Book Discussion: Songs of Experience

[Crossbow]

I read "Red Dragon" like 20 years ago and it didn't make much impression on me. I'm re-reading it now and it's really interesting how some of the most ridiculous things they say in the TV show work perfectly well as narrative.

 

PS. Do you know how much I love William Blake? THIIIIIIIIIS MUCH. It caused me physical pain when Dolarhyde ate that painting.

Edited July 30, 2015 by Crossbow

[Captanne]

I was blown away by Manhunter and read Red Dragon after I saw the movie.  (I mean blown away so much that I am a fan of the franchise ever since and that's thirty years ago.)

 

I haven't read the book since then.  I may have to go reread it.  I devoured (!) all the Thomas Harris I could (including Black Sunday) and then stopped with Hannibal.  I finished the last bit of it and was so disappointed that I swore off the storyline altogether.

 

I am very fond of Will Graham and the character but the later book was a bust for me.

 

What the character and the story did for me thirty years ago was to understand empathy and the extremes it can go to and then also into the whole FBI profiling thing before it was "cool".

Edited July 30, 2015 by Captanne

[Crossbow]

The ending of Hannibal was pretty ridiculous. Hannibal Rising was ridiculous too, but not as bad as I expected based on what I'd heard about it.

 

I'm a forensics junkie. It started with a seminar I took on it back in the mid 1980s. I'm more into how they find the clues than the empathy/profiling angle. Will Graham is completely mysterious to me but put a dead body and a microscope in the story and I'm there.

[Captanne]

I read a very interesting archived article in The New Yorker by the guy famous for "The Tipping Point" and "Outliers" -- funny looking white guy with a big afro.  Can't think of his name right now*.  (Old age settling in.)

 

He ripped John Douglas (FBI profiler) a new one.  Completely debunked profiling.

 

I felt like a personal friend had been violated.

 

LOL

 

*Malcolm Gladwell

 

Rather than convince me that Douglas was definitively debunked -- I am now all bothered.  ;-)

 

It's like finding out Santa Claus isn't real -- I don't know who to believe!  

Edited July 30, 2015 by Captanne

[Epeolatrix]

Manhunter was also my introduction to the work of Thomas Harris -- oh, those many years ago -- and to profiling in general. I read every magazine article I could find, ended up getting five John Douglas books in hardcover autographed, read every other profiler memoir, and then read a book called "Better to Reign in Hell: Serial Killers, Media Panics and the FBI" that made me rethink my notion of the celebrity profiler, although I do still think behavioral science has value. That said, my current interest is more medical than psychological.

 

I'm about to reread the first three books (and to read Hannibal Rising for the first time) so that I can annotate my copies of the screenplays for seasons 1 and 2. I plan to keep note of which lines in the show came from (or reference) which books, but also to compile all the trivia Bryan Fuller sent out over Twitter while he live-tweeted each episode. This will be an epic chore that I undertake for no reason other than personal amusement. We'll see how that goes.

[Captanne]

That sounds fascinating.

 

I find that Fuller has taken a lot from the Manhunter script, too.  I just watched the film again the other day.

 

I am very happy to report that it has completely withstood the test of time.  It is just as good now as it was then.

[Crossbow]

I don't know that much about how well profiling really works, since most of what I know is from books BY profilers, who only tell their success stories. I personally think behavioral analysis woud be better used in preventing people from becoming murderers in the first place.

 

Description of Jimmy Price from the book:

 

He was a frail old man and his humor had not been improved by a long taxi ride from the airport in the morning rush.

[Crossbow]

Lecter watched from the shaddowed corner of his cell. There was a curious grace avout him, even in restraints.

 

I'm so happy they cast a dancer for this role.

[jeansheridan]

And Mads has the "foreign" down.  The fact he's the only actor with an obvious accent on the show, his strong features, and the clothes ...it all worked to make him "other" which was needed. 

 

Crossbow I cannot believe you read Hannibal Rising.  Ug.  I read it because it was short and why not, but it wasn't very satisfying.   I really liked the ending to the book Hannibal because I didn't think Harris would have the guts to gut Clarice like that.  To take a beloved character, made even more beloved by Jody Foster (and I know she grates on some, but it was very popular casting at the time) and then have Hannibal make her into Murder Wife, wow.  Unexpected.  I'm not surprised the movie didn't have the stomach to do it.  And I suspect it is why Jody Foster passed on the second film. 

 

Harris doesn't seem to write anymore, but I have dreams he might revive Will now and have him try to rescue Clarice.  Or at least stop them.  Ardela Mapp is still in the wings, pissed off and ready to fight for her best friend. 

 

One fun thing about Red Dragon is the total lack of tech!  No cellphones or laptops. 

[Crossbow]

Well, the thing about Hannibal Rising is that everyone said it was godawful so I had really low expectations. It's sure not good but it's not as bad as I expected.

[jeansheridan]

Well, the thing about Hannibal Rising is that everyone said it was godawful so I had really low expectations. It's sure not good but it's not as bad as I expected.

Low expectations often help!  No, it wasn't awful.  It just felt like he had gone to the Hannibal Lector well one too many times. 

 

After rewatching the Red Dragon movie, I realized how much happier of an ending Will has in that film.  The entire film was much lighter in tone than even Hannibal (although Hannibal was borderline campy.  I personally loved it because Oldman! And I liked Julianne Moore as Clarice too, although it was a much different take on her).  And Red Dragon was definitely a procedural--CSI over style.    Police work is the focus.  It was actually kind of refreshing to see that sort of Will Graham again.  Norton just wasn't neurotic at all.  Cautious and worried for his family, but centered. 

[MisterGlass]

 

Ardela Mapp is still in the wings, pissed off and ready to fight for her best friend.

 

It does feel like she's a character that deserved more page time.

[Crossbow]

I felt like Ardelia's existence in the third book was a mistake. Clarice is vulnerable to Hannibal because she becomes more and more isolated, but since she always has Ardelia, and that detracts from the whole isolation thing.

 

Actually I think the majority of the third book was a mistake. Verger is too cartool-evil. His elaborate pig plan is along the lines of sharks with laser beams tied to their heads. BUt it does succeed in turning Hannibal into a sympathetic character.

[paramitch]

I'm a huge fan of Red Dragon, but like many only discovered it by way of the superb Manhunter. What always interests me is that Red Dragon is so lush and rich -- a pretty hefty novel -- but in my memory, Silence of the Lambs is a slimmer, sparer volume and more compressed tale. (Yet I just checked page lengths and they appear to actually be pretty commensurate, with "Dragon" only 30-40 pages longer, so what do I know...)

 

My favorite Red Dragon stuff is all the character exploration -- we really get to know, fear, yet sympathize with poor Francis. I also loved the way Mann in Manhunter pulled some of the best dialogue from the book into the film (like Will's grocery-store discussion with Molly's son).

 

As far as "Silence," for some reason the moments that stand out for me are very specific:

 

• I remember Jack's wife's recent death (coupled with the almost unspoken subtext that Clarice is in love with Jack, or at least is crushing pretty hard)
   
• I remember Clarice flirting in this really powerful, impersonal way with Chilton, and in a single devastating scene he inadvertently reveals that he had rather lonely, pathetic plans for that evening that Clarice had disrupted. I just remember her turning her smile on him like a weapon and poor Chilton just kind of being unable to defend himself. It was such a nice Chilton character note -- you felt sorry for him even as awful as he was.
   
• Last but not least, I loved the characterization of Catherine Martin (and the other victims) so much more in the Silence book versus the film, and wish the film had kept more of that.
  
  In the film, Catherine is adorable (and I love Brooke Smith) but in the book she is so, so much stronger. First off, she may be a big woman, but she has a boyfriend, and at a pivotal point, she decides to get out of the well even if it means seducing Bill, knowing that she is gorgeous naked, a "woman and a half." I loved the confidence and complexity of book-Catherine and wish there'd been just a bit more of that in the film (versus, "oh, the poor fat girl" implications). 
  
  Bill's victims were similarly more complex in the book. They had lives and secrets and the idea that Bill "coveted/envied" them was better explored to me. 

 

I felt like Ardelia's existence in the third book was a mistake. Clarice is vulnerable to Hannibal because she becomes more and more isolated, but since she always has Ardelia, and that detracts from the whole isolation thing.

 

Actually I think the majority of the third book was a mistake. Verger is too cartool-evil. His elaborate pig plan is along the lines of sharks with laser beams tied to their heads. BUt it does succeed in turning Hannibal into a sympathetic character.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Hannibal the novel when it came out, and just remember absolutely falling into it ecstatically (I remember Stephen King wrote a rapturous review for the NYT about it as well). And I enjoyed it; I found it maddening, florid, operatic, larger than life, bloody, but irresistible. The ending upset me, but I also thought it was incredibly daring of Harris.

 

But then within a few days, I was really depressed by it, and that sadness about the ending kind of lingered for me even over the years. I have never read the book again since that first time, and I don't quite want to.

 

However, I'm glad it exists, especially because of the gorgeous ways Fuller was able to fracture and play with its elements on "Hannibal" as a show.

 

I definitely far prefer Hannibal and Will, or Hannibal and Bedelia traipsing around Florence, to Hannibal and Clarice. And the more I rethought it, the less that development ever worked for me. Primarily because the link for me is flawed and implausible. Will and Hannibal are the same at their core, even as Will heroically fights against it and uses his dark powers for good. 

 

But Silence is not Red Dragon, and Clarice is not Will, not in any way. She's a good agent, she's empathetic and smart, but she isn't cursed with Will's gift. She won't catch a killer by smelling herself. If anything, her scenes with Hannibal are utterly unambiguous and for me remain so. She isn't tempted by Hannibal's darkness -- she never is. She simply wants to rescue Catherine, and that's what drives her. Nothing else. Not a need to understand Hannibal, nothing. 

 

I do think she is fascinated by Hannibal, but to me it always reads young. (Also, FWIW, I freaking adore Foster's performance in the film and think it holds up even better than Hopkins's)

 

I think by reconnecting Hannibal and Will, Fuller fixed something really vital. The relationship between Clarice and Hannibal in Silence is simply a placeholder for what Hannibal had with Will (minus the potential homoerotic undertones of course) in Red Dragon. But it doesn't have their richness, mutual fear/hatred/respect at all.

 

So for me, Fuller reinvolving Will in Hannibal's world in a shattered and reassembled vision of all three (or four, counting HR) Harris books has been a masterstroke. I love Clarice. I just don't find her as interesting, and one of the things Fuller has done is to course-correct the novel Hannibal in a way that makes sense for me.

 

Clarice's book-outcome ultimately felt wrong to me, like a sacrilege, in ways Will's show-outcome doesn't. 

Edited September 28, 2015 by paramitch

[Crossbow]

Hmm, I need to read SotL again some time. I don't remember much of the victims' characters. In the movie, I think they did a good job considering it was only a movie and you can't explore every character, but Clarice going though Frederica's bedroom made us think of Frederica at least as a real, complex person.

 

The book Hannibal was over the top, and I liked things about it - I liked Hannibal's whole Italy story. But Clarice was so well-drawn in SotL, she was a real let-down in Hannibal. I would have liked to see one more sequel where she came back to herself and killed him or turned him in or just ran for it.

[cheyz]

I must be the only one who liked the book ending of Hannibal. It made me laugh out loud and I continued smiling just thinking about it. I'm trying to remember why it made so much sense to me. I haven't reread it since then, but hadn't Clarice been completely betrayed by the FBI? Especially by the guy who ended up eating his own brains.

 

Added: Now I remember. Hannibal was saved by the love of a good woman.

Edited October 12, 2015 by cheyz

[paramitch]

Hmm, I need to read SotL again some time. I don't remember much of the victims' characters. In the movie, I think they did a good job considering it was only a movie and you can't explore every character, but Clarice going though Frederica's bedroom made us think of Frederica at least as a real, complex person.

 

The book Hannibal was over the top, and I liked things about it - I liked Hannibal's whole Italy story. But Clarice was so well-drawn in SotL, she was a real let-down in Hannibal. I would have liked to see one more sequel where she came back to herself and killed him or turned him in or just ran for it.

 

I loved the scene of Clarice in, I think, Frederica Bimmel's bedroom? All the small little items that make up a life. All the little things we leave behind us. The fragility of this girl's world. It was very much pulled from the book -- the interesting (and utterly heartbreaking) side note would be that when Clarice discovers the naked pictures of Frederica flirting with the (unknown) cameraperson? That person (in the book at least) is BILL.

 

It's so terrible and sad and tragic. And the book even notes that Frederica wrote Bill notes forgiving him before she died. They must have been really close. What a horrible realization for her, that her friend (and longed-for potential boyfriend) was in fact a monster. It's lovely that she could forgive him from down in that well, but I have to say that I prefer Catherine and her fierceness and her willingness to seduce, destroy, to trick, to do whatever is needed just to escape and live. That's my girl.

 

As far as "Hannibal," I do plan to revisit it one of these days. I'm interested to find the shards of what Fuller picked up and used for the show again, the little tidbits. But I swear, I'm gonna keep seeing Will instead of Clarice. He's just so much more interesting as a love object and so much more appropriate. 

 

Look at the show's homage to SotL with the otherwise wonderful Miriam Lass character. She's adorable. Strong. Young. Smart. Terrific and brave and flawless. But you can't picture Hannibal falling for her or the reverse. The power differential is just too off for me (and not in a gendered way; more in an age/experience way).

 

But obviously, I have issues. I got a good friend to watch the show recently and her horror yet admission of the show's brilliance filled me with remorse. What's wrong with me that I can watch it repeatedly (albeit, fast-forwarding through a few murder scenes because, ahem, gross)? And despite everything Hannibal does, I STILL SHIP HIM with Will?

 

Obviously I have issues. But I wouldn't trade 'em for the world. <sheepish>

[Crossbow]

I am far more horrified by your average nightly news broadcast than by anything in "Hannibal."

 

I made my mom watch "American Horror Story" and she said, "How can you SLEEP?"

 

Me: "After this? Fine. This is just pretend. If you want to keep me awake all night, talk about gerrymandering or HMOs."