The Chamber

Peeps,

Today, (or rather tonight), I have successfully completed the 500+ thick novel of John Grisham, called The Chamber.

Took me around three days to complete this novel. Three days of afteenoon, evening and night time.

This novel is an unusually thought-provoking novel encircling the topic of capital punishment, otherwise fondly known as the death penalty.

Anyway, the main characters in this novel are:-

*Adam Hall (a.k.a Alan Cayhall),
*Sam Cayhall,
*Lee Cayhall,
*Carmen Hall,
*Eddie Hall,
*Marvin Kramer,
*McAllistor, (the Governor),
*Roxburgh, (the Attorney General),
*Phelps Booth,
*Lucas Mann,
*Sergeant Packer, etc.

The story was set way back in the 70s & 80s in the Deep South of the United States of America, (Mississisppi) where a hate and discriminatory group (or maybe cult) known as the Ku Klux Klan (the white supremacist) was the dominant organization of the societal fabric during those period: a period of discrimination, a period of hatred and a period of patheticity within the ambit of a good perpetual religious command of love and equality.

It is hard for me to fathom and believe that once upon a time, the great people of the United States of America were pathetically racist towards one another.

Moving on, I later learnt that the Ku Klux Klan was also known as "the Klansmen" or "Kluckers". The group was notoriously violent on individual that did not wore a white skin colour. And the cult too hated the Jewish.

This chilling story was about many things:-

(a) about a very curious young lawyer named Adam Hall who was thirstfully eager to know the past stories and dark secrets of his families - who was his grandfather, who was his aunt, what does his cousins look like and so on and so forth. Adam was simply denied the facts and knowledge of his identity by his father, Eddie Hall; who committed suicide for not being able to bear the awful dark secrets.

(b) about the suffering, torment and humiliation of the Jews and blacks who were badly harrassed and tortured by the white supremacist i.e. KKK.

(c) about the life of a prisoner, and particularly the death-row prisoner. about the sad story of beinf caged 23 hours a day, with around three showers a week -- I can't even comprehend that.

(d) about the debate, the need and the justice of death penalty. and in addition, about the legality of killing an individual for retribution. and vengeance. Grisham in this novel had cleverly presented and elaborated excellent moral views, ethical points and legal standing of this hotly-debated issue from both divide of the group: the proponents and opponents of capital punishments. All arguments in this pressing novel are arguably valid, dramatically clever, and at times did sound so engrossingly pathethic that you the dear readers, would roll your very eyes along with few curses when reading it!

I guesses that the title of the novel referred to "the gas chamber", which is one of the popular method to execute the condemned murderers that were found guilty by the judges and the juries.

The novel is itself is tremendously long, with 52 chapters, and 500-plus of pages. You must have great patience when reading this novel. Well, actually, the novel itself will make you anxious to flip through the next few pages to know the curious case and reasonings of the story. Beware that the novel is both addictive and seductive.

This is definitely a good novel. And a chilling and a thrilling novel that would provoke your emotion and at the same time tease your mind to assesa, view and observe the infallible concept of death penalty in totality without being ignorant of the fact that this is part and parcel of criminal justice system in a civilized world.

In pith and substance, I truly recommend this novel to anyone to read, feel, understand and appreciate the issue presented therein.