Did you enjoy the famous novel ¡°The Da Vinci Code¡± by Dan Brown? Or did you have fun with ¡°The Name of Rose¡±, the masterpiece of Umberto Eco? If you have enjoyed these kinds of intellectual thriller novels, you might consider reading ¡®The Interpretation of Murder¡¯ written by Jed Rubenfeld, a law professor of the Yale University.
What comes to your mind when you confront with the title of novel? If you¡¯re interested in psychology, you might think of the work by Freud, ¡®The Interpretation of Dream¡¯. As you can guess it in the title, Sigmund Freud is deeply related with this novel. As a great ¡®faction¡¯ novel, this work well mixes up Freud, a real historical figure, and rich imagination of the author. There was the first and the last visit to America of Freud in 1909. Freud, who visited the states with his then-disciple Jung, eventually went back with a huge disappointment. The author creates an intricate and somewhat adamant story on the fact; a serial murder.
In the novel, a cruel murder of a young and rich socialite happens in New York during the visit of Freud. Soon, another murder is attempted with the same characteristics of the former crime. Even though the victim barely saves saving her life, the rebellious heirless does not recall anything of the murderer due to her harsh hysteria. The novelist brings Freud¡¯s psychoanalysis theory applying it on the case. The protagonist Strathan Younger, a huge advocate of Freud, tries to unfurl the complexity of the mind of Nora, the victim, and solve the problem.
The interesting psychoanalysis held by the protagonist fully makes up the somewhat simple plot of the story. Younger intersects Nora¡¯s desire to make his father with the famous Oedipus Complex of Shakespeare. Actually before he became a law professor, the author researched Freud deliberately as a theme of his graduate dissertation, and majored in Shakespeare at Julliard; it is not a coincidence that the two key factor of the analysis is Freud and Hamlet by Shakespeare. Anyway, analysis based on the novelist¡¯s deep and broad knowledge in the field strongly holds up the novel, makes it enormously interesting.
The author¡¯s effort to make the novel realistic is easily seen throughout the novel. Readers will learn much about Freud¡¯s hard relationship with his then-disciple Jung, the building of the Manhattan Bridge, the early opponents to Freud¡¯s theories and the central notions of Freud¡¯s theory. Also, we can see the changing society of the early 20th century of America portrayed cynically by the author. As an intellectual faction novel, this novel fulfills its role greatly.
Actually this book has a lot of attention-grippers such as Freud, murder, faction, detective story, and law professor of Yale. It is very unintelligent, however, to judge this novel as a sensational literature which made only for general popularity; this book has much more than that. A deep analysis on heavy matters such as Freud satisfies people¡¯s intellectual curiosity and lefts something to think about. If you have ever liked any kind of faction novels, I¡¯m quite sure that this book would be your best choice for reading.
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