The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason

This is a story of four Princeton under-graduate roomies - Tom, Paul, Charlie and Gil. Tom (son of a renaissance scholar) and Paul have a passion to decrypt a mysterious 15th century novel, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which is supposedly a collection of cryptic clues which lead to a "pot of wisdom".

You might be tempted to classify this as just a treasure-hunting page-turner in which pages have been filled up with some senseless unrealistic connection between destinations. This is nothing like your conventional treasure hunters' tale. It is more like a first person account given by Tom about his life in a period of a few years in his life.

It does not feature just a single minded pursuit of some treasure with other aspects of their lives completely ignored which is what I loved. This has clearly etched out characters. All the aspects of their lives during that period have been depicted in a manner which occasionally almost dwarfs Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.

It’s the lighter moments, the sub plots and deviations in the story line that make the story even better. The reader is always reminded of the fact that these are students and not professionals of any sort, leave alone treasure-hunters. They couldn’t possibly have the same intoxicating pursuit of their goal. They have a life and a friendship which they share. Things would’ve been quite fulfilling even without this 15th century addition.

It’s evident from the writing style and the plot that this book has been written by someone of tremendous IQ. Even the sub plots have been created with great craft. The meandering route of the story really makes you value the journey more than the eventual destination! It would’ve been a really taxing read had it not been for the way in which the story has been told because the way in which the actual puzzle is solved leaves a lot to the reader's understanding, imagination and some degree of intellect.

The reader actually starts living with Tom day after day because he knows so much about this character.When things start to unfold it’s a complex web of solving the puzzle, internal fights, misunderstandings, murders, deceit which lead us to the climax. It does seem a fitting end to a gripping tale.

My guess is this was just a one-off attempt by amateur authors, who also happen to be Harvard and Princeton alumni, since they haven't written before or since this book. I hope I'm wrong!

Cheers!

The Interpretation of Murder - Jed Rubenfeld

The Interpretation of Murder

The reason why I chose to read this book was I love murder mysteries & those in which the criminal is out-thought and not out-run. The thrill of reading how a psychiatrist like Freud solves a murder mystery was really what got me to read this book. Quasi-fiction stories do make quite an interesting read. Or so I had thought.

The plot takes us back to 1909 when Sigmund Freud arrives on his sole visit to the land of opportunities with his then student Carl Jung to deliver lectures at the invitation of his American disciple Stratham Younger. A young woman is found strangled in her apartment the very day that Freud arrives. The next day another attack; again a young woman but not quite murdered. Freud and Stratham take up the task of reviving the memory of the young woman and ultimately catch the murderer.

The story really starts on a high and that is just about as high as things get.

The author does an excellent job in recreating the early 20th century New York. You really get to know a lot about what was happening around that time. A surreal historic thread runs through the story. It also explains quite a few of Freud’s concepts in easy-to-understand manner. So it is a great text to read for history and psychology enthusiasts. But that isn’t all that this book was meant to address. If Rubenfeld forgot this was also supposed to be a thriller!

There are many meaningless sub plots and quite a few illogical twists and turns. I personally don’t have any accurate information but the depiction of Carl Jung as some kind of a shady, negative character was untrue and really uncalled for. It just seems a meek attempt to glorify Freud.

I as a reader hardly felt any connection with the half-baked characters so found myself losing interest quite rapidly. The low point of the book is the climax. A fair guess can be made about how the story would end by summing up the occurances but I dismissed it as to being rather amateurish. I was right and wrong. My guess was correct, dismissing it was the mistake! It left behind a not-so-good taste.

It would’ve been great to see Freud to be a part of the actual investigation and read him working to nab the criminal but I guess he had already done his psycho-analysis and knew how weak the plot was for him to get involved so he just stays in the background!

A decent start for Jed Rubenfeld considering this is his first book. So we could expect better legal/criminal stories from him in future. And after a start like this… he can only improve!

Cheers!