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King Coffin
Inspired by the infamous case of Leopold and Loeb, King Coffin is a chilling glimpse into the mind of a twisted genius
The sun is setting over Harvard, and Jasper Ammen is not impressed. A brilliant student who loathes all that the world has put before him, he gazes with contempt at the beauty of the campus, the intellectual pretensions of his fellow students, and the gaudiness of the sunset, for none of these approaches the majesty of Jasper’s mind. A reader of Nietzsche and Stirner, he is convinced of his own superiority, and has decided to prove it in the most irrefutable manner: with the perfect murder.
Ammen will choose his victim at random and commit the unsolvable crime before a host of witnesses who will see what happens but not be able to understand it. Only his closest friends will realize that he has gotten away with murder, and they won’t be able to stop him or see him punished for the ghastly deed.
The sun is setting over Harvard, and Jasper Ammen is not impressed. A brilliant student who loathes all that the world has put before him, he gazes with contempt at the beauty of the campus, the intellectual pretensions of his fellow students, and the gaudiness of the sunset, for none of these approaches the majesty of Jasper’s mind. A reader of Nietzsche and Stirner, he is convinced of his own superiority, and has decided to prove it in the most irrefutable manner: with the perfect murder.
Ammen will choose his victim at random and commit the unsolvable crime before a host of witnesses who will see what happens but not be able to understand it. Only his closest friends will realize that he has gotten away with murder, and they won’t be able to stop him or see him punished for the ghastly deed.
- GenresFiction
343 pages, Hardcover
First published June 2, 2015
About the author
Conrad Aiken
315 books83 followersKnown American writer Conrad Potter Aiken won a Pulitzer Prize of 1930 for
Selected Poems
.
Most of work of this short story critic and novelist reflects his intense interest in psychoanalysis and the development of identity. As editor of Selected Poems of Emily Elizabeth Dickinson in 1924, he largely responsibly established her posthumous literary reputation. From the 1920s, Aiken divided his life between England and the United States and played a significant role in introducing American poets to the British audience.
He fathered gifted writers Joan Aiken and Jane Aiken Hodge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_...
Most of work of this short story critic and novelist reflects his intense interest in psychoanalysis and the development of identity. As editor of Selected Poems of Emily Elizabeth Dickinson in 1924, he largely responsibly established her posthumous literary reputation. From the 1920s, Aiken divided his life between England and the United States and played a significant role in introducing American poets to the British audience.
He fathered gifted writers Joan Aiken and Jane Aiken Hodge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_...
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2016
Conrad Aiken's third novel is his first to follow a fairly traditional and sustained narrative from beginning to end. Jasper Ammen is a highly intelligent and egotistic psychopath who nonetheless enthralls the people around him: chiefly Gerta, a young painter who is in love with him; Toppan, Jasper's downstairs neighbor who writes detailed diary entries about Jasper; and Sandbach, a leading member of an anarchist collective from which Jasper theatrically resigns early in the novel. Jasper is a student of Nietzsche, and believes the people around him are unworthy of his time and attention, with the occasional exception of Gerta and, even less occasionally, Toppan. His tolerance of these two characters is, of course, bolstered by their admiration of him, which feeds his considerable ego. (Sandbach, on the other hand, considers him to be merely insane, and so Jasper dismisses Sandbach as a treacherous weasel.)
After Jasper denounces the anarchist collective, and the people who are a part of it, as a waste of his time, he searches for meaning in his life. This meaning is quickly found in the decision to commit murder. The idea thrills him, and he is left to determine whom will serve as his victim. He eventually discounts his acquaintances as possibilities, as his relationship with them would taint what he believes would otherwise be a "pure" act. And so he searches Boston for a random victim instead.
This random victim is found in K. N. Jones, a small-time advertising man who lives in a two-family house in a shabby Cambridge neighborhood. Jasper follows this man around for a few weeks, learning as much about him as he can through his surreptitious observations. Once he believes he knows absolutely everything he needs to know about Jones, he prepares to kill him.
The literary precursor to Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, among others, King Coffin is an unsettling work. Jasper is the perfect fascist: he believes himself to be infallible, he considers everyone else, including his "friends," to be well beneath him, and he puts his faith in order and precision, discounting softer human values, like emotional intelligence, as irrelevant.
Published at the dawn of Hitler's iron-fisted rule over Germany and the Nazi Party, King Coffin was a timely, perhaps even prescient, work of art. Aiken had tapped into an oddly charismatic personality trait that was on the rise in the early twentieth century. I'd be curious to know what Aiken's friend, Ezra Pound (who was an enthusiastic supporter of Mussolini), thought of King Coffin. Perhaps I'll find out when I read Aiken's autobiography, Ushant.
After Jasper denounces the anarchist collective, and the people who are a part of it, as a waste of his time, he searches for meaning in his life. This meaning is quickly found in the decision to commit murder. The idea thrills him, and he is left to determine whom will serve as his victim. He eventually discounts his acquaintances as possibilities, as his relationship with them would taint what he believes would otherwise be a "pure" act. And so he searches Boston for a random victim instead.
This random victim is found in K. N. Jones, a small-time advertising man who lives in a two-family house in a shabby Cambridge neighborhood. Jasper follows this man around for a few weeks, learning as much about him as he can through his surreptitious observations. Once he believes he knows absolutely everything he needs to know about Jones, he prepares to kill him.
The literary precursor to Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, among others, King Coffin is an unsettling work. Jasper is the perfect fascist: he believes himself to be infallible, he considers everyone else, including his "friends," to be well beneath him, and he puts his faith in order and precision, discounting softer human values, like emotional intelligence, as irrelevant.
Published at the dawn of Hitler's iron-fisted rule over Germany and the Nazi Party, King Coffin was a timely, perhaps even prescient, work of art. Aiken had tapped into an oddly charismatic personality trait that was on the rise in the early twentieth century. I'd be curious to know what Aiken's friend, Ezra Pound (who was an enthusiastic supporter of Mussolini), thought of King Coffin. Perhaps I'll find out when I read Aiken's autobiography, Ushant.
August 28, 2024
Unpleasant, malevolent modernist-like little novel about a Nietzschean "superhuman" murderer wannabe.
"With each little accretion of definition the situation became tighter, drew them all more shrewdly and painfully into false and unwilling postures, they came along with him willy-nilly and without knowing where, and he could see exactly with what expression of dismay Gerta would read this latest bulletin: the heels of her hands pressed quiveringly to the sides of her head, then quickly dropped, then a few swift steps across the room and back, the somberly curved mouth a little opened, the witty eyes a little dulled."
"With each little accretion of definition the situation became tighter, drew them all more shrewdly and painfully into false and unwilling postures, they came along with him willy-nilly and without knowing where, and he could see exactly with what expression of dismay Gerta would read this latest bulletin: the heels of her hands pressed quiveringly to the sides of her head, then quickly dropped, then a few swift steps across the room and back, the somberly curved mouth a little opened, the witty eyes a little dulled."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews