quite an amateur in the field of JTR, I just wanted to hopefully open up to a discussion here. And as I said in my earlier posted thread (if it is accepted) concerning Mary Kelly, I hope you all here will excuse me for not being used to write in english.
Best to you all
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian
Helsingborg, Sweden |
Martin Fido
Detective Sergeant
Username: Fido
Post Number: 104
Registered: 6-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 7:24 am: | |
Glenn's piece echoes many of the thoughts in Caleb Carr's excellent New York Times Book Review's review of the great venture in hubristic folly. Carr concludes,
" Portrait of a Killer is a sloppy book, insulting to both its target and its audience.... [S]he should apologise for this exercise in calumny".
All the best,
Martin F |
Christopher T George
Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 256
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 2:38 pm: | |
Hi, Glenn:
I agree that a disturbing aspect of the Cornwell book is her lack of reference to other authors who have written on the topic. In reviewing the Cornwell book for Ripperologist that is one of the first things I noticed, that her bibliography was almost totally lacking in books on the case, beyond Evans and Skinner's Letters from Hell, the same authors' Ultimate Sourcebook and Sir Melvin Macnaghten's The Days of My Years. Yet even these sources are in a way mistreated since she fails to acknowledge the point made by Evans and Skinner that there is no evidence that any of the "Ripper" letters were sent by the killer, and she lambastes Macnaghten and other police officials for their mishandling of evidence and the case generally. I also agree that despite the fact that Cornwell has brought "science" to the case in terms of attempting to test for DNA, which could be a point in her favor and even a laudable step in the right direction, her preconceived notion that Walter Sickert must have been the Ripper is lamentably unscientific.
All the best
Chris George |
Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 10:14 am: | |
Hi Martin.
Glad to see you noticing my message, mr Fido, because you're my absolute favorite among the Ripperologists and English crimonologist (and I'm not easy to convince -- indeed I'm the critical type). As an adademic scholar one should, of course, try to be as objective as possible, but I must admit, that I have the highest respect for your work and I love your way of argumenting -- even though your not the only one who have contributed important views on the JTR mystery (oh, dear Lord. My english is more terrible than I thought...)
I just want to clarify one thing, however, to eliminate misunderstandings. I practically haven't read any reviews at all on Cornwell's disastrous book (certainly not american or english ones -- I don't have the time, unfortunately), although I've learnt that it's been critizised a lot. Interesting about the article, though; I most certainly must check it out. I must confess, however, that the subject title ("sloppy investigation") on my message is a quote from a friend of mine who shared my views on the book.
Martin!
I have a videotape containg a swedish home-made documentary about Elisabeth Stride, where you are participating and being interviewed (strangely enough the elderly man who produced the film, Bertil Falk, is asking you questions in swedish and you're responding in english -- kinda funny). Amongst other things you're taking the viewer on a guiding trip through Whitechapel and then I've been fascinated in the subject ever since. If you've stopped doing the "Ripper walks", it's a real shame.
The film has the bold title "Berättelsen om Elisabeth Stride. Svenskan som Jack inte skar upp" (The story of Elisabeth Stride. The Swede that Jack didn't multilated"). It's done with good research and is not bad at all as a documentary, but slightly amateurish and low-budget in it's production. The film was produced in 1992 but as far as clothes and hair-does are concerned, you get the impression that was made in the mid-70:s. I was, however, deeply impressed by the fact that you were generous enough to take part in such a production. Wonder if you remember any of it? 
Thank you kindly for writing, Martin.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
crime historian, Sweden |
Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, July 28, 2003 - 4:18 pm: | |
Hi there, George.
Well, what can I say? I agree with you completely.
And that's absolutely right; the three titles you refer to is actually listed, that is correct. But as you said, they hardly can be described as being handled in a correct manner. And what about Rumbelow, Sugden, Begg and others? I'm sure Patricia Cornewll is a marvellous novelist (I haven't read any of her books, though), but she obviously has no experience whatsoever in how to use and handle litterary sources in a scientific manner. It is an absolut scandal. I have read the book twice and I still can't find any real evidence for her assumptions. It's all guesswork.
I have now read the articel in New York Times that Fido refers to (on their website). To my great surprise, I found Caleb Carr's review being totally similar to my own personal views on the book. (You were right, Fido!). It is really a splendid article. I don't think Mr Carr and I (and some of you) are the only ones, though, to discover her total ignorance of other Ripperologists or the books other disturbing flaws -- these features are quite obvious for anyone with a slightest bit of experience in the case or of an academic education. Therefore, it is somewhat of a mystery that this point haven't been made by swedish reviewers...
Nice to see you people reacting to my post.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson |
Julie Frank
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 11:30 pm: | |
Cornwell should be ashamed of herself. This is the crappiest most biased "investigation" I have ever read. From what I've seen her main "evidence" is that he wrote numerous letters. Well that solves it for me! In my mind she hasn't even proven he wrote the letters. Let's suppose she's right and he did. All he's guilty of is mail fraud then. What about everyone else who wrote Ripper letters? Were they ALL in on it? I was so disappointed when I read this book. Cornwell needs to stick to fiction, because that's what this book is anyway. |
Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 12:35 pm: | |
"In my mind she hasn't even proven he wrote the letters. Let's suppose she's right and he did. All he's guilty of is mail fraud then. What about everyone else who wrote Ripper letters? Were they ALL in on it?"
Exactly my point as well, Julie. And you're certainly not the only one being dissapointed.
"Cornwell needs to stick to fiction, because that's what this book is anyway."
Extremely well put, Julie.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson |
K Renee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 04, 2004 - 9:52 am: | |
I just finished the audio CD of P. Cornwell's TRAGIC investigation of the Ripper. This book was a mess.
Her approach was flawed from the beginning with the assumption of guilt in one suspect, and the direction of the investigation being towards finding evidence to support the assumption. Indeed had she objectively collected evidence that led her to a single suspect, I would have SOME faith in this piece.
She married the flawed approach with flawed logic. For instance it is her assertion that the unnamed and unsubstantiated operations to Sickert's penis necessarily left him impotent. But she showed ZERO evidence that this man was impotent and sexless throughout his life. She actually DISMISSES all evidence to the contrary (he was 3 times married and was divorced on grounds of adultery and enjoyed "slumming"). Another horrible leap (which left me stricken dumb with the sheer idiocy of it) was the explanation that Sickert's/The Ripper's intense hatred of women/prostitutes stemmed from his mother being an illegitimate child. Huh? My favorite was tying the "Ha Ha" in the letters to Sickert's association with Whistler, whose laugh was similar. Actually as the book continued I began thinking that she made as strong a case to Whistler being the killer as to Sickert.
It was really a blessing that I found this book on audio cd, thereby giving Cornwell a captive audience (stuck in traffic as I was), otherwise I would have cast this book aside. It bored me to the point of catatonia. She spent too much time with details of things that bore little or no importance to the case. In my opinion this was all smoke to wow us with how educated and informed she was about things most of us are not, and therefore we should just take her opinion at faith. She droned ad nauseum about DNA - her knowledge of it, how accurate it is. But you don't need a doctorate to put two and two together - if the DNA doesn't place a suspect at the scene of the crime you don't have a case. Period. No knowledge of the science required.
At best Cornwell may have provided enough evidence to INVESTIGATE the possibility that Walter Sickert may have written some of the Ripper letters. Okay, perhaps he did. What does that prove? It proves he could write and perhaps had a sick fascination with the case. But many did at the time. Many still do. Yet as compelling as her argument may have been (it was the best argument she had in her), to make her case "closed" she needed to connect the letters to the actual killer. She did not do this.
I was also bothered by her assertion that nearly EVERYBODY who has looked at the case prior to her own "scientific" investigation was a complete idiot who missed ALL the important signs. And while I am certainly skeptical of human opinion (as we are all subjective at all times), I am not inclined to completely dismiss the findings of law enforcement of an earlier time because they didn't have fancy machines to back up their hunches. The truth is that human nature has always been such. Science doesn't really give us new insight on it, it just proves what we've suspected all along. It crosses the "T" and dots the "i", so to speak.
Truly the most appalling thing about this whole project is the arrogance of the author. Too arrogant to learn the subject matter before attempting to put it to rest. Too arrogant to even INVESTIGATE the opinions that don't mirror her own. Too arrogant to question her own approach. And I dare say, too arrogant to even edit her work (from a writing perspective this was as much a mess as anything else).
Sickert MAY have been the Ripper. But Ms. Cornwell's investigation into the matter hasn't brought us any closer to this conclusion than we were before. |
Ally
Chief Inspector
Username: Ally
Post Number: 709
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 07, 2004 - 10:51 am: | |
Hello, K. Renee
It is nice to have someone of ruthless logic on the board. I quite agree with everything you said! Were you a Cornwell fan prior to reading PoK or was this your first book by her?
 |
K Renee
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Monday, August 09, 2004 - 1:58 pm: | |
Hi Ally,
I'm in the process of joining this board outright, but I'm excited to start reading and maybe one day even add my 2 cents.
As for P. Cornwell. I had not read any of her other books, although I have a few on my shelves (a friend recommended her and picked up a few for me at a second-hand sale). But by reputation alone, I expected much more than this.
I was truly embarrassed for her. She calls herself a writer and a detective and in this instance she was horrible at both. |
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
