Boekverslag Ira Levin

Info over dit verslag

Geschreven door:	Madje [meer]
Niveau:	4HAVO
Kwaliteit:
Waardering:
Taal:	Engels
Woorden:	1200
Opvragingen:	115

Hulpmiddeltjes

Openen in tekstverwerker

Printen

Emailen

Waardering

Gemiddelde waardering: 4 uit 5 (27 stemmen)

Heb je er iets aan gehad? Geef zelf je waardering:
Erg goed bruikbaar
Goed bruikbaar
Bruikbaar
Een beetje bruikbaar
Niks aan gehad

Titels van Ira Levin

• A kiss before dying (22)

  1953

• Rosemary's baby (13)

  1967

• Sliver (2)

  1991

• The boys from Brazil (26)

  1976

• The Stepford wives (7)

  1972

• This perfect day / De dag der dagen (3)

  1970

1.
Title: A kiss before dying
Author: Ira Levin
Year of first publication: 1954 in Great Britain
Edition used: This book is published in 1970
Number of pages: 239

2. The summary
The book consists of three parts: Dorothy, Ellen and Marion. These are three sisters.
In the first part, Dorothy Kingship is the main character. She has a rich father, Leo, and her boyfriend Bud (Burton) Corliss is about her money. Dorothy tells Bud that she is pregnant, and Bud knows that he never gets her money if her father finds out, so he says that he wants to marry her. He takes her to the roof of the Marriage License Bureau and pushes her from the building. Because he has let her translate a Spanish line which reads: ‘Darling, I hope you will forgive me for the unhappiness that I will cause. There is nothing else that I can do’, and send it to Ellen, everybody thinks its suicide.
Part two. Ellen goes to Blue River, because she doesn’t believe Dorothy killed herself. She realizes that the Municipal Building, were Dorothy falls off, is also a marriage license bureau. She thinks Dorothy went there to get married, so she wants to find Dorothy’s boyfriend. She suspects Dwight Powell and Gordon Grant, because they are blond and handsome and Dorothy wrote that to Ellen. Ellen goes to Gordon Grant and he swears he didn’t kill her. She writes to Bud Corliss that Dwight Powell must be the man that she is looking for. She doesn’t talk about Gordon Grant. She goes out with Dwight Powell and she says her name is Evelyn Kittredge. When they are together he says strange things about women and she really thinks he’s the murder. When he finds out her real name, he tells her he didn’t kill Dorothy and she believes him. He says he has an address of another man, who had known Dorothy, in his apartment. But when they’re in the apartment, Bud is also there. He kills Dwight when he’s upstairs. When Dorothy finds Bud with Dwight’s body, he says that Dwight has killed Dorothy and that he also wanted to kill her, but that he was attack by his own gun. Later Bud tells Ellen that he killed Dorothy and Dwight and then he shoots her.
After a few months he decides to contact Marion Kingship.
Part three. One morning Bud rings up Marion and he says he has a book he borrowed from Ellen. They meet, get a relationship and plan to marry in December. Gordon Grant goes to Leo Kingship, because he suspects Bud killed Dorothy and Ellen. They go to Marion and tell her everything they know about Bud and she believes them. But they have no evidence that would be accepted by the police.
The next day they fly to one of the corporation’s smelters. When they are standing on a forty-foot-high catwalk, Leo and Gordon confront Bud with everything they’ve found out. He panics because he realized that they want him to fall from the catwalk and die in the same way Dorothy did. He slips on the wet catwalk and falls into a vat boiling liquid copper just passing beneath him.
Marion, Gordon and Leo return to Kingship’s apartment where Bud’s mother is waiting for them. ‘Where’s Bud?’ she asked.

3. The main Character
I think Dorothy is the main character because the whole story is about her.
She is blond and has brown eyes. She is very naive and believes everyone, especially Bud.
She thinks she will have a fantastic future with Bud and she wants marry him so much that she doesn’t take the pills that Bud gave her.

4. Explain the title
The title is A kiss before dying. Bud pretended to love his victims and then he kills them. He wants them for the money, but if he can’t get it, they have to go away. Because Dorothy is pregnant, he has to kill her. When Ellen almost finds out that he killed Dorothy, she also has to die.

5. The Theme
The theme is the longing for money. Bud does everything for money.

6. The place
The first part is in Blue River, Iowa. There is the Stoddard University, were Bud and Dorothy met.
The second part is also in Blue River.
The third part is in New York, in the apartments of Marion and Leo Kingship and later in the copper smelter.

7. The time
The story begins in 1949 and ends in December 1951. The story is told chronologically, but in the second chapter there is a flashback. It tells that Bud was very popular at school. After he was a soldier he had several jobs and an affair with a rich widow.

8. The person who tells the story
The story is told by the author. The thoughts of the characters were described, but you see them from outside.

9. Why this book?
I choose this book because I thought it would be funny. It’s a thriller, and I like thrillers, and my parents said it was a lovely book.

10. Was it as good as you had expected?
Yes, it was as good as I had expected. It was thrilling and I like that.

11. Passage
“With a cobra speed he ducked – hands streaking down to catch her heels – stepped back, and straightened up, lifting her legs high. For one frozen instant, as his hands shifted from cupping her heels to a flat grip on the soles of her shoes, their eyes met, stupefied terror bursting in hers, a cry rising in her throat. Then, with all his strength, he pushed against her fear-rigid legs. Her shriek of petrified anguish trailed down into the shaft like a burning wire. He closed his eyes. The scream died. Silence, then a god-awful deafening crash. Wincing, he remembered the cans and crates piled far below.”
In this passage Bud pushes Dorothy from the Municipal Building. Especially the line “their eyes met” is particular. This passage is the turning point in the novel, because it’s Dorothy’s death.

12. Did you recognize situations?
No, I don’t recognize situations, problems or ideas from my own surroundings. If I was in a situation like Ellen, I wouldn’t trust people so quick as she does. She suspects Dwight and Gordon because they are blond, hansom and in the same class as Dorothy was. I won’t do that.

13. Did you like the novel?
Yes, I liked the novel. It was exciting and easy to read, because it wasn’t dull. But it was a lot to read, so I needed a lot of time to read it. Bud I didn’t mind it, because I liked the book. There happened a lot and that was nice. Because the reader knows that Bud killed Dorothy, and later Ellen and Dwight, and the persons in the book don’t know it, it’s nice to read the book, because you are curious about if they would find out who killed Dorothy.

14. Where did you find your background information?
I found my background information in the library and on the Internet.

15. How much time needed you to read the book?
I needed a lot of time to read the book. Before it was vacation I was began to read it, and in the vacation I read every spare time. Bud it wasn’t so bad as I had expected.