go under
so, finally, out of the sedentary boredom i've been subject to here at home while job hunting and puttering around the house, i finally got around to reading again. i decided to pick up red dragon, which i got a while back in a library sale. and god i forgot how much i love thomas harris. i named the silence of the lambs one of my favorite books a long time ago for very good reasons which i apparently forgot. granted...they are kind of the same book. both of them have that incredibly fast paced quality, a writing style that is so like a movie it made both books easy to adapt to film. even though i had seen the sotl movie before i read the book (and the same for red dragon, obviously, but didn't remember it as well) i was still glued to the pages. spoilers do nothing to detract from this style. but besides that, both stories have the same formula - criminal investigator goes to lecter for advice on catching a disturbed serial killer who is seeking a new identity. harris is good at inventing bad guys, jame gumb and francis dolarhyde are wonderfully fucked up and impressive. he may not be as great at inventing protagonists - its a shame that graham and starling never meet up within the canon of the series, but i imagine that if they were to be in the same room one of them would disappear. they are pretty much the same person. basically, harris realized "whoa, wait, that book i wrote would've been totally sexier and more marketable if i just made the main character female. sweet!" but again, it doesn't take anything away from either book, like neil gaiman, harris can do the same concept over and over and it probably would never get old (hey, people are still watching csi, right?).
not that i don't like these two heroes, graham i like in particular for all the he represents. clarice starling is the young, bright-eyed gryffindor (a superpuff, more like, because she never really reconciles her sense of right and wrong with her sense of self), fierce, disciplined and passionate about doing the right thing. the honey in the lion, as lecter calls her. will graham on the other hand is the good slytherin, doomed to a pained existence as they all are. he has the mind of a monster, but is able to remain detached from it in order to use it to capture other monsters (perhaps graham is what starling finds herself becoming in hannibal, and thus graham and lecter's mental foreplay, and climactic "penetration" is appropriately translated). he chooses to adhere the concepts of right and wrong, and to fight for them, while starling feels that she is obligated to. the acknowledgement, at the end of the book, that things are not as starling likes to believe they are, is what makes the book for me.
"In the Green Machine there is no mercy; we make mercy, manufacture it in the parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.
There is no murder. We make murder, and it matters only to us.
Graham knew too well that he contained all the elements to make murder; perhaps mercy too.
He understood murder uncomfortably well, though.
He wondered if, in the great body of humankind, in the minds of men set on civilization, the vicious urges we control in ourselves and the dark instinctive knowledge of those urges function like the crippled virus the body arms against.
He wondered if old, awful urges are the virus that makes vaccine."
it is not necessarily the most profound revelation, in and of itself, and many other works have used the same idea in better ways, but it is beautifully written and well portrayed through graham.
so since i was reacquainting myself with harris, i decided to give hannibal a shot, possibly even hannibal rising if i can get it. hannibal is a completely different kind of book from its predecessors, and unfortunately for ridley scott, is not made to be brought to film at all (though if anyone would do a good job of it, i'd think it would be him, but oh well). there's a lot of back story, there's a lot of stewing around in the characters minds, and its fucking elitist as hell. for me, obviously, that's awesome. this is a purely indulgent book, the same way the season finale of the second season of house was. there's rampant talk of fine wines, food, clothes and music (the kind that, as someone who sucks at using specific detail in her writing, makes me stew with envy); there's unabashed ridicule of stupid people (or even those who even vaguely uncultured); its extremely gory; the "villain" is a pedophile, sadist, meat-packing heir, AND born-again christian who is killed when a massive phallic object is shoved down his throat by his butch lesbian sister that he molested and raped; and in the end...
....the monster gets the girl. awwwww. i knew the ending of the book for a long time because back in senior year photography class, jen (fireschild) made me read the last couple of pages because she thought it was soooo weird and needed to share it with someone. actually, i think she told me to read a small snippet, and then told me not to read the rest lest i be spoiled. i read it anyway. here is what she shared with me, willingly.
"Hannibal Lecter, did your mother feed you at her breast?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever feel that you had to relinquish the breast to Mischa? Did you ever feel you were required to give it up for her?"
A beat. "I don't recall that, Clarice. If I gave it up, I did it gladly."
Clarice Starling reached her cupped hand into the deep neckline of her gown and freed her breast, quickly peaky in the open air. "You don't have to give up this one," she said. Looking into his eyes, with her trigger finger she took warm Chateau d'Yquem from her mouth and a thick sweet drop suspend form her nipple like a golden cabochon and trembled with her breathing.
He came swiftly from his chair to her, went on a knee before her chair, and bent to her coral and cream in the firelight his dark sleek head."
i gotta tell you, i was dying for this scene the entire book, and typing it out here made me appreciate it so much more. if you couldn't tell from my obsession with dragon's bait, lolita and the myth of hades and persephone, i have a thing for a certain kind of het pairing, and hannibal/clarice nestles in that mental collection quite nicely. many fans, from what i can tell from amazon reviews, were not keen on it, feeling that it was not at all in character. and that is the big question, because in the scene i just relayed, clarice is supposed to be drugged, but really, she's not acting like it all. then, when the story jumps to three years later, its made clear that the pair are living happily together and that clarice is drug free. it is ambiguous though as to whether clarice is in her right mind - she most likely is, but harris has to do it this way because, as the fans complained, it would be out of character for this fiery gryffindor to suddenly be the accomplice and partner of a cannibal. i agree to an extent, the transition is a little strange. but as said before, if you think of it in context of will graham, and that if graham was once like starling, as he most likely was, then she most likely has become like him and has chosen the other side.
the only problem i had with those final images was clarice with a platinum blonde bob and in a "soft sheath of coral frosted with an overlay of tulle." i wanted to imagine her with red hair and perhaps wearing purple or black, something sleek and dramatic. i don't know why i feel so particular about it. maybe i could do some fan fiction, and that might finally get me to finish the second chapter of the dragon's bait fic i started. hannibal is the type of book that you enjoy in a really sick fucking way, in a way a that you feel like you shouldn't, so i really have no shame in writing fan fiction for it. and even though hannibal rising probably isn't that great - harris found out the hard way that its easier to build a character from the ground up, rather than establishing him in the present and then going backwards to try to develop him - but if the reviews for hannibal are any indication, i will probably enjoy it just as much as i enjoyed this.
not that i don't like these two heroes, graham i like in particular for all the he represents. clarice starling is the young, bright-eyed gryffindor (a superpuff, more like, because she never really reconciles her sense of right and wrong with her sense of self), fierce, disciplined and passionate about doing the right thing. the honey in the lion, as lecter calls her. will graham on the other hand is the good slytherin, doomed to a pained existence as they all are. he has the mind of a monster, but is able to remain detached from it in order to use it to capture other monsters (perhaps graham is what starling finds herself becoming in hannibal, and thus graham and lecter's mental foreplay, and climactic "penetration" is appropriately translated). he chooses to adhere the concepts of right and wrong, and to fight for them, while starling feels that she is obligated to. the acknowledgement, at the end of the book, that things are not as starling likes to believe they are, is what makes the book for me.
"In the Green Machine there is no mercy; we make mercy, manufacture it in the parts that have overgrown our basic reptile brain.
There is no murder. We make murder, and it matters only to us.
Graham knew too well that he contained all the elements to make murder; perhaps mercy too.
He understood murder uncomfortably well, though.
He wondered if, in the great body of humankind, in the minds of men set on civilization, the vicious urges we control in ourselves and the dark instinctive knowledge of those urges function like the crippled virus the body arms against.
He wondered if old, awful urges are the virus that makes vaccine."
it is not necessarily the most profound revelation, in and of itself, and many other works have used the same idea in better ways, but it is beautifully written and well portrayed through graham.
so since i was reacquainting myself with harris, i decided to give hannibal a shot, possibly even hannibal rising if i can get it. hannibal is a completely different kind of book from its predecessors, and unfortunately for ridley scott, is not made to be brought to film at all (though if anyone would do a good job of it, i'd think it would be him, but oh well). there's a lot of back story, there's a lot of stewing around in the characters minds, and its fucking elitist as hell. for me, obviously, that's awesome. this is a purely indulgent book, the same way the season finale of the second season of house was. there's rampant talk of fine wines, food, clothes and music (the kind that, as someone who sucks at using specific detail in her writing, makes me stew with envy); there's unabashed ridicule of stupid people (or even those who even vaguely uncultured); its extremely gory; the "villain" is a pedophile, sadist, meat-packing heir, AND born-again christian who is killed when a massive phallic object is shoved down his throat by his butch lesbian sister that he molested and raped; and in the end...
....the monster gets the girl. awwwww. i knew the ending of the book for a long time because back in senior year photography class, jen (fireschild) made me read the last couple of pages because she thought it was soooo weird and needed to share it with someone. actually, i think she told me to read a small snippet, and then told me not to read the rest lest i be spoiled. i read it anyway. here is what she shared with me, willingly.
"Hannibal Lecter, did your mother feed you at her breast?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever feel that you had to relinquish the breast to Mischa? Did you ever feel you were required to give it up for her?"
A beat. "I don't recall that, Clarice. If I gave it up, I did it gladly."
Clarice Starling reached her cupped hand into the deep neckline of her gown and freed her breast, quickly peaky in the open air. "You don't have to give up this one," she said. Looking into his eyes, with her trigger finger she took warm Chateau d'Yquem from her mouth and a thick sweet drop suspend form her nipple like a golden cabochon and trembled with her breathing.
He came swiftly from his chair to her, went on a knee before her chair, and bent to her coral and cream in the firelight his dark sleek head."
i gotta tell you, i was dying for this scene the entire book, and typing it out here made me appreciate it so much more. if you couldn't tell from my obsession with dragon's bait, lolita and the myth of hades and persephone, i have a thing for a certain kind of het pairing, and hannibal/clarice nestles in that mental collection quite nicely. many fans, from what i can tell from amazon reviews, were not keen on it, feeling that it was not at all in character. and that is the big question, because in the scene i just relayed, clarice is supposed to be drugged, but really, she's not acting like it all. then, when the story jumps to three years later, its made clear that the pair are living happily together and that clarice is drug free. it is ambiguous though as to whether clarice is in her right mind - she most likely is, but harris has to do it this way because, as the fans complained, it would be out of character for this fiery gryffindor to suddenly be the accomplice and partner of a cannibal. i agree to an extent, the transition is a little strange. but as said before, if you think of it in context of will graham, and that if graham was once like starling, as he most likely was, then she most likely has become like him and has chosen the other side.
the only problem i had with those final images was clarice with a platinum blonde bob and in a "soft sheath of coral frosted with an overlay of tulle." i wanted to imagine her with red hair and perhaps wearing purple or black, something sleek and dramatic. i don't know why i feel so particular about it. maybe i could do some fan fiction, and that might finally get me to finish the second chapter of the dragon's bait fic i started. hannibal is the type of book that you enjoy in a really sick fucking way, in a way a that you feel like you shouldn't, so i really have no shame in writing fan fiction for it. and even though hannibal rising probably isn't that great - harris found out the hard way that its easier to build a character from the ground up, rather than establishing him in the present and then going backwards to try to develop him - but if the reviews for hannibal are any indication, i will probably enjoy it just as much as i enjoyed this.