I've forgotten a book. (Jack the Ripper?)
May 22, 2015 11:03 AM Subscribe
Memoryjogfilter: I have somewhat vivd memories of a tale I was told, but I can't put a pin in it for love or money. A young man pursuing vengeance in Victorian times while keeping up social appearance -- keywords may be Jack the Ripper and Neil Gaiman -- may have been audiobook or comic, or a story-within-a-story?
Reading a review of I, RIPPER, I suddenly flashed on a first-person-narrated story of a young man (Victorian times, +/- 100 years) who was bereft (his family killed? or a death-by-negligence-of-eviction kind of thing) and plotting to take his vengeance. He was either learning who did it or pursuing who did it (was he spared because he was away at the time?), but it was someone with some status in society that was preventing swift action.
I remember a stalkery milieu (him following his quarry mostly unseen in crowds, or at night) and I remember the detail lavished on either his apartment or his quarry's apartment -- or maybe his quarry had someone been in his apartment? I remember the young man having to separately make his way in the world, with his social labyrinth of introductions and friends-of-parents, and there was a girl that he could not see as much as he would like, but I'm unclear whether that restriction was internally or externally posed -- and the girl likewise fell into his quarry's ambit, somehow.
I'm fairly certain it wasn't a movie. It could well have been a short story, or a story-within-a-story of a novel. It wasn't something I read in 2015, and I have kept pretty detailed records of what I read in 2013 and 2014, and nothing in there fits. It could have been a comic, because I can visualize much of the story, but in such a nonspecific way that I suspect it was actually an audiobook. I realize there are superficial similarities to Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, which prompts Gaiman in my mind, but the young man in question is not Bod.
Does this prompt anything in anyone?
Reading a review of I, RIPPER, I suddenly flashed on a first-person-narrated story of a young man (Victorian times, +/- 100 years) who was bereft (his family killed? or a death-by-negligence-of-eviction kind of thing) and plotting to take his vengeance. He was either learning who did it or pursuing who did it (was he spared because he was away at the time?), but it was someone with some status in society that was preventing swift action.
I remember a stalkery milieu (him following his quarry mostly unseen in crowds, or at night) and I remember the detail lavished on either his apartment or his quarry's apartment -- or maybe his quarry had someone been in his apartment? I remember the young man having to separately make his way in the world, with his social labyrinth of introductions and friends-of-parents, and there was a girl that he could not see as much as he would like, but I'm unclear whether that restriction was internally or externally posed -- and the girl likewise fell into his quarry's ambit, somehow.
I'm fairly certain it wasn't a movie. It could well have been a short story, or a story-within-a-story of a novel. It wasn't something I read in 2015, and I have kept pretty detailed records of what I read in 2013 and 2014, and nothing in there fits. It could have been a comic, because I can visualize much of the story, but in such a nonspecific way that I suspect it was actually an audiobook. I realize there are superficial similarities to Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK, which prompts Gaiman in my mind, but the young man in question is not Bod.
Does this prompt anything in anyone?
Best answer: I just finished The Meaning of Night, and I am quite certain darchildre is right.
posted by jeudi at 12:46 PM on May 22, 2015
posted by jeudi at 12:46 PM on May 22, 2015
Best answer: Agreed, The Meaning of Night fits -- and I recommend the novel. It's a great read.
posted by JaneEyre at 11:08 AM on May 24, 2015
posted by JaneEyre at 11:08 AM on May 24, 2015
Response by poster: Yes, that was the one. I don't keep great track of the books I don't finish -- but now I need to figure out why I didn't finish it ....
posted by blueshammer at 6:57 AM on May 25, 2015
posted by blueshammer at 6:57 AM on May 25, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by darchildre at 12:32 PM on May 22, 2015