The story of Jack the Ripper (and all the conspiracy and speculation surrounding it) is fascinating. I read the appendix along with the graphic novel itself (I'd read a few pages, then flip to the back). It was not a very effecient way to read, but the clarification of what was pure fiction, what was commonly acknowledged fact, and what was rumor based on rumor based on a snippet of truth, was almost more interesting than the main story itself. Of course the latter couldn't exist without the former. ( )
"From Hell" is Moore and Campbell's take on Jack the Ripper, which centers around William Gull, an esteemed freemason and doctor, who is their pick for the killer. Gull's life story is told in the book, though the majority of the book surrounds the murders and the detectives hot on his trail.
"From Hell" is a literary departure from Moore's more well-known works ("Watchmen", "V for Vendetta"). Full of pseudo-historic references, the story unfolds in an unconventional manner (the killer's identity is never concealed) around its characters rather than around its own plot. Artfully executed as it was though, I found "From Hell" a little too serious and overwrought throughout. ( )
Alan Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper mystery is nothing short of a treatise in graphic novel format, including a heavily detailed Appendix to explain not only his own ideas about the role of society and psychology, but to expound on many other experts' as well. I don't think anyone can argue the fact that Alan Moore is a bit of a genius and this book does nothing to change that. Moore's decision to develop Stephen Knight's ideas about the identity of the Ripper and the Mason conspiracy is dramatically extremely appealing even if it's not one that most experts think likely to be true.
The art, however, is somewhat disappointing to me; Eddie Campbell is very good at setting a dismal mood and his architectural drawings are beautiful, but his characters are so roughly sketched that they are sometimes indiscernible from one another, which makes some scenes incomprehensible until you turn to the Appendix to read about what is actually going on. I read the annotations concurrently with the story and would recommend reading them like this even though they slow down the reading pace and some of the drama is lost - in fact, without them I would have misunderstood the storyline quite a few times. ( )
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Au-top-sy (ô-top'se) n. 1. Dissection and examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death.
2. An eyewitness observation. 3. Any critical analysis. [from Greek autos, self opis, sight: the act of seeing with one's own eyes]
COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY
One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.
CHARLES FORT, LO!
Everything must be considered with its context, words, or facts.
SIR WILLIAM WITHEY GULL, NOTES & APHROISMS
"[Sickert's red handkerchief] was an important factor in the process of creating his picture, a lifeline to guide the train of thought, as necessary as the napkin which Mozart used to fold into points which met each other when he too was composing.
MARJORIE LILLY
author of SICKERT, THE PAINTER AND HIS CIRCLE
"She says he knew who Jack the Ripper was."
VIOLET OVERTON FULLER,
referring to artist Florence Pash, friend and confidant of Walter Sickert, as quoted to SICKERT & THE RIPPER CRIMES by Jean Overton Fuller
"Do you think the sun gets dazzled by its own light?" JAMES HINTON
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON (1878)
"As we watch Hinton in this struggle we seem sometimes to be conscious of a prophet who is caught up from the Earth in a whirlwind he cannot control, and borne away in a chariot we cannot follow." MRS HAVELOCK ELLIS
JAMES HINTON: A SKETCH (1918)
"Oh me! I am happy and sorry: and just now I cannot see a bit
Whether than gladness I think is coming on the Earth is coming or not.
JAMES HINTON
THE LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON
"Were such a thought adopted, we should have to imagine some stupendous whole, wherein all that has ever come into being or will come coexists, which, passing slowly on, leaves in this flickering consciousness of ours, limited to a narrow space and a single moment, a tumultuous record of changes and vicissitudes that are but to us."
C. HOWARD HINTON
WHAT IS THE FOURTH DIMENSION? (Manuscript version, 1884)
"I must be a person not making things evil."
JAMES HINTON
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON
(Hinton) was one of the pioneers of humanity through the obscure and dark ways of the senses to the region of truth."
WILLIAM WITHEY GULL
Introduction toTHE LIFE AND LETTERS OF JAMES HINTON
"Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry. History is captivating to the reader from its very nature, for it holds out the hope of various novelties. Poetry, with its measures and metrical feet, its refinement in the arrangement of words and the delivery in verse of the sentiments expressed by the several characters to one another, delights the feeling of the reader, and leads him smoothly on to the very end of the work.
But this cannot be the case with architectural treatises, because those terms which originate the peculiar needs of the art, give rise to obscurity of ideas from the unusual nature of language. Hence, while the things themselves are not well known, and their names not in common use, if besides this the principles are described in a very diffuse fashion without any attempt at conciseness and explanation in a few pellucid sentences, such as fullness and amplitude of treatment will only be a hindrance, and will give the reader nothing but indefinite notions. Therefore, when I mention obscure terms, and the symmetrical proportions of members of buildings I shall give brief explanations, so that they may be committed to memory, for thus expressed, the mind will be enabled to understand them more easily."
THE TEN BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE by VITRUVIUS
(1st Century BC, Harvard University Press, 1914)
"THE STUMBLING BLOCK has been used like an entrance stop to sharpen knives on. Its fossil bristle of right stone forcing the heavy blades down to a hiss along one edge. These are knives of gleaming hubris, long intensions boned for malice. They are magnetized and have been placed to construct a lecturn. Each blade holding the next to form the platform. It may hold this index at its center, hovering, placed outside in the aorta of streets. The removal of any of the blades from the assembled cluster will spill their fishbodies to the ground. The paper will drink up any of the stains of their usage."
THE STUMBLING BLOCK ITS INDEX by B. CATLING (Book Works, 1990)
"Never print what I say in my lifetime, but that mummy-case caused the war."
SIR EARNEST BUDGE, Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, 1893-1924.
THE NEMESIS OF NEGLECT
"There floats a phantom of the slum's foul air,
Shaping to eyes which have the gift of seeing,
Into the spectre of that loathly lair,
Face it -- for vain is fleeing!
Red handed, ruthless, furtive, unerect,
'tis murderous crime -- the Nemesis of neglect!"
PUNCH, or THE LONDON CHARIVARI,
September 29, 1888
"In the source of our inquiries amongst numerous women of the same class as the deceased it was ascertained that a feeling of terror existed against a man known as Leather Apron..."
-- from Inspector Frederick George Abberline's Special Report upon the murder of Mary Nichols, 1888.
quoted in JACK THE RIPPER: THE FINAL SOLUTION by Stephen Knight (Grafton Books, 1977)
"Although at present we are unable to procure any evidence to connect him with the murders, [Joseph Issenschmidt] appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes."
from Inspector Abberline's Special Report, Sept. 18th, 1888, quoted from Knight, Ibid.
"Theories! We were almost lost in theories, there were so many of them."
Inspector Abberline quoted in CASSELL'S SATURDAY JOURNAL, May 22, 1892.
"You can state most emphatically that Scotland yard is really no wiser on the subject than it was fifteen years ago...I know that it has been stated in certain quarters that Jack the Ripper was a man who died in a lunatic asylum a few years ago, but there is nothing at all of a tangible nature to support such a theory."
Inspector Abberline, interviewed in THE PALL MALL GAZETTE, Spring 1903.
"Abberline never wavered in his firm conviction that [George] Chapman and Jack the Ripper were one in the same person. When [Detective Sgt. George] Godley arrested Chapman, Abberline said to his confrere, 'You've got Jack the Ripper at last.'"
H.L. Adam, THE TRIAL OF GEORGE CHAPMAN, 1930.
"I cannot reveal anything except this: of course, we knew who [the Ripper] was, one of the highest in the land.
Inspector Abberline quoted by Nigel Morland, Editor,
in THE CRIMINOLOGIST, 1979.
"Her address is 17, Bruton Mews was only 3-5 minutes round the corner from 74, Brook Street, Sir William Gull."
note on an earlier address of victim Annie Chapman, found in Inspector Abberline's alleged diary, as quoted by Melvyn Fairclough in THE RIPPER AND THE ROYALS (Duckworth, 1991).
The hungry sheep look up, and are not red,
But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
rot inwardly and foul contagion spread,
Besides what the wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said.
MILTON LYCIDAS
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of indifference is drowned;
The best lack of all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W B YEATS THE SECOND COMING
Rumour is not always wrong.
TACITUS
"The shaman or sorcerer-priest of the tribes living in the northern and Arctic latitudes of Finland, Siberia and America is frequently classed as a psychopath. In the spirit he flies up to heaven, descends to hell and dives to the nethermost regions of the sea. He receives messages from the dead, communes with spirits. But his mental balance is insecure and he is easily unhinged. If suddenly angered or startled he loses his self control completely. His eyes redden and bulge out, his face goes through the most hideous contortions, and unless restrained he will not hesitate to maim or murder the person who provoked him."
-from MAN, MYTH & MAGIC by RICHARD CAVENDISH
"Gods and beasts, that is what our world is made of."
Adolf Hitler, quoted in THE VOICE OF DESTRUCTION
by HERMAN RAUSCHING
"The fog is rising..."
EMILY DICKINSON, 1830-1886
(Last words)
"At this time London was agog with the exploits of Jack the Ripper.
One theory of the motive of the murderer was that he was performing
an Operation to obtain the Supreme Black Magical Power."
THE CONFESSIONS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY
edited by JOHN SYMONDS & KENNETH GRANT
(Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1979)
"Blood is the great materializing agent, both for spirits that would incarnate in this world (or on this plane) and for spirits which, remaining in another world, wish to assume a shape in order to impress their presence upon human beings."
THE MAGICAL REVIVAL by KENNETH GRANT
(Fredrick Muller, Ltd., 1972)
"I win! shouted Fantomas, as a terrible explosion sounded. The earth shook, a huge column of black smoke rose skyward, and explosion followed explosion. The roar of walls collapsing was mingled with fearful cries and dying groans."
THE SILENT EXECUTIONER
by MARCEL ALLAIN & PIERRE SOUVESTRE
(Pan Brooks, Ltd., 1988)
"How does this diabolical monster succeed in his infernal work time after time, in the midst of reeming millions of individuals, every one of whom would be only too glad to discover him, and to be the means of brining him to justice? But no one out of all these multitudes, so far as they are aware, ever get a glimpse of him. These things, to our mind, are most astounding, and apart from Astrology, are altogether inexplicable."
from THE WHITECHAPEL DEMON
published in THE ASTROLOGER, VOL. 2 NO. 6 (DECEMBER 1888)
"But I was conscious of the differing eternities of man and of woman. The sky was suckling in its wildcat cubs. It was then that I noticed some crimson blotches on my hand.
GUILLUAME APPOLLINAIRE
from L'ENCHANTEUR POURRISSANT, published in LE FESTIN D'ESOPE (1903-04)
"If I were a tailor i'd make it my pride The best of all tailors to be And if I were a tinker, no tinker beside Should mend an old kettle like me.
FAVOURITE RHYME OF William Withey Gull,
as reported in WILLIAM WITHEY GULL: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH by THEODORE DYKE-ACLAND
At two o'clock he got up and strolled toward Blackfriars. How unread everything looked! How like a strange dream! The houses on the other side of the river seemed built out of darkness. One would have said that silver and shadow had fashioned the world anew. The huge dome of St. Paul's loomed like a bubble through he dusty air. as he approached Cleopatra's Needle he saw a man leaning over the parapet, and as he came nearer the man looked up, the gaslight falling full upon his face. It was Mr Podgers, the chiromantist! No one could mistake the flat flabby face, the gold-rimmed spectacles, the sickly feeble smile, the sensual mouth. Lord Arthur stopped. A brilliant idea flashed across him, and he stole softly up behind. In a moment he had seized Mr Podgers by the legs, and flung him into the Thames. There was a coarse oath, a heavy splash and all was still. Lord Arthur looked anxiously over, but could see nothing of the chiromantist but a tall hat, pirouetting in an eddy of moonlit water. After a time it also sank, and no trace of Mr Podgers was visible. Once he thought that he caught sight of the bulky misshapen figure striking out for the staircase by the bridge, and a horrible feeling of failure came over him but it turned out to be merely a reflection, and when the moon shone out from behind a cloud it passed away. At last, he seemed to have realized the decree of Destiny. He heaved a deep sigh of relief, and Sybil's name came to his lips. "Have you dropped anything sir?" said a voice behind him suddenly. He turned round, and saw a policeman with a bull's eye lantern. "Nothing of importance, sergeant," he answered, smiling, and hailing a passing hansom, he jumped in, and told the man to drive to Belgrave Square.
from LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME
by OSCAR WILDE
first published in THE COURT AND SOCIETY REVIEW (1887)
"Laws are like cobwebs, for if any trifling or
powerless thing falls into them, they hold it fast, but
if a thing of any size falls into them it breaks the
mesh and escapes."
-- ANACHARSIS (C.600 B.C.)
"Law and order are always and everywhere the law
and order which protect the established hierarchy."
-- HERBERT MARCUSE (1898 - 1979)
If you have the right eye for these things, you can
see that accused men are often attractive.
-- FRANZ KAFKA (1883 - 1924)
"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." -- SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE (1859-1930)
"Whatever is almost true is quite false, and among the most dangerous of errors, because being so near truth, it is the more likely to lead astray." -- HENRY WARD BEECHER (1813-1887)
"Dead? Perhaps. Or perhaps that body of his, through which the light of day could pass, was impervious to the means of destruction which kill our bodies? Suppose he was dead? ... Perhaps only time alone has power over that Invisible and Fearful Being. why should he posses that transparent, unknowable body, that spiritual body, if he too must fear sickness, injury, infirmity, premature destruction? Premature destruction? That is the source of all human dread. After man, the Horla. After him who can die any day, any hour, any minute, from any sort of accident, there has come he who shall die only at his appointed day, hour and minute, because he has reached the limits of his existence." From THE HORLA (1888) by GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Widmung
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This book is dedicated to Polly Nicholls, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Kate Eddowes, and Marie Jeannette Kelly. You and your demise: of these things alone are we certain. Goodnight, ladies.
Erste Worte
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Bournemouth, September 1923.
...
...
(Prologue)
London, July 1884.
There, two pennorth on the nail.
Zitate
Letzte Worte
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The mad, shaggy genius of the comics world dips deeply into the well of history and pulls up a cup filled with blood in From Hell. Alan Moore did a couple of Ph.D.'s worth of research into the Whitechapel murders for this copiously annotated collection of the independently published series. The web of facts, opinion, hearsay, and imaginative invention draws the reader in from the first page. Eddie Campbell's scratchy ink drawings evoke a dark and dirty Victorian London and help to humanize characters that have been caricatured into obscurity for decades. Moore, having decided that the evidence best fits the theory of a Masonic conspiracy to cover up a scandal involving Victoria's grandson, goes to work telling the story with relish from the point of view of the victims, the chief inspector, and the killer--the Queen's physician. His characterization is just as vibrant as Campbell's; even the minor characters feel fully real. Looking more deeply than most, the author finds in the "great work" of the Ripper a ritual magic working intended to give birth to the 20th century in all its horrid glory. Maps, characters, and settings are all as accurate as possible, and while the reader might not ultimately agree with Moore and Campbell's thesis, From Hell is still a great work of literature. --Rob Lightner
(Bereitgestellt durch Amazon Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:13:14 -0400)
▾Bibliotheksbeschreibungen
Originally issued in serial form in Taboo, an anthology comic book published by SpiderBaby Press.
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