If the rumors are true, and this character is replaced with a different actor, it wouldn’t be the first time.  A long time ago, Rachelle Lefevre was replaced by another actress in The Twilight Saga’s Eclipse due to scheduling conflicts similar to these brand new rumors. 

The worst thing that could happen with Breaking Dawn is if you see characters get replaced by new actors.

I have wrangled with this book and the resultant film for three years. It is frustrating that such an articulate book should be so hard to write about. I have found that all attempts to review or discuss it do not come out right. That last clause is most unsatisfactory in the light of the huge vocabulary and precise observation used by author Zoe Heller.

But my biggest frustration of all is that the writer and director of the 2006 film do not understand the source material. It is clear not only from the script itself and its introduction but from the DVD extras and other interviews.

It also frightens me how many readers – even professional reviewers – see this as a creepy tale of Sapphic obsession about an unpleasant woman. It frightens me because it shows how incapable they are of understanding someone different, of feeling sympathy, or subtlety. In short, their response is a flashback to Victorian attitudes to deviance leading to incarceration and labelling that resulted in ostracisation, belittlement, and torture (what else can you call some of those ‘medical treatments’ for the insane?) for what is a masked form of homophobia.

I have always felt strongly about mental illness, an see today’s drugs as a form of control being akin to the electric shock treatments of the 1950s and its straitjackets, and even to witchburning. It is today’s way of silencing and invalidating those who don’t fit with those who grab the power to define respectability and normality.

The narrator of Notes on A Scandal soon propounds her thoughts on the pupil teacher affair she relates. Society makes deviant anything that does not fit its narrow socially accepted models. Although Barbara speaks of her friend’s dalliance with a minor, her words are true of Barbara and Sheba’s friendship. Personalities as well as relationships are true of Barbara’s treatise, and both apply to herself.

Barbara is something we are bad at respecting – an older unmarried woman who reveals no prior lovers or direct sexual feelings. In a world revolving round couples and the family, Barbara’s need for connection is met in a cycle of well chosen deep friendships with other women. Many leap to the conclusion that Barbara is a frustrated lesbian, running after unattainable women out of her league.

It is a step from this to asserting that gay people are mentally unbalanced and creepy. This isn’t the first book where same sex desire has been made the object of obsession, often with unsettling and even criminal results: Heavenly Creaturesportrays the teenage New Zealanders who committed matricide as disturbing delusionals – not the view of the lesbian feminist academics. Enduring Love (dismissed elsewhere) and The Talented Mr Ripley are fiction involving men who attempt murder, and the unsuccessful one spends his life in an asylum. Following on from this is that idea that most people are straight and that the attentions of a same sex person are unwanted, embarrassing and ridiculous; why can’t gay people aim their desires at one of their own kind?

I am not suggesting this is what author means to say or herself believes. But the underlying suggestion in a novel can be harmful to gay single people, and is exacerbated by the public reaction to the story.

Cate Blanchett summed up the story acutely with the phrase ‘it’sa study of loneliness.’ She and Judi Dench do justice to the main characters but the film their performances are confined within do not.

Notes does not only depict what it is to approach retirement as a spinster with little family and perhaps only one friend who has two lovers and two children. It is equally eloquent on what it is to be forty, long married and a mother, and still unsatisfied. Barbara often protests that Sheba cannot understand singleness and it’s easy to diminish its pain and inconvenience if its lot has not been yours. But Sheba expounds on how children and marriage can be an excuse to cover one’s lack of meaning and productivity. She splits apart meaning and purpose – children give you something to do and think about, but they are not your immortality and do not help with existential questions. Sheba has her own foibles and one may argue that her own lack and restlessness leaves her to be open to the titular unwise and illegal liaison.

Director Richard Eyre says that Barbara is a ‘gloriously unreliable’ narrator. He is wrong. Barbara is well placed to tell the story. She is involved personally in many of the scenes. And Sheba fills in the details of the ones where Barbara is not present. Many people do share their interactions with lovers with close friends. It is clear that Sheba’s personality is such that she is one of those sharers. Barbara says that Sheba never prefaced her confessions with ‘can I be honest?’ or any exhortation to brace oneself; they just popped out. Sheba goes over the Steven affair constantly to Barbara. There is nothing that Barbara says in the book which strikes me as something that Sheba would not have told her; whether it be around the [none too explicit] physical side of being with Steven, or observations about his or her own home. It is why Sheba’s final outburst of the book which gives rise to Eyre’s statement strikes me as odd. All that can be said is that Barbara narrates things she was not present at in the same tone as when she is.

If Barbara were such a calculated liar, then she would not have told her readers that she found lewd photos of Sheba and Steven by going through Sheba’s handbag. She would have found a more legitimate reason for their discovery. Barbara prefaces her most damning account of herself with embarrassment. Again, this could have been omitted or smoothed over if Barbara was dishonest or deluded.

The discrepancy comes in what Sheba plies Barbara with. Our account is what Barbara has pieced together, refracted through her perspective, but it is what has been fed to her by her friend. When Barbara recounts Hampstead trysts, she is paraphrasing Sheba’s words. Sheba is likely to have designed her narrative of those events for her friend’s ears as much – more – than what Barbara is depicting for her readers.

The book’s blurb ends with ‘friendship can be as treacherous as any lover’. It implies it is Sheba who learns of that treachery, but it is a two way discovery. Sheba sees she has a devoted friend with few other contacts. Barbara’s analysis of her lifelong regular confessor status is a sad one – that she is seen as so unimportant and an outsider that she is a safe confidant. Sheba lies to Barbara about Steven for some months, although Barbara defends Sheba by telling us that she believes Sheba meant to confess and lost her nerve, thus softening our view of Sheba and saving Barbara’s own feelings. Barbara’s delineation of her friend convinces some readers too well, for in fooling herself about the harder edges of Sheba’s schemes, Barbara has cast herself as villain.

Barbara tells us that Sheba’s feyness does not tally with the duplicitous planning involved in my analysis of her relations with Barbara. Barbara conveys to us that Sheba is as diaphanous as her skirts. But as Sheba knows she is sexy and that this can be advantageous, she sees her apparent transparency and floatiness is a persona to cultivate, an asset. Perhaps she and Barbara are better suited than some believe – and that kindred connection claimed by Barbara is indeed real.

But I don’t mean to suggest that there was no fondness between these women or that their friendship was manufactured on either side; or that either party crafted affections and situations or were as in control of their own feelings and destiny as the above. 

But Sheba does come off rather well from her friendship with Barbara. Barbara negotiates with Sheba’s fearsome mother for money and to stop her being made homeless. Barbara cooks for her broken companion when no one else will be near her. Barbara listens to hours of recollection which must seem tedious and painful – the book she writes makes these bearable. Barbara looses her job – the one thing that had occupied her days for nearly 40 years – due to Sheba. Barbara’s own reputation is tarnished as she becomes the guardian and spokeswomen of a famous miscreant, unable to get a any landlord to take her on.

I do not recall Sheba thanking Barbara for any of this, nor apologising. She does not apologise for her insensitivity over the death of Barbara’s cat which caused the Connolly cat to be let out of the bag. In doing so, Barbara had not so much betrayed Sheba as fulfilled an overdue moral and legal duty.

The film changes that episode, as if a screenwriting by numbers tutor had insisted on cranking up the drama. I know that half an hour is missing from the released film, and I suspect it is needed. Sheba’s homelife had seemed quite calm, but suddenly it erupts without warning or building up. In the book, the pivotal point is reached as Sheba leaves a bereaved Barbara for Steven; in the film, it is a family outing for a play.

The ending is changed – again seeming that film convention demands a showdown, as if this were the hero Transformer and baddies fighting instead of two complex women. Sheba’s outburst at Barbara and then the press was completely out of her character. Sheba finds Barbara’s diary and scrapbook and derides her restaurant receipts, as if this is a sign of craziness, like finding a shrine of photos in someone’s basement. I like that the lesbian element to be kept as unspoken by Sheba in the novel, but Marberthe screenwriter has Sheba screech this notion with ridicule, before pushing Barbara across the room and storming out on her forever, and back to her husband. Barbara’s compensation is to find a new victim on her favourite Parliament Hill bench. Barbara’s not allowed to learn anything from her time with Sheba – but is set to repeat the pattern with even younger prey. If this screenplay storm is meant to show a developmental arc in Sheba, it fails woefully. It is also the same kind of character curve that ends shallow films – bust em up and leave them, never any reconciliation and growth.

At this point it is worth observing that Barbara is as much older than Sheba than Sheba is than Connolly. Barbara comments that the end of childhood is marked by an legally enforced arbitrary age, when the narrative makes clear that Steven is not a victim and not a child. Barbara often remarks on how the gender of differingly aged lovers makes a difference. In Barbara’s case, the gender is the same but the ages, once a decade or two later, no longer matter.

It’s been suggested to me that Barbara’s draw to Sheba is maternal and there is some sense in that. Sheba’s own mum is a prickly relationship and she is physically distant from her daughter. But Barbara is near, and she gives the only child treatment to Sheba.

I think that Barbara’s feelings for Sheba are more like a romantic friendship as described in The Ladies Of Llangollen. Barbara does make a hint or two that lust is not unknown to her, but her feelings for Sheba do not appear sexual. Sheba makes the distinction between sensual and sensuous, far removed from sexual. When Barbara asks to stroke Sheba’s arms, it’s not about being sex staved as Sheba unkindly remarks: it is a simple act of bonding without desire. It upsets me that that moment is found to be disturbing by many.

What does disturb me is how Heller goes all Patricia Highsmith in her last few pages. But I wonder if there is another layer – and that we are not to take Sheba’s outburst as the truth. How can Sheba call Barbara crazy and manipulative after her own behaviour? The novel doesn’t end as I hoped on many levels.

As well as a better understanding of singleness and homosexuality, this story to me craves a better understanding of those passionate non sexual relationships; and also that there may be people whose deepest relationships are not physical ones. Perhaps our society needs to learn to accept asexual as much as gay, bi and trans.

It also needs to better deal with loneliness and need. When asked in an interview if had met a Barbara in life, Eyre says he had and her loneliness kept people away like a bad smell. Our trend is to keep away from anyone that seems hard work, holding them away and compounding their pain. Really this is weakness on the behalf of those who cannot and will not find the strength to grow and the courage to engage with someone else.

These are themes I write of on this site and in my own work – and I end by offering a link to my thoughts on society’s dichotomy between acceptable and unacceptable obsessions:  http://www.socyberty.com/Relationships/The-Most-Selfish-Kinds-of-Love.298587

One can see how Barbara’s pain is augmented by being outside of the acceptable ones.

I have many more thoughts on this story and will be adding further pieces shortly.

Cover via Amazon

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

            The Tipping Point is the biography of a simple idea and how little things can make a big difference causing a “tip” in a circumstance.  The Tipping Point is one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once.  Malcolm Gladwell begins with the example of “Hush Puppies” shoes and also speaks of the fall of crime in New York.  One may stop to wonder how these two very different examples share a basic underlying pattern.  They both exhibit contagious behavior and in each case little changes caused big effects.

            Gladwell speaks of three rules of epidemics: Law of Few, The Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context.  In the first rule, Law of Few, he illustrates certain type of people who help tip the scales.  These are connectors, mavens and salesman.  He gives an example of a famous connector, Paul Revere, which was a most surprising story.  In introducing the next rule, the Stickiness factor, Gladwell uses Sesame Street and Blues Clues to exhibit repetition as a learning tool in the youth of today.  The third rule, The Power of Context, touched on the crime rate of New York City.  A little gesture such as cleaning graffiti off the subway walls helped to reduce crime in the area.  He introduced the “Broken Glass Theory” depicting that unchecked signs of deterioration in a neighborhood or community could result in a declining quality of living.  If a window is broken or left un-repaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares or no one is in charge.  This could lead to an epidemic of crime.  Gladwell mentioned the magic number of 150.  Groups of 150 display levels of intimacy and efficiency.  Groups larger than this size tend to be toxic.  This strategy of smaller groups is found in many corporations’ organizational structures today.

            Gladwell introduces several case studies throughout the book. Airwalk shoes, teenage smoking and breast cancer awareness to name a few. 

            The Tipping Point is a magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire. It’s a book about change. In particular, it’s a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.

Full Summary of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

            The book, The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell identifies and explains mechanisms which cause certain trends to “tip” and take hold and others to fail.  Gladwell portrays examples from marketing, medicine, literature, politics, and other spheres that show basic moves and conditions that can transform a small change into a huge awakening.  In the beginning of his book, Gladwell uses an example of “Hush Puppies” shoes and how a handful of hipsters in Manhattan started wearing the shoes and caused a shift in sales.  It took a group of “opinion makers” to wear the shoes; other saw them and copied the style.  After a few fashion designers used them, “Hush Puppies” reached the “tipping point”; causing this brand of shoe to take off in sales and till today still exits in stores everywhere.

            Gladwell identifies how epidemics are started.  He assesses that most trends and styles are born and spread according to certain types of transmission and also in conveying certain style and ideas.  Gladwell introduces three rules of epidemics; the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Content.  The tipping points that transform a phenomenon into an influential trend require a certain type of people. The success to any kind of social epidemic is dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gift.   Those particular people make things happen.  They are usually energetic, connected, knowledgeable, persuasive and influential among their peers.  They are connectors, mavens, and salesman.  Connectors are individuals who have many ties with people.  They have a special gift for bringing the world together.  They tend to be outgoing and helpful.  They are the kind of people to know when you need a job because they know somebody who knows somebody.  A famous connector he uses as an example was Paul Revere and his ride warning the patriots, “The British are coming”.  This was an example of a word of mouth epidemic.  People knew and trusted Paul Revere.  They believed him and followed his warnings.  At the very same time, William Dawes, also rode warning people of the same thing.  No one listened to Mr. Dawes because he was not as well known as Paul Revere.  His message did not stick like Paul Revere’s historical message.

             Gladwell then speaks about mavens. The word Maven comes from the Yiddish and it means one who accumulates knowledge.  Mavens are people who have a strong desire to help other consumers by helping them make decisions.  They are information specialist.  To be a maven is to be a teacher.  Mavens are information brokers, sharing and trading what they know. They are also avid readers of “Consumer Reports”.  Mavens have the knowledge and the social skills to start word-of-mouth epidemics, but don’t how to pass it along. The third type of person is the salesman who twists arms and motivates people into to actions.  Great salesmen have the ability to enter into an arrangement, establish themselves quickly and proceed rapidly to sell items. Salesmen have skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing and they are critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics.

            As the book continues on, Gladwell introduces an important factor in tipping items.  This is called the “stickiness”.  Stickiness is a specific factor quality of a message that makes something memorable and grabs people’s imagination.  The Stickiness factor states there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable. These are simple changes of the presentation of structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it makes.  An example of the stickiness factor is the children’s show, Sesame Street.  The makers of Sesame Street use this repetitive factor to teach kids with rhymes and rhythms. The same teaching segment of the show is presented throughout the week repetitively before a new concept is introduced.  This method helps children understand and comprehend by using visual-blending exercises.   One example of this showed segments that teach children that reading consists of blending together distinct sounds.  In one, “Hug”, a female Muppet, approaches the word HUG in the center of the screen.  She stands behind the H, sounding it out carefully, and then moves to the U, and then the G.  She does it again, moving from left to right, pronouncing each letter separately, before putting the sounds together to say “hug”.  As she does, the Muppet Herry Monster enters and repeats the words as well.  The segment ends with the Herry Monster hugging the delighted little girl Muppet.  The legacy of Sesame Street was if you paid careful attention to the structure and format of your material, you could enhance, “stickiness”.  Sesame Street today is watched by children all over the world in an effort to better prepare them in their future education.

            Another aspect of mechanisms that cause trends to “tip” into mass productivity is the next term Gladwell points out, the Power of Context.  When environmental conditions are introduced and are not right, it is not likely that the tipping point will occur.  Gladwell speaks of the rapid decline in violent crime rates that occurred in 1990’s in New York City.  He acknowledged a variety of factors that played a role in the decline.  One instance was the removal of graffiti from the subway areas.  With a clean environment, crime rate began to decline.  Criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling developed the “Broken Window theory”.  This theory basically proposed that crime was the natural result of a disorder. If unchecked signs of deterioration in a neighborhood or community were seen by all, this could result in a declining quality of living.  If a window is broken or left un-repaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares or no one is in charge.  In the cities, graffiti was equivalent of broken windows which initiated more serious crimes.  This is an epidemic theory of crime.  Crime is contagious and can start with a broken window or graffiti and spread through an entire community. Cities began the clean up which allowed other factors like the decline in crack cocaine use and the again of the population to gradually tip into a major decline in the crime rate.

             Gladwell also mentioned for a trend to tip, you need a large number of people to embrace it.  Certain sizes and types can also achieve a tipping point.  In the novel, “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” appealed strongly to middle-aged women in Northern California.  These women were able to push the book into a national success. These women related their own experiences to the book and through word of mouth caused the novel to become a best seller.  This book was an emotionally sophisticated character-driven, multi-layered novel that expressed reflection and much discussion in book groups.  The novel became a social experience, a conversational piece and tipped into a larger word of mouth epidemic.  The lesson of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood states that the small close knit groups have the power to magnify the epidemic of a message or idea.

            In continuing discussion on group size, Gladwell introduces his theory of the magic of the number of 150.  Group sizes play a large part in tipping scales.  He refers to 150 as the magic number of a group size.  This group size displays levels of intimacy and efficiency.  Groups larger than this size tend to be more toxic.  With a smaller group, you can become comfortable and rely on the other members to exhibit qualities of accuracy.  Many corporations today use this factor as a foundation for their organization structure.

            In the case study sections in this book, Gladwell discusses the rise and decline of the Airwalk shoe.  It was originally geared toward skateboards in Southern California. It obtained national recognition through advertising techniques that portrayed“coolness” about them.  By using fad styling in their shoes, Airwalks were able to create a product that was always right on target and exactly what the public wanted.  The advertising agency came up with a series of dramatic images, single photographs showing the Airwalk user relating to his shoes in some weird way.  In one, a young man is wearing an Airwalk shoe on his head, with laces hanging down like braids, as his laces are being cut by a barber.  The ads were put on billboards and in “wild postings” on construction-site walls and in alternative magazines.  As Airwalks grew, the advertising company went into television.  The strength of the Airwalks advertising campaign was in more than the look of their work.  Airwalk tipped because its advertising was founded very explicitly on the principles of epidemic transmission.

            Gladwell touches on the Translation Factor.  Translator takes ideas and information from a highly specialized world and translates them into a language the rest of us can understand.  The most sophisticated analysis of the process of translation comes from the study of rumors.  As we remember the child’s game of starting a rumor and as it is communicated to each person it is heightened and exaggerated totally changing the initial comment.  In a rumor, there are three directions that are followed.  The story is first leveled. Details that are essential for understanding the true meaning of the incident are left out. Then the rumor/story is sharpened.  The details that remain were made more specific. Finally, a process of assimilation takes place; the story was changed so it made sense to those spreading the rumor.  What mavens, connectors and salesmen do to an idea in order to make it contagious is to alter it in a way that specific details are dropped and others are exaggerated so that the message itself comes to acquire a deeper meaning; thus causing a “tip”.

            Gladwell used the spread of teenage smoking as another example of the tipping point.  Once again he reiterates the idea of “coolness” of smoking which causes a teenager to start smoking.  He also noted that making smoking sound dangerous and rebellious appeals to teenagers.  Larger advertising companies continuously pump money into campaigns enticing teenagers.  Many teenagers end up continuing their cigarette experiment until they get hooked.  The smoking experience is so memorable and powerful that they cannot stop smoking.  The habit “sticks”.  Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking; “It makes you wrinkle”, “It can give you lung cancer and you can die”, doesn’t matter to them in the least.  It is exciting, mysterious, dangerous and cool and especially frowned upon by their parents; all the elements to make teenagers want to smoke more.  Emotional problems such as low self-esteem, unhealthy and unhappy home life, depression could lead to smoking in the first place among these teens.

            Another important example of the concept of tipping was a nurse named Georgia Sadler who began a campaign to increase knowledge and awareness of breast cancer and diabetes in a black community in San Diego.  She moved her campaign from churches to beauty salons.  Women would sometimes spend two to eight hours having their hair braided.  Stylist form bonds with their customers so she initiated the stylist to present a constant cycle of new information and gossipy tidbits on breast cancer awareness and diabetes into the salons.  She wrote material up in large print and put it on laminated sheets.  She set up evaluation programs to find out if it was working and if she was changing attitudes to get women to have mammograms and diabetes testing.  Her program worked.  She tipped the scales in her quest to help these women.

Image by Titanas via Flickr

            In conclusion, the first lesson of the Tipping Point is starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas.  The Law of the Few says that connectors, mavens, and salesman are responsible for starting work of mouth epidemics.  There are times when we need a convenient shortcut; a way to make a lot out of a little, and that is what Tipping Points in the end are all about.  There is difficulty in the world of the Tipping Point as hopefulness as well.  By controlling a group size, we can improve its interest to new ideas.  By repetitive presentation of information, we can improve its stickiness.  Tipping points are a reaffirmation of the potential for charge and the power of intelligent action.  The world around us seems like an immovable place, but with the slightest push – it can be tipped.

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To contact the author of this summary/review, please email Lisa Patti at Lisa.Patti@selu.edu.

David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.

Image via Wikipedia

This is a truly wonderful and well-written book that talks about the many benefits dogs bring to our lives.  You may not agree with everything Stanley Coren has to say—I am not sure how I personally feel about his claim that Homo Sapiens, rather than Neanderthals, inherited the earth thanks to dogs—but, I hope that, like me, you will find most if not all, of his stories heart-warming.  And most stories in this book (this book is a collection of accounts, many of them based on the author’s own experience) are not as speculative as the one about Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.  It is well-known for example that dogs reduce stress; it may not be so well known however that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK “interrupted the deliberations of his advisers to have Charlie [his Welsh terrier] brought to him.  For what seemed like a very long time, Kennedy sat stroking the dog, and the president gradually seemed to relax.  Then, with a clam look of control he put Charlie down and said, ‘I suppose it’s time to make some decisions’” (p. 154).

In this short book, Stanley Coren recounts (each with a human story that puts a face on the story) the many other benefits we derive from our dogs: an improved immune system, a guardian angel, a life-long friend to whom we can tell our innermost secrets, a crime fighter and a disease detector.  And he illustrates each of these benefits.  He tells, for example, how a West Highland white terrier named Angel, saved Nancy’s life on more than one occasion; how a cocker spaniel named Duffy saved Arlene’s life by noticing her melanoma; how a bloodhound caught the Philadelphia bomber and so much more.

But also he tells of how callous we often are to our dogs.  Not only does he tell stories of individuals’ cruelty (tying a dog into a sack and attempting to drown him, for example) but of official cruelty.  Virtually all the dogs that served our country during the Second World War were euthanized by our government; almost all the dogs that served us during the Vietnam War were left with the South Vietnamese and were later eaten or simply killed; dogs considered to be “aristocratic” were murdered en masse during China’s Cultural Revolution; and FEMA forced dog owners to be separated from their dogs—with many (perhaps most) dogs dying as a result.

And finally, I think a few words must be said about this book’s author, Stanley Coren.  You may know him as the author of the (justly famous) How to Speak Dog.  Less known perhaps is that this psychology professor was one of a team of people that convinced the federal government to change its policies regarding dogs in an evacuation.  No longer will dog owners be forcefully separated from their companions.

Stanley Coren has done his part to ensure that we treat our canine companions who have done so much to improve our lives with the kindness they deserve.  I highly recommend this book.

Resell Rights supplies many opportunities that you are able to generate your profit from.

With the increase in attention to Resell Rights for that last handful of many years, lots of resellers are crawling the web in search of high quality Resell Rights products they can re-sell, and the obvious chances from this really is your opportunity to take advantage from this trend that is here to stay.

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The Concept

Quite simply, you market your e-book, presenting the consumer with either Basic or Master Resell Rights.

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by John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy has one of the most notorious names among all serial killers. He raped and murdered as many as 33 boys and young men in the 1970s, burying the bodies on his property. He has also been dubbed the “Killer Clown” because he was known to dress up as a clown at children’s parties in his neighborhood. Under questioning by police, Gacy eventually admitted to his crimes. He was executed in Illinois in 1994 after spending 14 years in prison.

While in prison he wrote the book “A Question of Doubt,” which is his take on the events surrounding his trial and the murders of which he was accused. If you are not familiar with the history of Gacy’s crimes, this book will be only confusing to you. But if you are aware of the history, and you’re a serious student of crime, this book gives an excellent (though at times deranged) look into the mindset of a serial murderer.

The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

Ian Brady, along with accomplice Myra Hindley, was found guilty of the “Moor Murders,” the slayings (and in some cases sexual assaults) of five children in England in the early 1960s. Hindley died in prison in 2002. Brady is still imprisoned after being declared mentally insane in 1985.

Brady is the author of “The Gates of Janus,” a somewhat serious (though awkwardly disturbing) attempt at studying the mind of serial killers. Brady goes on to blame society for serial killers and creates a philosophy of sorts about relative morality and sort of serial killers as “supermen,” perhaps trying to justify his own crimes to himself. He also spends multiple chapters studying specific serial killers and their crimes. As can be expected, this is not a book for the meek.

While in prison, Hindley also wrote a book, an autobiography. It has yet to be published.

Holmes’ Own Story

by H.H. Holmes

His real name being Herman Webster Mudgett, H.H. Holmes is perhaps one of the most prolific serial killers few people seem to have heard of. He operated in America in the late 1800s and possibly killed hundreds in secret chambers of horrors he had built in a “castle” in Chicago. Holmes eventually admitted to 27 murders and was executed by hanging in 1896.

During his trial, Holmes wrote the book ” Holmes’ Own Story.” This book cannot be found on its own today (except perhaps in some rare collections), but it is still available as part of a larger work, “The Strange Case of Dr. H.H. Holmes,” a collection of three source books about Holmes and Holmes’ confession. “Own Story” is an autobiography, starting from Holmes’ childhood and eventually leading to his trial. Throughout the book Holmes insists he is innocent and he makes up plenty of nonsense in an attempt to prove his innocence. He fails miserably, in my opinion.

Killer Fiction

by G. J. Schaefer and Sondra London

A former police officer, Gerard John Schaefer was found guilty of the two murders of two teen girls in 1972 in Florida. When his home was searched, many items belonging to other missing women were discovered. Still, Schaefer was only convicted of the two murders. In letters from Schaefer over the years, he boasted of torturing and killing as many as 34 women. He even boasted of cannibalism. In 1995, Schaefer was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate.

Author Sondra London, at one time engaged to Schaefer, put together a collection of fictional horror stories written by Schaefer. Some of the stories were discovered in his home while others he wrote in prison. All the tales are disturbing, including the torture, abuse, degradation and eventual murders of women.

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The Making of a Serial Killer

by Danny Rolling and Sondra London

After Schaefer, author Sondra London became engaged with Danny Rolling, who confessed to the mutilations and murders of five students in Florida in 1990. Rolling eventually also confessed to murdering a family in 1989. He was executed in Florida in 2006.

During his imprisonment, Rolling worked with London on this book, “The Making of a Serial Killer.” It is his version of the murders to which he confessed. And he does not shy away from the horrific details. Be wary of reading this book unless you have a strong constitution for the gory. This is perhaps the most disturbing of all the books listed here, being made up of murders told from a real killer’s point of view.

Rolling also wrote a horror novel, “Sicarius,” which has been published in a limited edition.

Related links

6 serial killers who were never caught

6 excellent true crime books

Violence in Fiction: How Does the Writer Know When Enough is Enough?

Cover of Exodus And Revolution

To Machiavelli, he was a Founder, one of that handful of men in history who was able to change his people’s very nature; a Prince who “governed prudently while he lived” and who organized his institutions in such a way that when he died they “still maintained” themselves.  To DreamWorks and Paramount, he is a Prince of Egypt whose rivalry with Ramses is Egypt’s downfall.  But what sort of political leader was Moses and what sort of people did he lead?  In The Nursing Father: Moses as Political Leader and Exodus and Revolution,  Aaron Wildavsky and Michael Walzer take these questions seriously but from different angles.  Aaron Wildavsky looks at the Exodus story as a study in leadership and so his emphasis is on the kind of political leader Moses was while Michael Walzer prefers to emphasise the people who followed Moses (and later the Prophets) into the land of Israel.

So Aaron Wildavsky argues that in Exodus, we see displayed four different regimes: slavery where leadership is unlimited, continuous and despotic; anarchy where leadership is limited to a specific end and meteoric, equity where leadership is charismatic because all are equal before God so the only justification for leadership (inequality) has to be some sign of perfection, and hierarchy where leadership is limited, continuous but is in danger of being autocratic.  Aaron Wildavsky further makes the point that these regimes are sustained by belief.  There were far more Hebrews in Egypt than there were Egyptians.  The Hebrews could have left by themselves; they had no need of a Moses to lead them.  But, because slavery inculcates passivity in slave and master alike, the most Hebrews could manage to do while in Egypt was cry out to God.  To Aaron Wildavsky then the liberation was not really the people’s idea but God’s and Moses’ (Michael Walzer disagrees-pointing out that without at a minimum the people’s participation the liberation could not have happened).  Nonetheless, both writers agree that what followed was a period of anarchy.  Or as Aaron Wildavsky puts it, the people grumble to Moses, he tells God and God sends a miracle (water, bread, meat, what have you).  A few days later the process repeats itself.  No-one is in charge.

Then we come to Mount Sinai where God makes a Covenant with the people (Michael Walzer emphasises that the Covenant is made with all the people, including the women and the strangers among them).  The deal is simple: accept moral codes (internalize morality) and you will be free and will live in a good land and if you don’t do it then you won’t.  And because all are party to this conditional Covenant equally, this regime is (in Aaron Wildavsky’s terms) a regime of equity.  In such a regime he points out only a charismatic person can be a leader because a society of equals does not admit a moral basis for inequality other than perfection.  Unfortunately, in such a regime the only way to remain a leader is to purge one’s followers—as Moses does when accused by Korah of being a tyrant and by Dathan and Abiram for being a poor leader and a hypocrite to boot.  The purge, Aaron Wildavsky points out, is never justified in the Bible—indeed shortly after purging his enemies Moses proves their point by not only contravening God’s word but by substituting his will for God’s.  Moses, the charismatic leader, has indeed taken too much unto himself—a bit of hierarchy is perhaps in order.  Of course the move toward a more hierarchical regime has been in place all along, starting with Jethro’s suggestion that Moses form a bureaucracy and end up with (according to Michael Walzer’s count) of 15 percent of Hebrews being rulers at any given time.  By the time the people enter the land of Canaan, they have a set of (hierarchical) institutions as well as many laws (again Aaron Wildavsky and Michael Walzer disagree as to the exact number).  Power in Aaron Wildavsky’s account has been institutionalized. 

But enough about the leaders.  What of the people?  Someone had to follow Moses and Aaron or the whole thing would have been pointless.  In Aaron Wildavsky’s account, the people (with a notable exception) are largely missing.  They are “regimes”; Michael Walzer’s account by contrast is all about the people.  He points out that no matter what the circumstances, it took tremendous courage to leave Egypt and everything they had ever known for the sake of a vaguely-remembered promise.  He points out too that it was this same courage that allowed the people to grumble against God.  And that the stubbornness which so infuriated Moses and God is not an unalloyed evil.  For even as it led to much backsliding it also made it impossible for this people to forget their word.  They were too stubborn for that.  And finally he points out that at Mount Sinai, as Korah had claimed, all heard the voice of God equally and all entered into the covenant of their own free will.  And that this Covenant implied not only freedom (a slave after all Michael Walzer argues is perhaps more “free” than a free man because he is not held accountable for his actions) but responsibility.  They promised to live up to a very stringent moral code.   And that by doing so, the people made themselves into a nation.

To Michael Walzer then the hierarchical elements of ancient Hebrew society (such as the priesthood of the Levites) are a perhaps (with a strong emphasis on perhaps) necessary evil.  But he is in no doubt that this is an evil (he much prefers the egalitarian and charismatic prophets).  In the end then, Michael Walzer’s book ends on a hopeful note as he recounts the lessons many peoples from the English under Cromwell to the revolutionaries in Central America learned from Exodus–and the lesson is how to mobilize an essentially courageous people to become free .  To Aaron Wildavsky, the right lesson to be drawn from the same book is how to move people (often against their will) from one regime (one set of beliefs) to another so that they can have a good and decent government.  Which is why he calls Moses “the consummate politician.”

Perhaps, I can see Michael Walzer reply.  But does not a decent government need a decent people?

However, while this level of appreciation is only really possible to someone able to read the poems in their original language, understanding the meaning and enjoying the sentiment is still feasible to a certain extent. Consider, first, the nature of the poem, that is, its structure: in addition to the fixed syllable structure, the haiku must also contain a reference to the natural world and the kireji – the caesura that divides the meaning into two (before and after, perhaps). Haiku are most commonly infused with the Zen form of Buddhism, which is linked to the ‘Lightning Bolt’ school (Majrayana) which offers the opportunity for the instantaneous striking of enlightenment (nirvana) like the aforementioned lightning bolt. However, enlightenment strikes only those whose mind is in the appropriate condition and even then at an unexpected time and place. The Zen practitioner, therefore, prepares her or his mind so that, if the lightning bolt is ready, then so is the practitioner. One important way of doing this is to try to commune deeply with the essence of the natural world, both steeping the mind in its beauty and rhythms and at the same time maintaining the distance from it that indicates the lack of desire for physical goods or goals. The kireji, therefore, may be both the moment at which the lightning strikes and, also, the representation of the distance between the observer (practitioner) and the observed (nature) which is necessary to achieve nirvana.

Consider probably the most famous individual haiku, by the master Basho (1644-94 CE), which may be translated as: ‘Old pond, frog leaps in, water’s sound.’ This seems very simple and indeed is, since the simplicity has a beauty of its own: the act of the frog disturbs the water while also changing the nature of reality, as symbolized by the sound of the water ringing around the world. The frog brings, or is, the lightning bolt.

Western versions of haiku might substitute the Christian concept of ‘epiphany’ for the lightning bolt of Zen.

To take an example, consider the poem Spring Dawn by the celebrated Tang Dynasty poet Meng Haoran (689-740 CE). The poem consists of four lines each of five characters – that is a total of twenty different characters. How many western poems that are memorable rely on just twenty words? Yet this is not unusual in Chinese poetry and its minimalist nature should be considered in the context of reducing human life into its essential parts. The first line has characters representing ‘spring sleep not wake dawn.’ So, the poet recalls an occasion during spring when he did not awake at the dawn – Spring suggests the renewal of life and the start of new ventures and opportunities but for some reason the poet has missed it. Why did he miss it? Was it because of laziness, drunkenness, the actions of others? It is not clear. The second line has characters for ‘everywhere hear cry bird.’ Well, this is not unusual in itself – it is normal to hear birds cry but, of course, the birds may not just be birds. What if the birds are people or politicians offering their policies or philosophers offering concepts never before expressed?

The third line has the characters ‘night come wind rain sound.’ Again, on the face of it, this is not surprising since after day comes night. But night is also darkness and here these are the problems of rain and wind, enough to cut down plants perhaps or silence birds. The final line’s characters represent ‘flower fall know how many.’ So, some flowers have fallen in the darkness and, because it is dark, no one knows how many. There are many interpretations but, written 1200 years before the Tiananmen Square massacre, it could have been composed as an elegy for the fallen students.

For more details, start with the self-evidently named http://www.chinese-poems.com/.

Pitch first appears in Chapter 21 as a skeptic denouncing the herb-doctor’s natural cures.  The reader is given a vision of “…a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft and rifles” (Melville 121).  We soon see that Pitch is a philosophical cynic, making remarks against both nature and men, with no chance of being assuaged by the herb-doctor’s sugared tongue.  Upon being asked in what or whom he has confidence, Pitch answers, “I have confidence in distrust, particularly as applied to you and your herbs” (Melville 124).  His attitude prevails throughout most of Chapter 22, until he is finally broken down by the continued reassurances of the representative from the Philosophical Intelligence Office.  Possibly his most famous remark, “My name is Pitch; I stick to what I say” (Melville 144), is repeated again and again, sounding less and less certain each time; as pitch, over time, loses its hold on what it had previously been joining, so too does the character Pitch’s steadfast hold on his cynical beliefs weaken, to the point where he finally purchases the services of one of the boys which the representative has been soliciting.  This shows that, for all his blustering, Pitch has retained a modicum of trust in humankind, and his conscience does not allow him to repress it for too terribly long in the face of such “benign personalities” (Melville 144).

However, Pitch is quick to realize, after seeing the representative disembark at the rather notorious city of Cairo, that, for all his defenses, he may have allowed himself to be duped.  Melville describes Pitch’s self-admonishing thought process with metaphorical gusto: “Philosophy, knowledge, experience—were those trusty knights of the castle recreant?  No, but unbeknown to them, the enemy stole on the castle’s south side its genial one, where Suspicion, the warder, parleyed.  In fine, his too indulgent, too artless and companionable nature betrayed him.  Admonished by which, he thinks he must be a little splenetic in his intercourse henceforth” (Melville 149).  Therefore, due to his “too indulgent, too artless, and too companionable nature” (more than a slight exaggeration as far as his personality is concerned), Pitch retreats back into his callous and cynical shell, determined to let no one else put a crack in it.  This, of course, forms the basis for the segue into Chapter 24, in which Pitch encounters the cosmopolitan, John Goodman.  Goodman (by some interpretations the story’s ultimate confidence-man) attempts his worldly con on Pitch, but the latter, though with shaken resolve, resists, accusing the cosmopolitan of being “another of them,” comparing him to both the herb-doctor and the PIO representative by whom he has just been conned.  Pitch projects an even more cynical persona than before, and Goodman, unsuccessful in converting this “misanthrope” (as Melville himself labels him, possibly in an attempt to influence the opinions of the reader), walks away in disgust to end the chapter.  This is the last we ever see of Pitch, and so this final impression of him is etched in our minds as we continue to the next chapter.

We are immediately introduced to Colonel John Moredock by Charlie Noble in Chapter 25: “…silky bearded and curly headed, and to all but Indians juicy as a peach.  But Indians—how the late Colonel John Moredock, Indian-hater of Illinois, did hate Indians, to be sure!” (Melville 160).  We are given a story, after a chapter devoted to the metaphysics of Indian-hating itself, of a man who lost his family to rogue Indians and thereafter became an arbitrary misanthrope of the worst kind, slaughtering every Indian he could find while at the same time holding back no kindness from his fellow settlers and frontiersmen; after all, “‘…Moredock was an example of something apparently self-contradicting, certainly curious, but, at the same time, undeniable: namely, that nearly all Indian-haters have at bottom loving hearts…’” (Melville 175-76).  This is, of course, in contrast to Noble’s opinion of Pitch: “…ain’t quite so good a fellow at bottom,” as he says.  What then, are we to glean from this pertaining to Pitch’s character?  Is he indeed a misanthrope, actively battling a shriveled conscience with weighty, contrived evidence against humanity?  Is he, as Noble states, “…a sort of comprehensive Colonel Moredock, who too much spreading his passion, shallows it” (Melville 177)?

This problem arises because, again, the reader is goaded into using their last opinion of Pitch as a basis for judging his character.  What Melville seems to intend for the reader to gloss over is the fact that, albeit shortly, Pitch does let his conscience get the better of him, and places his trust in the notion that, however small the amount, there is indeed some good inherent in humanity.  By placing this episode in the midst of multiple examples of Pitch’s belligerent cynicism, Melville influences the reader to see it in a different light.  What is needed, though, is a deeper comparison between Moredock and Pitch than that which is given by Melville.  The major difference between Pitch and Moredock is this: while the former is distrustful of humanity as a whole, the latter is so hateful towards one portion of humanity that he has devoted his life to killing them.  Pitch never gives any indication of an underlying hatred of humanity; instead, he simply draws on past wrongs as his basis for his lack of confidence.  He has seen so many examples of humanity’s fickleness that he is resigned to the idea that man cannot be trusted.  Moredock, on the other hand, draws off of one past event as his basis for hating an entire race of people to the point that he actively searches out and murders individuals.  There is a clean divide in his psyche; no battle with conscience, rather, there is one part of him that hates Indians and will do whatever it takes to rid the frontier of them, and another part that is as kind and generous to his fellow settlers as a man could be.  This is in contrast to Pitch, a loner who, try as he might, cannot seem to keep up his cynical façade in all situations.  Moredock has no such inner crises.

Who, then, is the true misanthrope?  Could we, as readers, label both of these men as such?  Has Melville even given us enough to work with in making these judgments?  It is indeed possible that this is another method Melville has used to convolute his story; if even the lines between Pitch and Moredock are blurred, are we to believe any of the assumptions that we make about any of the other characters?  This is a question that can only be answered by Melville himself, and as that is impossible, we will simply have to rely on our own interpretations for now.

Works Cited

Melville, Herman.  The Confidence Man.  New York: The Modern Library, 2003.

Ramsey, William M.  The Moot Points of Melville’s Indian Hating.  American Literature, Vol. 52, No. 2 (May 1980), pp. 224-235.