Tuesday 9 February 2010

Does anyone read several books at once?

Or is it just me? I have a tendancy to just pick up books, read half of them, then start another one, and another, and another. I'm the same with my writing - start a piece of work, then another, etc.

Anyway, on the advise of a member of the BCF, I picked up "The Stranger Beside Me" by Ann Rule from the library the other day. It is written from a first hand knowledge of Ted Bundy, the serial killer in the US of the 1970's as Ann Rule was a long standing friend of Bundy's. She was actually commissioned to write about the killings before she knew it was her old friend who was perpretrating them.

It's a good book, if, like me, you are into the background of crime. However, there isn't a lot of answers as to why Bundy did what he did, namely because Bundy was labelled as a serial killer out of sorts. Rather generically, serial killers usually have major trauma in their early life, whether it is abuse from an elder, poverty, physical trauma and so forth. The majority of them are either of lower intellectual capacity up to about average. Lastly, if you are to believe some of the profilers, they are also not particularly attractive and quite a few of them have problems meeting and sustaining relationships. Ted Bundy was none of the above. His only trauma was that he was illegitimate, but he grew up in a good, stable environment. He was vastly intelligent, with a high IQ (even though towards the period of his killings, whilst enrolled at University, he achieved low grades) and lastly, he was very attractive and was able to hold down a long term relationship with a girl who was besotted with him.

Whereas many profilers have a lot of reasons as to why various criminals behave the way they do, in Ted Bundy's case there was no real prior mishaps to suggest he would go on to pave the way as a killer. When the judge sentanced him to life imprisonment, he mentioned that Bundy had the capabilities to be a very well rounded individual, with a successful life path.

I saw an interview with Bundy on youtube when I was doing a study of pornography for a module, in which he blamed the distribution and access of pornography for why he did what he did. Personally I find this ridiculous, namely because in the 70's the access of material came largely from images depicted in magazines. In today's society we have it far more readily available - internet, magazines, dvds. The deprivation of some material goes without saying, but I suspect these genres were not as accessible to Bundy as he may suggest.

Anyhow, I'm nowhere near finishing the book, and these are just my jumbled thoughts based on other information I have on Bundy, so I hope this book proves a good read.

Happy Reading,

MissyB =)

2 comments:

  1. I do that too, I have a ton of books in my shelf that I've started but not finnished. But now I've made a list so I can get through them all before I begin something else.

    http://booksinmylife.blog.com/

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  2. I know what you mean Rose! I have bookmarked your blog too :)

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