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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Archive through June 14, 2001
Casebook Message Boards: The Diary of Jack the Ripper: General Discussion:
The Maybrick Diary-Archives 2001:
Archive through June 14, 2001
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 07 June 2001 - 04:12 am |        | Hi Mark,
You're learning fast. 
Did you catch Victorian Dad, when Viz decided to turn him into Jack The Ripper? Or was it Raffles The Gentleman Thug?
Perhaps those naughty people at Viz won't be blamed for nothing, eh? Bumbling Buffoons or Journal Jokers? Another case of a Geordie hoax?
Love,
Mrs Brady, Old Lady
PS Quiet today, ain't it? |
Author: Mark Goeder
Thursday, 07 June 2001 - 11:21 am | | Hi Mrs Brady,Old Lady
Indeed, I have made a fool of myself, contradicting my very own Postings.
NOW do I feel like a Bumbling Buffoon.
Thanx
Sid |
Author: Christopher T George
Thursday, 07 June 2001 - 11:41 am | | Hi, Mark:
In pointing out that the story of the Maybrick Diary is pretty much encapsulated in the first couple of pages you are pointing out one of the arguments that we Diary critics have used to say that it is a hoax. In other words, contrary to your thought that there may be pages of the story missing, there probably aren't any pages of the "Diary" missing. . . all that were written were what you see, and the removed pages were only to scrap those pages that inconveniently had photographs or other materials on them on which the forger was unable to write. That the first two pages of the written text contain all the needed elements to pick up the story indicates in our view that the author meant the reader to start reading here. That is also to say that the Diary is not, what it purports to be, a private document that was not meant to be read by others, but a document written for the express purpose of being read by a reading public.
Best regards
Chris George |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Friday, 08 June 2001 - 05:27 am | | Dear Sid,
No, I don't think you have made a fool of yourself. One person can read the diary and come up with some very different ideas from the next person. But there are so many possible contradictions within the pages of the diary itself, that one person can also have a multitude of ideas which can be in direct conflict with each other! Keeping all these contradictory ideas together in the pending tray is called having an open mind. Once you start rejecting some good ideas because they conflict with other good ideas that just happen to fit better with a desired conclusion, you start to lose that precious open mind which allows you to stay on the fence and get a clearer view.
People do it all the time - they see something in the diary story that fits in with a certain theory, preconception, expectation, hope or desire, and they clutch it to their bosom to help keep the faith; they see something that doesn't gel, and somehow it gets spirited away or buried under all the preferred bits.
For example, Robert Smith sees the diarist's placing of the Crashaw quote - in a passage after MJK's murder, immediately following or preceding certain references which look like they could have been Crashaw-influenced - as interesting, and possibly significant. Others, who are totally convinced that the quote must have been placed on a page of the diary at random, by a fraudster who came across it in Mike's Sphere vol 2, when browsing for ideas, and thought Crashaw's words 'intercourse' and 'death', would simply add spice to the mix, will see it all as an insignificant coincidence. Indeed, I think this is probably how it has to remain, unless some evidence turns up that Mike's Sphere wasn't used in the diary's creation.
Have a great weekend all.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Jim DiPalma
Friday, 08 June 2001 - 12:24 pm | | Hi Mark,
Don't feel badly, all you've done is change your position when presented with new information. I've done the same thing myself with several aspects of the case, e.g., was Tabram a Ripper victim or not? I like to think it's because I'm flexible and open-minded, rather than my having any simian tendencies.
At least, that's my story and I'm sticking with it 
Cheers all,
Jim, gazing out the window on a sunny, gorgeous late-spring New England day, dreaming of swimming, BBQ, and  |
Author: Butter~Girl
Friday, 08 June 2001 - 08:31 pm | | | You were thinking of a coffee cup or is that just a cheap euphimism? |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 04:53 am | | I think Jim was talking beer - for which there are generally no euphemisms required.
Hope you had pleasant dreams, Jim. It was b. chilly here yesterday, so I took a trip to Pearl Harbor and treated myself to a nice hot Mexican afterwards. All that and no jet-lag.
Oooh, doesn't the peace and quiet make a nice change around here?
Love,
Caz |
Author: Alegria
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 07:56 pm | | This post is in response to posts relating to the Diary that began on the Suspects: James Maybrick page.
John,
Regards to Melvin, yes he withdrew without answering questions posed to him. So what? He isn't obligated to answer questions on a subject in which he has repeatedly said he has no interest: the forgers. You said it yourself, the topic doesn't interest him, he has not brought it up or mentioned it in anyway, so why are you asking him questions or expecting him to be accountable for answering them.
Karoline made a mistake by posting something she could not provide evidence to support. If she had done this maliciously, which I do not believe she did, then some censure would be expected. She made a mistake. It is time to drop it.
And Karoline did say that she was tired of being repeatedly badgered by the same questions over and over and over. I was tired of reading them.
You are the one that was outraged that such a topic was introduced and yet you are the one who continues the conversations.
The topic should not have been brought up without evidence to support it. Most of the people who have seen the evidence would no doubt love to shout it from the rooftop and prove once and for all that the Diary is a fake..however the information is not ours to shout. They must wait until the owners decide to print it. One more time: The new information should not have been introduced. It was. THe people have withdrawn and said they cannot at all prove anything that they have claimed. It is over.
Regards,
Ally |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 08:50 pm | | Hi Ally,
First, Melvin is absolutely not obligated or required to answer any questions from anyone at all about anything ever. I merely stated that he withdrew from this discussion without answering them. We have all seen Melvin's prose and its penchant for self-congratulations and triumphant announcements. I merely cited the fact that on this subject he had nothing to say. But you are being a little generous when you say that he has not brought up the question of who forged this diary "in anyway." He had in fact mentioned the three unidentified flying forgers of old and he has mentioned Mike and Anne as "placers," whatever the hell that means, and he has talked explicitly about what research would have been needed to forge the book and how simple it would have been, etc. But I am happy to let readers infer what they like from Melvin's withdrawal and his decision not to discuss who wrote this book.
(NOTE: It remains my belief, and my subjective and personal belief alone, that he does not know who wrote this book and has no compelling or convincing evidence yet concerning who precisely wrote this book. I announce this here explicitly as only a personal and subjective belief -- as I have urged others to do when they are uttering what are really only preferred interpretations and subjective conclusions like this one. Besides, I fervently hope I am wrong. I continue to hope that Melvin can and someday does tell us who wrote this book.)
And yes, I'm sure Karoline was tired of being asked the same questions over and over again, although by doing so we at least learned who some of the chosen people were. But her final departure actually came in an explosion over what she saw as personal insults and amidst her repeated requests for more active board moderation.
And please understand my position. I am not outraged that the topic of Mr. Kane and the new samples was ever introduced here. I am outraged that it was introduced and then promptly withdrawn. If it had been introduced and the evidence linking him to the diary (if there is any) had been put up here and we had been allowed to discuss it, that would have been fine with me. My outrage is not at the mention of Mr. Kane; it's at the mention and then withdrawal of his name and of the new "results" and "evidence."
And yes, I continue to discuss this specific mention and this withdrawal, for what I think is a perfectly good reason. This is a board set up to discuss the diary. If somebody comes along here and announces, to what I suspect is the largest message board discussing the Maybrick diary that exists anywhere, that they have new evidence that shows that it is now "very possible" that a certain man wrote the Maybrick diary, I think it is then to be expected that people will want to discuss it. And if those same people who made that announcement then abruptly withdraw that evidence (without denying that it exists or their claim about what it shows), then I think it is extremely likely that people will really want to discuss what has happened and where the samples are and why we can't see them and whether they are being properly analyzed by experts and if so what those analyses show and if not why not and whether anyone anywhere can yet link this supposed penman in any other way at all to the diary that we are all here to discuss.
And to simply say, "forget the samples exist, forget the claim that they show that someone could have written the diary, forget that you ever heard any of this here on a board that is discussing the diary," is, I am afraid, a rather naive expectation.
But still, I had in fact stopped talking about it or even mentioning Mr K.'s handwriting until it was recently brought up on another board.
But you see, this is the way these things work. They do not go away, whether I talk about them or not. The archive is here. People are going to ask about the rumored new samples and the story is going to have to be told again. Secrets do not hold in investigations like this, and eventually, we will find out who has what and what it shows and how the results were arrived at and we will remember how all of this was handled.
Finally Ally, you wrote this:
"Most of the people who have seen the evidence would no doubt love to shout it from the rooftop and prove once and for all that the Diary is a fake..however the information is not ours to shout."
(Should that last "ours" be a "theirs?")
But we are not here actually discussing whether the diary is a fake. We are discussing who wrote it, and whether Mr. Kane was our penman.
And this leads to a final reason to discuss these events and this alleged evidence. Nearly all of the scenarios now put forward by those who think Mike and Anne knew the diary was a forgery in April of '92 rest in part on the idea that poor Mr. K was the penman and knew Mike somehow through Tony (with or without any established link, of course). So if these samples do not match, if an expert cannot verify that his hand wrote the diary, if this is possibly not our penman, then there must have been someone as yet completely unmentioned and unconsidered involved in the creation of this diary -- and that opens a whole new can of worms.
So a lot is riding on this "match," and I do not think any serious discussion of the diary investigation and where it stands now can simply ignore the latest developments, whatever they might be.
But I do realize that we disagree about this, Ally, and I respect your opinion here and am sure that many share it.
For now, I say let the discussion continue in whatever direction people would like to take it.
Bye for now,
--John |
Author: Alegria
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 09:04 pm | | John,
I would like to know what you propose as a solution. A mistake was made by bringing up a topic that cannot be substantiated. The people who have done this have admitted it can't be proven. They did not promptly withdraw..they withdrew after numerous explanations and re-clarifications. No they have not withdrawn their statements that it exists or their belief in it..to do so would be a lie. Other than providing the evidence, which they are not in a position to do, what more can be done?
Ally |
Author: John Omlor
Monday, 11 June 2001 - 09:25 pm | | Hi Ally,
I do not want or expect those people to do anything. That is not why I have written what I have written.
Ally, I have said the following today, as conclusions about the samples:
"As you can see, as of yet [the samples] cannot be considered evidence of anything at all and their credibility as evidence remains seriously in doubt until they have been released, authenticated, examined and discussed."
"And still no one has been able to link poor Mr. Kane to Mike or to the research, composition or dissemination of this diary in any way whatsoever."
And I also wrote this:
"I draw no conclusions here, but I do insist on carrying with me a healthy skepticism concerning things publicly hinted at, implied, and then withdrawn from consideration. And I politely suggest that all thoroughly careful and responsible scholars do the same in the face of that which people mention, announce the results of, and then remove from the conversation entirely, for whatever reason."
"All I have ever said is that these samples cannot yet be considered as evidence of anything at all. And, given the fact that the writer/suspect in question remains completely and utterly unlinked to this diary or to those who presented it to the world, this new alleged 'evidence' must remain highly suspect and dubious until it is properly analyzed and the findings of that expert analysis are carefully scrutinized."
As of now, do you disagree with any of these conclusions, Ally? I actually do not think you do.
I have merely said that whether I talk about these new samples or not, people are likely to ask about this new rumored evidence now and then (like Mark did) and people are going to want to know more and discuss the possible ramifications of it, and the mysteries surrounding it, and I don't see why we should refrain from telling them what has happened here and what we have heard and what the status of the investigation is as far as we know and what it is we are not being allowed to know.
It is all part of the current state of affairs and therefore I think it can be discussed.
I expect nothing from those who first mentioned all of this. I don't even think we have a problem, except that we know a lot less than some of us would like, but that's nothing new and there is certainly no remedy for that likely to be forthcoming. But I do think in an honest discussion of the diary and the investigation into who might have written it, we should continue to discuss where we are at any given point in time and what we have heard and what we know and don't know and how the investigation has proceeded and how evidence has been handled and what can be said to be reliable and well-established and what remains completely unestablished and is still only the stuff of hints and suggestions.
That is where we are now and that is all I am in favor of doing.
Hope that helps,
--John |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 11:12 am | | Hi Ally, John,
Ally, you wrote:
'A mistake was made by bringing up a topic that cannot be substantiated. The people who have done this have admitted it can't be proven.'
But I wonder if bringing up the new handwriting sample, and talking about it allegedly looking like the diary writing, would have been acknowledged as a 'mistake', had no one bothered to make a fuss, and ask for the evidence to support certain suspicions. I also wonder how readily anyone would have admitted that nothing could be proved, if the suspicions had been allowed to stand unchallenged. My guess is that Peter, Karoline and Melvin would all have been much happier bunnies had everyone accepted, like RJ has, that their various suspicions about the forgers' roles and identities must be more or less correct, in as much as a small group of Liverpudlians conceived and produced the fake diary some ten years ago, and that therefore no one need concern themselves with any lack of supporting evidence. In other words, it should be so obvious to everyone that the diary is a modern fake, and that Melvin has never been interested in discussing or exposing the forgers anyway (really? What was all that stuff about Mike's Sphere book for, if Melvin was never attempting to bind Mike permanently to the diary's creation?!), that anyone who appears not to accept all this unconditionally (including presumably Keith and Shirley) are at best blinkered, or a trifle dim and gullible, or at worst dishonest and insincere about their supposed quest for the truth.
My own gut feelings, for what they are worth, are that 'most people who have seen the evidence', if not actually shouting from the rooftop, would have been smugly hanging on in there, rather than doing a collective disappearing act, had that evidence been overwhelmingly strong, and unlikely to cause any problems for those simply continuing to air their suspicions here. If, by any chance, the handwriting sample is feared not to be a close enough match for comfort, it might explain a reluctance to have it seen by others or analysed by experts, and also the exodus by certain individuals from the board, if there is any chance of our citizen Kane not being prepared take things lying down.
Love,
Caz |
Author: Alegria
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 11:21 am | | Hi Caz,
I have to disagree with you about this point:
My own gut feelings, for what they are worth, are that 'most people who have seen the evidence', if not actually shouting from the rooftop, would have been smugly hanging on in there, rather than doing a collective disappearing act, had that evidence been overwhelmingly strong..
How could they hang in here when no one would listen to them because they could not provide the evidence? If they had continued to say it was valid and a good match, others would have continued to harangue them for accusing someone without being able to provide proof.
If they stay and argue their point they are accused of defamaing a man without cause. If they leave and withdraw the point, they were clearly wrong and the evidence was not strong.
Catch-22. |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 01:27 pm | | Hi Ally,
You write:
"If they stay and argue their point they are accused of defaming a man without cause. If they leave and withdraw the point, they were clearly wrong and the evidence was not strong."
OK. How about this?
If they stay and argue their point without providing the evidence or making it available, they are properly accused of defaming a man without showing cause. If they leave and withdraw the point, then their mentioned evidence can have no value here whatsoever and must be considered as at best uncertain, properly suspect, and for our purposes here useless, at least until they return and present the alleged evidence and the expert analysis done on it and allow both the evidence and the analysis to be carefully scrutinized by scholars and discussed here in an open forum.
Until such time, the mentioned samples cannot be considered evidence of anything at all and their credibility as evidence must remain seriously in doubt until they have been released, authenticated, examined and discussed.
No Catch-22 there at all. Just the facts.
--John |
Author: Alegria
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 01:41 pm | | | As I am not the one who continues to belabor the missing evidence and have never argued the point that until it is available for all to view, it cannot be accepted as evidence, I have no problem with what you wrote. I would like to point out that no one is currently attempting to use it as evidence, no one has for days (weeks?) and yet you are still trying to show it’s inadmissibility here. So as we have all agreed that it cannot be further discussed until it is available to all, I assume that the matter is over? |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 02:13 pm | | Sure Ally,
Until the next time someone turns up, like Mark did yesterday, simply and honestly wanting to know about the rumors or the messages in the archives concerning some new handwriting samples and a new "match" and the possible identity of the Maybrick diary's author, and understandably wondering whatever became of all that.
Then, it'll be time again to explain what has happened here and what the status of the samples are and why they can't be used as evidence of anything and how poor Mr. K. remains as of yet completely unlinked to this diary or to the people who first presented it to the public in any way.
See you then,
--John |
Author: Alegria
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 02:19 pm | | Actually John in that case, it is a simple matter to do what I tried to do with Mark. Point them to the relevant posts, say that nothing new has been brought forth since then and avoid multiple postings on a subject that isn't going anywhere.
Regards,
Ally |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 02:35 pm | | Hi again, Ally,
Yes, there is always the possibility of simply pointing people to the relevant posts in the archives (like the ones written here yesterday and today, above).
But I have no problem with also explaining to anyone, newcomer or otherwise, precisely what happened, precisely who was involved, and precisely what evidence can and cannot be claimed to be reliable or substantiated. This is an ongoing discussion about the diary and its possible authors, after all, and we have nothing to hide here.
I wrote a single post to Mark, yesterday on another board, accurately and carefully recounting the details of the arrival and then the withdrawal of the samples, and the withdrawal of those who first mentioned them and of the samples' status as missing evidence and as unsubstantiated and no longer available. That original post can be found over on the James Maybrick Suspect board -- an entry dated: Monday, June 11, 2001 - 04:01 pm, and beginning "Hi again, Mark, Oh what the heck. I'll just tell you anyway. (Our posts just crossed.)"
That satisfied me in this matter. Everything I have posted since then has been in response to your own posts to me on the subject, first concerning why certain people actually withdrew, and then concerning Melvin and Karoline and why this is all still properly a part of the diary board's discussions, since it is part of where we are at this point in the investigation, and then finally, in answer to your explicit question to me, why I expected nothing from those who first mentioned the new samples and what I think we can say about them that would not put those people in the catch-22 that you cited.
Everything after my initial account of what happened with the samples, a single post written yesterday at 4:01 for Mark's information, was in response to replies from you.
As was this.
--John |
Author: Butter~Girl
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 04:12 pm | | I've noticed a tendency to dismiss the diary largely on the basis that the tone is so melodramatic. But this lacks imagination. When people write diaries, they DO turn the real people in their lives into characters, and the worse the writer, the more crude & unrealistic the result seems. Quite frankly, my own diaries often sound as silly as Monsieur Maybrick's, if not as demented. For a more relevant example (!), has anyone out their in cyberspace seen "Heavenly Creatures"? It's based on the diaries kept by 16 year old Pauline Parker, who, with the help of her best friend, murdered her mother in 1954. Some of this most~definitely authentic diary sounds every bit as melodramatic & contrived as the Maybrick diary:
"Our main idea for the day was to moider mother [Pauline Parker always spelt 'murder' as 'moider']. This is not a new notion, but is now a definite plan, which we intend to carry out. We have worked it out carefully, and are both thrilled by the idea. Naturally, we feel a trifle nervous, but the pleasure of anticipation is great."
"I have worked out a little more of our plan. Peculiarly enough, I have no qualms of conscience."
"I rose late and helped Mother vigorously this morning. Deborah [Parker referred to her friend Juliet Hulme by the 'pet' name Deborah] rang and we decided to use a rock in a stocking rather than a sand-bag. We discussed the moider fully. I feel very keyed up, as though I were planning a surprise party. Mother has fallen in with everything beautifully and the happy event is to take place tomorrow afternoon. So next time I write in this diary Mother will be dead. How odd, yet how pleasing."
Somebody once wrote: "Diary writing drops a safety curtain between narrator and performer." Well, as you may suspect, I agree. |
Author: Alegria
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 04:22 pm | | Butter,
I have not seen the movie but recently discovered the case you mentioned when conversing with friends. I believe one of the girls went on to become a well-known murder-mystery writer (anne Perry?) Anyway, although I agree that diary writing tends to be either boringly prosaic or melodramatic to the extreme, I think there is a lot more cause to dismiss the diary than it's tone. I think that the excessive melodrama in the Heavenly creatures diaries had a lot to do with the age and mentalities of the two girls. Although I know that there are excerpts available of the diaries, do you know of a complete transcription anywhere? Might make for interesting reading.
Regards,
Ally |
Author: Mark List
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:01 pm | | I see that I opened up a can of worms.
Look, Jon and Ally,
I really just wanted to get a clear cut answer (or as close to one as possible) about the diary. I know how heated a conversation and issue it can be, and how many and different views there are about it.
The reason I posted my query on the Maybrick board and not the Diary board is because many a time that I have posted a "beginner" question (as Martin put it):
a) it took "forever and a day" for a reply and
b) I felt very much like an idiot for attempting to have a conversation about something where my questions are dismissed because they have been thought about and laid to rest WELL before I got here.
So, I was hoping to get a synopsis of the most recent information without spending three weeks reading posts from the last two days
Not "start a war"
Thanks for both your input
With peace and love
Mark |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:22 pm | | Hi Mark,
No problem. These discussions often play themselves out in all sorts of different ways. And then they turn elsewhere again. It's all part of the fun.
I hope my original summary post to you yesterday afternoon, concerning the history of the samples up to this point, was at least some help for you.
Hi Butter,
One quick thought. What troubles me more about the diary than some of its explosions of melodrama is it's noticeably well-made quality. That is, how neatly and precisely it follows the structure of a good, classical Aristotelian drama -- complete with an establishing opening scene (even though it is supposed to be in media res -- with earlier pages missing) that gives us the setting and all the necessary details, and then the rising action and the emotional climax and the falling action and the final conclusion and gratuitous and over-the-top final page. The whole thing reads like a neatly constructed drama or well-made play. Even the handwriting changes accordingly, getting looser and more wild as it reaches its climax and the Kelly murder and then regressing and becoming more controlled and smaller again as it funds to closure (in classical fashion). There are a couple of posts from the end of April where Chris George and I trace the handwriting changes page by page through the diary and associate them with the corresponding narrative changes and the neatly classical and artificial structure of all this.
Even if the diarist tends to over dramatize and speak in a character's voice for the sake of distance (as you point out diarists, especially young diarists often do), diaries at least usually have the some quality of immediacy and spontaneity and at least a little of every day life about them. There is little or nothing in this diary of the incidental or the interruption in the narrative flow. Indeed, it could just as easily have been a novel -- and that's really not the way our lives takes place or the way most people record their lives on a day to day basis in even the most self-conscious and carefully distanced diary discourses or written texts. Even the diaries of women of the 17th century and those of the women of the US Civil War (both of which a colleague of mine specializes in) have at least something of a daily life being lived in them and are somewhat fragmented and interrupted and rarely are completely self-contained artifacts that move in the neatly structured plot of the classical narrative that is actually more often found in so much of the history of literature, and especially in drama and fiction.
This diary reads to me, from beginning to end, like an aesthetically created and structured artifact rather than a life being led. That troubles me more, in analyzing the rhetoric and structures of the text, than its penchant for melodramatic language or the occasional evil and clichéd "ha ha ha."
Just a little reading thought, in passing,
--John
PS: Butter, for more on the well-made structure of the diary and for a roughly page by page analysis of its progress and the accompanying changes in the writing, see several posts in this board's archives beginning with one dated "Monday, April 30, 2001 - 11:45 am" (beginning "Hi Chris, I see what you're saying." -- the analysis of the writing and structure begins a couple of paragraphs down) and ending with a post later that same day, Monday, April 30, 2001 - at 04:41 pm. There might be some things there of interest to you concerning the structure and movement of this book as a narrative. |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:45 pm | | Hi John,
The thought of the diary being an aesthetically created and structured artifact troubles you, John? I thought you were made of sterner stuff.
I find it all absolutely fascinating, not in the least bit troubling, and I'd love to have heard Mike or Anne or Billy or Tony D describing it as you have.
Oh that costly intercourse of moider...
Love,
Caz |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 05:57 pm | | Hi Caz,
"Troubles" here, of course, only in regard to any claims about its authenticity.
As fiction, though, it really is pretty cheesy. I have always dreaded seeing the rumored movie, especially the scene where Maybrick writes shatteringly about his memories of Mary's "no heart, no heart..." (268 in Harrison/Hyperion) and then can't lift the pen from the paper in an apparent collapse of exhaustion or horror or something and so leaves the trailing line on the page (like "the castle Auuuuughh"). I can see Sir Hopkins now, breaking into one of his cold and delirious sweats as he lets the pen finally fall to the ground. And the last page -- that's going to be a doozy on the screen...
And now I have a craving for those air-puffed cheese snack things that get orange residue all over my hands and face and clothes and everything. But they are in my kitchen, and so off I go, Cartman-like, for a quick snack.
--John |
Author: Mark List
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 06:14 pm | | Does anyone see the irony in saying that the diary follows a "too dramatic" tone?
Everyone knows that:
a) A writer (I know because I am one) if writing about life will "act out" in their writing, making things to be dramatic, because that's how they see the situation.
b) Art imitates Life, don't forget that.
When something big happens in life it grows, it doesn't explode.
To say the diary is "too well constructed" is like saying that a body-builder is too much like Michelangelo's David, and thus making him unreal.
Don't be TOO critical about a diary or how an author deal with his pain. Most authors of fiction take their plots and ideas from life experiences.
Can anyone say Edgar Allan Poe?
Hey,
A snack sounds good right now!
Mark |
Author: John Omlor
Tuesday, 12 June 2001 - 06:51 pm | | Hi Mark,
But this isn't supposed to be art. It's supposed to be someone's private diary. And a Liverpool cotton merchant's at that.
Just to be clear, I'm certainly not saying anything about the diary being "too dramatic," just too neat and well-made and entirely cohesively and conveniently structured to be an authentic day to day chronicle of a present-tense life being lead.
I'm only being "critical" of the diary as relatively cheesy fiction half in jest. As a supposedly authentic 19th century diary of the daily life of a cotton merchant/serial killer it strikes me as simply and artificially complete and as a strangely seamless and too-neatly moving narrative.
And Poe is the perfect example of what's wrong with this thing. You read Poe, even and especially his first-person Gothic stuff, and you see the chronicling of madness with some depth and complexity and some uncertainties always built in and the somewhat hackneyed (even by his time) classical narrative structure being creatively played with and altered and truncated and reconstructed all for sorts of various aesthetic purposes. He was a very careful artist, as I'm sure you know.
None of that happens here. Of course, you wouldn't expect it to if Maybrick wrote it. But the thing is, you also don't get the immediacy of a real person's journal or diary. In fact, if you look at the journals and diaries of even the best writers, as journals they invariably have a different quality from their author's published prose -- an interrupted, less careful, less neat, and more haphazard structure about them. Think of Kafka's wonderful diaries, or Flaubert's journals, or Dosotevsky's, or even Emerson's own mad ravings about the death of his daughter in his private diaries, and you see that they are also interrupted and regularly fashioned by the experiences of a daily life being led.
And this is true of non-writers as well, like those women of early America whose diaries my colleague studies, or even my own students, who keep journals for me sometimes -- and even if they try and make them dramatic, the day to day life quality in them is still apparent.
This allegedly private "diary," on the other hand, still reads like a novel -- like someone was knowingly telling us a story and therefore used all the traditional elements of well-made stories including an opening scene of establishment and the Aristotelian pyramid of clichéd narrative development and the climax of a horrific breakdown and a predictable last page of closure. This doesn't sound like a diary, it sounds like someone trying to write an entire diary after the fact but being unable to produce the prose events of a present-tense life being led.
At least that's how it has read to me repeatedly.
Hope that clarifies my ideas about this a bit.
I am typing with orange fingers.
--John |
Author: Christopher T George
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 08:56 am | | Hi, Mark and John:
We have been trying to figure out how the lines from Richard Crashaw's obscure poem came to be in the Diary, and it seems likely that they came from the Sphere book that Mike Barrett happened to own. But could it be sheer coincidence that the lines happened to be in the Diary and that Barrett had the book that contained them? Sir Paul McCartney was on Larry King Live last night talking about how he came up with the name "Eleanor Rigby." Now, in Liverpool, in the graveyard of St. Peter's Church at Woolton opposite the parish hall Paul first met John Lennon and they first played together, there is a grave marker which bears the name of Eleanor Rigby. It can be seen at http://www.dennissutton.com/html/body_eleanor_rigby.html. Yet, as Sir Paul stated on Larry King last night, his account of how he came up with the name "Eleanor Rigby" is that the "Eleanor" part came from actress Eleanor Bron, who appeared in the Beatles movie "Help", and that he derived the last name "Rigby" from the name of a wine shop in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd. I am wondering if the Crashaw line in the Diary and Barrett's ownership of the book could be a similar "incredible coincidence"?
Best regards
Chris George
PS Another photograph of the Eleanor Rigby gravestone and other sites in Liverpool associated with the Beatles, including the Woolton church hall where John met Paul, can be seen at http://home.t-online.de/home/John.Seit/places.htm |
Author: Butter~Girl
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 01:12 pm | | Allegria ~ I found a complete transcript of Pauline Parker's diary at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Studios/2194
Yes, Parker's partner~in~crime changed her name when she got out of prison and became Anne Perry, a writer of Victorian murder mysteries. I read one of her books ~ interestingly, it had a SLIGHT air of homophobia about it. (Interesting since Anne Perry/Juliet Hulme was accused of a lesbian relationship at the time of her trial.)
Oh, & you really should see "Heavenly Creatures". It's brilliant. Features Kate Winslet in pre~Titanic days.
Oh, & thanks John. I'll be sure to take a peek at that. And bless you all for taking me seriously in spite of the fact I call myself "Butter~Girl". |
Author: Butter~Girl
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 01:15 pm | | Gah! Don't click on that link. I made a mistake. The website is called "Fourth World - the Heavenly Creatures Website", any road.
Sorry |
Author: Mark List
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 01:25 pm | | Jon,
There's nothing to say the diary is a "day-to-day" written account, if anything, it reads as a periodical account with spats of emotional explosion.
What I meant by "art" was that we have, in the last 50 years or so, been assailed by artist expression and fakes and hoaxes and "sightings" of this or that (UFOs or Elvis) that if is almost second nature to take anything and everything as fake.
I bet that anyone could take our conversations here on the board and say, "they all made up their conversations and argument."
I think that when it comes to a fake we look at it and say,"this is fake, because it's TOO real to BE real." and when we come to the real thing we say "If this IS real then why is it SO real."
I think that some people think that life is boring so anything with heightened excitement is false.
Would you be so critical about David Berkowitz's letters if he was never caught?
I think that NOT having caught Jack leads to a large amount of sceptism and speculation.
(Remember that even at the time of the ripper there were people writing fake ripper letters--some people need attention, but not every letter was "fake")
Same for the Zodiac Killer's letters.
Now I not saying the Diary is real, but don't dismiss it as fake because it "seems to good to be true."
cheers,
Mark |
Author: Butter~Girl
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 03:10 pm | | I pretty much have to agree with Monsieur List's last two postings, hence me citing the Pauline Parker diary as an example of something "too melodramatic~to~be~real" which nonetheless WAS (real).
Err...yeah, actually, re~reading his posts, Mark seems to have eloquently echoed most of my own thoughts, so there's not much point me launching into a "pro~diary" waffle here. John's argument is dead clever also. In fact, only having previously written postings on a Blur fan message board, I'm a bit intimidated by the brains behind most of these messages. But please! Carry on, carry on... |
Author: Alegria
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 03:37 pm | | Butter,
I have been searching the Heavenly creatures website and can't find the diary. Yes I am dim. Could you please click on my name above where you will find my email address and provide me with some clues?
Thanks!
Ally
Sorry for the off-topic. I will delete it! |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 05:27 pm | | Hi Chris, All,
Well, if Mike didn't put the Crashaw lines in (and whoever penned them got the line break right, whereas the transcript, allegedly typed from the diary, mainly by Anne to help Mike out, apparently has the quote all on one line), it might well have been an incredible coincidence, along Eleanor Rigby lines.
Talking of The Beatles, a trivia quiz in the latest London Drinker (The Youngs beer magazine), included the following:
1 L on RLSLJS
which I finally worked out as: One leg on Robert Louis Stephenson's Long John Silver, and
4000 H in BL
I was stunned when hubby got this one: 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
Now, tell me which Beatles song features these words.
Love,
Caz
PS Ally, delete what you like! |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 05:31 pm | | | Whoops! Not Youngs, but CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale (some might say it's the same thing) |
Author: John Omlor
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 05:33 pm | | Hi Mark,
I agree that one shouldn't dismiss the diary simply because it seems to good to be true. There are plenty of reasons, though, why this particular diary is not only not too good to be true -- it's not good enough to be true. The one I was commenting on here though was a personal reading of mine, which is not that the diary is too convenient or too good, but that its structure is too neat and complete and seamless for a real diary, anyone's diary. This is slightly different. I'm not saying there's a problem with the emotional explosions; I'm saying that it all reads to me as if it was written as a story, from beginning to end, without any indication of any real passage of time between entries other than the obvious contentual ones, and without any hints that a daily life is being lived while it is being written. Remember, according to the dates of the murders, the diary is being written regularly, in chronological order, over a period a some serious time. If some Liverpoool cotton merchant/serial killer were really keeping a journal, I think I would expect it to reveal at least a few indications that he was writing regularly in it and that he was leading a life as he was and that life was passing onto the pages of the journal. But here what we get in fact is an artificial construct and a very familiar fictional structure. The first page, even though it is not supposed to be the first page, gives us all the details we need and establishes the setting, the impending action and the major conflict. After that the action slowly builds, until a neat and dramatic climax with the Kelly murder, and then there is a series of declining actions and closure at the end with the announcement of the writer's own impending death. (It's as if someone had seen a lot of popular movies or something.) But nowhere in that neat, novel-like formulation do I see real evidence of someone living a day to day life of a nineteenth century businessman. That's what bothers me.
There are of course a great many other details and things which pose problems for the authenticity of this thing, but this one is fun to discuss and I'm in a bit of a hurry tonight, so I'll stop here.
But I take your points Mark and you know, sometimes, secretly, I wish this thing was real and that we do now know who Jack was. But alas, my reading won't allow me that conclusion just yet, and, in fact, it is even clearly leading me in the opposite direction.
But hang in there and see what happens. I know I will.
All the best,
--John
PS: Hi Caz RE: The holes -- A Day in the Life -- "I read the news today, oh boy..." indeed.
|
Author: Mark List
Wednesday, 13 June 2001 - 06:48 pm | | John,
You know, I'd like to say that this is the man, and for a while I did.
However, I don't want to base my whole outlook on the Ripper from just one angle.
You say that you can't read in the Diary any real life in the wings, but I can. Some of the people that have read the diary say that (whether or not written by the Ripper) has it points where it does grip you and you say, "MY LORD, IS THIS THE MAN?"
I can read day-to-day life experiences in the diary, perhaps we should both re-read it and compare our notes, huh?
Just from memory, he speaks of the Children and his brother, Michael.
But, however, what passes for REAL life and a novel are in the eye of the beholder. I would personally say that if someone were to write a diary of anger, it would only contain that anger and the object of that anger.
But, perhaps you don't see it that way 
That's alright though, it makes for good conversation over a few beers.
But as they say, John, a grain of sand makes a pearl.
Next rounds on me
Mark |
Author: Caroline Anne Morris
Thursday, 14 June 2001 - 06:44 am | | And the pyramids were built on many grains of sand, Mark.
Hi John,
A Day in the Life - yes indeed. And I bet you started singing it too.
But was the diary made up of days in the life of an arsenic eater? I try to keep an open mind, but I tend to agree with you that the story is too complete - too, well, story-like. But I do think whoever put that story together must be (or have been) a person whom I'd seriously like to study - in great depth.
Love,
Caz |
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