The kingdom of Cain: A Book Review

 

Cain, Abel and the Literature of Infamous Murders

What is it about the first murder that explains so much about human nature?

Summary

Cain, Abel, and their relationship to the Creator, are the starting point for an exploration on the literature of three historic murders. As a crime writer, Andrew Klavan is perfect for this assignment. It’s part history and part philosophy but reads like a treatise. The history is just the retelling of the infamous murders, while the philosophy is what we find in literature those murders inspired. Klavan takes on both parts but spend more time with the philosophy. He makes a strong case that a world without God is decadent and cruel. The world God made inspires art and beauty and creation; the world of fallen man inspires idolatry, ugliness and murder. Klavan sprinkles some personal testimony throughout the book as well.

 He is Christian Jew who came to Christ as an adult. An intellectual who loved the writings of the Marquis De Sade and Frederick Nietzsche, but recognized the dead end that rejecting God leads to. It’s in the spirit of that separation between light and dark that The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness begins.

The French Dandy

He examines three historical murders that inspired books and plays, loosely based on them. The first is a French murder by a pair of criminals, Pierre Francois Lacenaire and Victor Avril. They broke into the home of a local con man to steal money and ended up killing both the man and his mother. Hardly any money was found. But Lacenaire was a sharp dresser and an articulate man from an upper-class family. He excused his murderous instincts by blaming society and an unfair life. The murder inspired Fyodor Dostoevsky to write Crime and Punishment about a similar character named Roskalnikov. In the book however, the murderer becomes overwhelmed with guilt over the killing of two innocents. The story shows how a belief in God is essential for moral order, while a lack of believe causes chaos and death.

This contrast between a God’s way and our way is where the tension lies in our hearts. Those who reject a moral path, like Cain, replace His sovereignty with their own. In place of an ordered reality, they create a living hell. Klavan shows how the opposite of murder is creation. God creates us and we create in His image. Or we reject Him and bring death into the world.

Chicago Deviants 

That was the case with the murderous Chicago lovers, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, in the 1920s. Both were disciples of Frederick Nietzsche and wanted to commit the perfect murder. Both were from wealthy families and intellectually gifted. Richard Loeb graduated from college at 17. They assumed their social status and privilege would be enough to get away with murder. They picked up 14-year-old Bobby Franks, a relative of Loeb, and killed him in the back seat. They dumped his body in the woods a few miles from the city, but Loeb accidentally dropped his glasses at the scene. After that, they plead guilty but avoided the death penalty thanks to the celebrity defense attorney Clarence Darrow.

Based on the famous trial, Alfred Hitcock filmed a movie called Rope, in which two gay lovers strangle and kill another to prove their superiority. The point of the movie is that, without a moral order people will create their own version of it. It’s based on the ideas found in Nietzschean philosophy on the idea of Übermensch. An Übermensch is a superhuman with high intellect that breaks away from the stricture moral order and creates another in place of it. The gay college friends in Rope who murder a classmate are steeped in this philosophy. I looked at a couple of reviews of the movie because I’ve never seen it. There is more fascination with the way Hitchcock shot the film to look like one continuous take, instead of about the murder itself. Apparently, Jimmy Stewart is fantastic as always.

Women Torturer

As for the final murder, Klavan summarizes the monster known as Ed Gein from Plainfield, Wisconsin. I won’t go into detail here. It’s as grizzly as it gets and I’d rather not recount his demonic crimes. But it’s worth noting that the movie Psycho was based on him, also the Silence of the Lambs in part was as well. The details of his heinous acts are mercifully short in the book. But detestable people like Gein can still serve to show us how depraved humanity can be.

Klavan isn’t interested in the murders themselves, but in how they’re used in culture to make points or show a moral universe. The art that comes from them is a warning to us about sexual depravity or vanity or selfish ambition. Those idols that take the place of God in our lives. The book also tries to show how human phycology, especially the Fruedian variety, is being used to explain devient behavior from the murderers. There is no better example of this than from the Leopold and Loeb trial. Clarrence Darrow argued that the boys shouldn't be given the death penalty because "forces beyond their control" made them do it. 

I think the author's point is that with rejection of Christian morality comes a lack of accountability for one's actions. Human phycology, rooted in evolutionary theory, is used all the time in court room settings. It's a way of explaining crime from a non Christian worldview and providing an excuse. 

Conclusion

A lot of the criticism I read about this book, didn’t think Klavan made the case that Christians can benefit from art that is salacious. I didn’t get the feeling from reading this book, that he thinks all paintings or movies or books are artistic. Some are trash and he’d probably agree. But when done right, artistic expression that illuminates good and beautiful things is a reflection of the Creator.  

The best parts of the book, in either case, is the author’s own history with the philosophy of Nietzsche and de Sade. His transformation from a lost soul to a new creation is what gives his words deep meaning. Andrew Klavan came to Christ because of a hole in atheism’s argument about a world without God. De Sade at least, according to the author, was the only consistent atheist. He reasoned that the only moral imperative was to increase one’s own power at the expense of others. That kind of thinking leads to what you get with the Marquis, imprisoned for his deviant sexual crimes. It also leads to leaders like Hitler and Pol Pot.

None of is immune from idolatrous thinking. Cain and Abel had the same parents, the same teaching and the same opportunity. One submitted to God’s way and the other rejected Him. Jealousy put Cain on a path toward death. Andrew Klavan's book is a fascinating read and I would recommend it to anyone. It’s a short book that will make you want to buy more of his writing.