Describe Books Supposing Compulsion
| Original Title: | Compulsion |
| ISBN: | 1941493025 (ISBN13: 9781941493021) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Chicago, Illinois,1925(United States) |
Meyer Levin
Paperback | Pages: 480 pages Rating: 4.1 | 776 Users | 117 Reviews
Define About Books Compulsion
| Title | : | Compulsion |
| Author | : | Meyer Levin |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 480 pages |
| Published | : | April 14th 2015 by Fig Tree Books (first published June 1956) |
| Categories | : | Crime. True Crime. Fiction. Mystery. Historical. Historical Fiction |
Explanation Conducive To Books Compulsion
Judd Steiner and Artie Straus have it all: wealth, intelligence, and the world at their feet as part of the elite, upper-crust Jewish community of 1920s Chicago. Artie is handsome, athletic, and popular, but he possesses a hidden, powerful sadistic streak and a desire to dominate. Judd is a weedy introvert, a genius who longs for a companion whom he can idolize and worship. Obsessed with Nietzsche’s idea of the superhuman, both boys decide to prove that they are above the laws of man by arbitrarily picking and murdering a Jewish boy in their neighborhood.This new edition of Meyer Levin's classic literary thriller Compulsion reintroduces the fictionalized case of Leopold and Loeb – once considered the "crime of the century" – to a new generation. This incisive psychological portrait of two young murderers seized the imagination of an era and is generally recognized as paving the way for the first non-fiction novel. Compulsion forces us to ask what drives some further into darkness, and some to seek redemption.
Heartbreaking as it is gripping, Compulsion is written with a tense and penetrating force that led the Los Angeles Times to call Levin, “the most significant Jewish writer of his times.”
Rating About Books Compulsion
Ratings: 4.1 From 776 Users | 117 ReviewsNotice About Books Compulsion
Great for book club discussion. Interesting insight into crime psychology and the courtroomDear Sir:As you know doubt know by this time your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. Lies.All lies.The boy was never kidnapped. He was killed shortly after he willingly entered a car with Judd Steiner and Artie Straus. The kidnapping scam was an attempt to cover their real crime - murder . . . just for the hell of it.Steiner and Straus, based on the real life Leopold and Loeb, were the privileged sons of multimillionaires. Brilliant and bored,
This is sort of hard to rate because although it is a well-written book it is very unpleasant to read. It's interesting as a window into the social mores and pop psychology of the 1920s, but it is also very disturbing.
Compelling. I read this because I've been reading so much fictional crime that I thought I should follow some of that interest with a real crime. I have read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood a couple of times. I have also watched the movie a couple of times. Compulsion, which is the story of Leopold and Loeb's brutal killing of a 14 year old boy stuck with me just the same. Of course if you're at all familiar with, and go as far as to believe the Bible, you know that evil always existed. But in
Although Truman Capote is credited with "inventing" the non-fiction novel, Meyer Levin's Compulsion, written almost 10 years before, really set the stage for the genre. The difference is that Levin's book presents as a novel, renaming characters, and it does delve into the psychological inner lives of the two central characters, which is why it had to be classified as fiction rather than non-, much the same as Dave Eggars' What is the What. I remember being absolutely horrified when I first read
This novel is rigorous and striking.Rigorous because it is so well-detailed, written ten years before In Cold Blood, in a true journalistic style. Philosophical references, to Nietzsche and Freud, are omnipresent and incite the reader to put into perspective characters' thoughts and actions.What was particularly striking in this writing, and differs from Truman Capote's work, is that the author knew the criminals before their crime and see how he allowed himself to invent different protagonists'
I received a free copy of "Compulsion" as a Goodreads giveway, at the time I thought it sounded quite interesting. I had never heard of this book before although it was published in the 50's. As much as this book is dark and twisted, it is also compelling and fascinating. Extremely well written. This is one of those book which I literally could not put down, which is pretty rare these days. The only criticism I have would be the last 50 pages or so were slow, Other than that, I highly recommend
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