Book discussion: RED DRAGON, SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and HANNIBAL

Cafe Society
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So I log on to check the progress of this week’s book thread, and find to my puzzlement that thread is nowhere on the first or even the second page. Have I lost the interest of my fellow Dopers? I wonder. Did my abortive announcement of my upcoming departure from the Board, followed by a quick save by gigi, piss off the group? Have all the Teeming Millions given up books entirely?

Or maybe I wrote it and just forgot to post it. :smack:

I’d like to add here that I really miss the Wally emoticon. Sometimes a man needs to call himself a putz.

Ahem.

Luckily I wrote it in Works first. Scroll on, and be forewarned: here there be spoilers!

New week, new book discussion thread. This week I thought I’d get away from high fantasy in favor of psychological thrillers. With that in mind, let’s talk about Thomas Harris’ serial killer series: Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.

I confess I was a little conflicted on what to call this thread. The obvious thing to do, of course, would be to call this the Hannibal Lecter trilogy, but I don’t think that’s correct. For one thing, Everybody’s Favorite Cannibal is not the hardly the central player of the series. In Dragon he’s a bit player, not even the central villain, mostly serves to complicate the plot and act as a reverse deus ex machina. In Lambs he’s more important but still subordinated to Clarice Starling; his escape from custody is a sidebar, largely irrevelant to the hunt for Buffalo Bill. Only in his titular novel–which, for my money, is the weakest of the three–does he take center stage.

Anyway, here’s a few topics to prime the discussion pump. Feel free to answer as many or as few as you wish, and if you think of something I neglected to bring up, bully for you! (And share it with the group.) Since all three books have been made into movies, feel free to talk about those as well, but please note which version you’re talking about (especially important in the case of Red Dragon, as it was adapted twice.)

Here we go:

  1. Of the three protagonists–Will Graham, Clarice Starling, and EFC–whom do you find most compelling, and why? Who is least compelling, and why? Was Harris’ attempt to make Lecter a protagonist successful, in your view, or did it ruin the book for you?

  2. Of the three antagonists – Francis Dolarhyde from Dragon, Jame Gumb from Lambs, and Mason Verger from Hannibal --which was most interesting, and why? Did you feel any sympathy for any of them when their backstories were revealed?

  3. Did the emphasis on the minutiae of investigative procedure – most seen in the first two books – add to the verisimilitude of of the stories or slow down the action unnecessarily?

  4. What scenes did you find most genuinely scary? Touching? Sexiest?

  5. Which of the film adaptations did you think best, and why? Do you prefer Manhunter to Red Dragon? Did you think Jodie Foster or Julianne Phillips was a superior Starling? Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins? William Petersen or Edward Norton?

  6. Which of the supporting characters or minor do you find most engaging?

And finally…

  1. Hannibal Lecter vs. the Joker: hoo’d win? :smiley:

Have at it!

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Until the thread gets going, I’m only going to answer two of the questions myself, by the by:

I anticipate some people saying, "Um…there wasn’t ANYTHING sexy in any of these stories. I’d disagree. Dolarhyde’s night with Reba McClane is quite something in both the book and in the second movie adaptation. (I haven’t seen Manhunter since college so I shan’t comment on it.)

Reba McClane, Dolarhyde’s blind lover in Red Dragon. I found her fierceness, her bravery, and her unapologetic sexuality quite engaging.
And finally…

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Ooo! I am on my way to lunch but I’ll answer when I get back. I’ve actually read all three of them, unlike the Thomas Covenant thread.

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  1. Will Graham. There but for the grace of g-d go I. He has something in common with the monsters he hunts, but he is able to remain on the side of the angels if I may mix my metaphors. Lecter would probably kill me for that. Lecter as protagonist; I think it just happened when Harris wrote, like Penrod’s antagonist in his detective story (it is only a fletch wound and it will heel soon) morphing in the hero.
    It didn’t ruin the book; it is the book.
  2. Francis Dollarhyde. Perhaps because it was the first of the three I read. He is more complex, more thought out. He is totally evil. Verger is merely crazy. Lecter becomes a protagonist and as such cannot be totally evil.
  3. Harris followed the study of serial killers in Red Dragon, FBI procedures in SOL and super hero stuff in Hannibal. Less willing suspension of disbelief was needed in the first two.
  4. Scariest, the Tooth Fairy entering the house at night. As I’ve mentioned, I slept with a firearm under my bed. Under it, so I could grab it as I rolled out of bed and fled the house.
    Touching. Touching? In a Harris book? We don’t got no touching. I don’ have to show you no stupid touching!
    Sexist? Freudian typo! Sexiest? The blind woman in SOL, but that is a matter of degree.
    5.I haven’t seen Red Dragon. I like Manhunter, particularly the Crawford, Graham and Lecter characters. Brain Cox was one scary son of a bitch.
    Jodie Foster, more to character in the book.
    I’ve not seen the Norton movie. Cox vs. Hopkins is tough. I’d like to see what Cox could do with that much screen time. Hopkins claims he read the script and had the character immediately. Scary in itself.
  5. Molly.
  6. Lecter. The Joker would never know what hit him unless Lecter preferred to watch him eat himself.
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Personally I found Graham far more compelling due to his troubled and spotty past. The idea of really knowing the criminal before you can capture him has similarities to Ender’s Game. Yes, Starling had problems with her parents dead, but when we meet her, she’s all focused, almost through Quantico and squeaky clean. Of course, I can’t figure out who EFC is - it’s not Pazzi.

I think we’re supposed to see Dolarhyde as sympathetic, after all, he’s the one who never asked for his problems and is the most mentally troubled - Gumb picked fights and, if we believe the characterization, was never transgendered but believed he was to fit in; Verger tortured anything and anyone. To me, that makes Dolarhyde the most interesting, too - we get to see what happens to this guy who was dealt a shitty hand and slowly goes nuts for it. We also see a bit of redeption in him, which we never really see in the others. (Yes, Mason “found Jesus”, but he’s still looking to feed a man to pigs. WWJD?)

I think it worked well in Dragon with Will’s methodical ways and plausible leaps, not so much in Silence with Clarice’s rambling thoughts.

I agree with Skald the Rhymer, Dolarhyde and Reba is pretty hot, as is Reba with the tiger. :slight_smile:

Gumb in the basement was pretty damn scary for me.

Nitpick: Julianne Moore. Silence is the superior movie on all accounts - better direction, acting and writing. Hell, even Hopkins played his character better in Silence - there was something about that movie that brought out the best in all involved. It’s been a while since I’ve watched Manhunter (maybe I should pull it off the shelf tonight), but I recall prefering William Petersen as Graham, but Hopkins is Hannibal. Jodie Foster nailed Starling’s uncertainty of herself.

I always dug Crawford. Krendler makes a pretty good minor antagonist and Barney had some depth towards the end.

Although you didn’t ask, I’ll let you know why I think Dragon is the best of the three. First, I’ll dismiss Hannibal as unlike the other two and different - which isn’t always a bad thing, but didn’t work for me. In Silence, Starling essentially happens onto Gumb. While I’m sure luck is a huge part of police investigations, she was following up an old lead at Kimberly Bimmel’s house and was going to what she thought was a little old lady former boss’s house. Sure, she did enough research to recognize the moth, but she got lucky - remember the FBI/police were going to two other wrong houses. However, Will and company knew exactly where to go. Even when their main clue, the teeth, turned up nothing, Will put two and two together and ended up at Gateway and researched employee schedules.

Secondly, the scene when Will is in his hotel room late at night drinking gin and staring at forensic reports - and he has a completely unrelated thought of the Kewpie dolls, which slowly clicks. But he goes past it and has to follow the thought train backwards - you can almost see the thoughts swimming around like fish wating to be caught. I guess it’s happened to me enough to seem very real.

Is either one prepared? :wink:

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Everybodys Favorite Cannibal, natch.

I’m not sure any of the three asked for their problems (and I don’t think Lecter believes he HAS any problems), but I agree that Dolarhyde is very sympathetic. I found myself wanting to root for him (though not actually doing so) when he fell in love with Reba and tried to stop being the Dragon.

[pointless political snark]
I don’t think Ann Coulter would think that inconsistent.
[/pointless political snark]

Well, of course you agree with me. I’m right, after all. I’m ALWAYS right. :cool:

:smack:

Except when I’m wrong.

Jonathan Demme, mayhap?

You’re entirely right there. I seem to recall a reviewer at the time saying that Harris fans were so vexed by Hannibal because he so abruptly shifted genres–from psychological thriller to Gothic horror–in mid-series.

The big difference between Dragon and Lambs, I think, is that the genre. Dragon is a police procedural with an interesting character in the lead, but basically it’s about the detective work. Lambs is a psychological thriller / bildungs-roman; it’s not primarily about catching Jame Gumb, it’s about Starling coming into herself as a detective and adult woman. In other words, the case is just a plot device that allows us to learn about Starling. That’s why I ultimately prefer Lambs, even though I think Dragon is (very slightly) better written; the second story in the series is the sort of story I prefer.

I didn’t mention this in my original post, but one thing I’m quite fond of in the first two books is the moments of mordant wit interspersed randomly in the narrative. F’instance, in Lambs, the omniscient narrator notes, during the denoument:

It’s wonderfully understated. Anybody else have great lines from these three books to share?

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  1. Of the three protagonists–Will Graham, Clarice Starling, and EFC–whom do you find most compelling, and why? Who is least compelling, and why? Was Harris’ attempt to make Lecter a protagonist successful, in your view, or did it ruin the book for you?
    Starling, probably due in large part to Jodie Foster’s portrayal of her. I have Starling and Foster so linked in my mind now that I don’t even recall whether I saw the movie or read the book first.

  2. Of the three antagonists – Francis Dolarhyde from Dragon, Jame Gumb from Lambs, and Mason Verger from Hannibal --which was most interesting, and why? Did you feel any sympathy for any of them when their backstories were revealed?
    Dolarhyde, of course. I don’t recall now whether we were given any information about Gumb’s childhood, and I’ve largely managed to block out the memory of Hannibal, but I do recall Verger being cruel to a child, telling him his mother didn’t want him, or some such thing. Any scene involving bad things happening to children gets my motherly instincts all riled up.

  3. Did the emphasis on the minutiae of investigative procedure – most seen in the first two books – add to the verisimilitude of of the stories or slow down the action unnecessarily?
    Both. :slight_smile:

  4. What scenes did you find most genuinely scary? Touching? Sexiest?
    Scary…probably the reporter glued to the wheelchair in Dragon. Touching…Clarice going through the belongings of Jame Gumb’s first victim, trying to get in touch with the person she’d been. Sexy…uh, the tiger scene in Red Dragon, I suppose.

  5. Which of the film adaptations did you think best, and why? Do you prefer Manhunter to Red Dragon? Did you think Jodie Foster or Julianne Phillips was a superior Starling? Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins? William Petersen or Edward Norton?
    I’ve only seen Manhunter and Silence of the Lambs, and of course I’d choose Silence. I didn’t think Manhunter was all that well done, but I never got around to watching Dragon. (I’m not sure I want to see a really good adaptation of Red Dragon!)

  6. Which of the supporting characters or minor do you find most engaging? Catherine. She was a pretty tough chick, huh? And she kept the dog.

And finally…

  1. Hannibal Lecter vs. the Joker: hoo’d win?
    Lecter, no doubt. Do you suppose the Joker would taste funny?
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As far as I’m concerned, we have a winner. :slight_smile:

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1. Of the three protagonists–Will Graham, Clarice Starling, and EFC–whom do you find most compelling, and why? Who is least compelling, and why? Was Harris’ attempt to make Lecter a protagonist successful, in your view, or did it ruin the book for you?

Clarice Starling, of course. She was easy to identify with. (Who the heck is EFC?) Upon preview, I see you mean Lecter.

But I absolutely found Lector successful, interesting, and his portrayal really made the book. It would be hard for me to choose between the two of them.

I have very little respect or liking for Graham. He annoyed me the whole time, him and his whininess.

**2. Of the three antagonists – Francis Dolarhyde from Dragon, Jame Gumb from Lambs, and Mason Verger from Hannibal --which was most interesting, and why? Did you feel any sympathy for any of them when their backstories were revealed? **

Francis Dolarhyde - at the time I read the book I had been reading a lot of true crime and a hell of a lot of stuff on Crime Library. So it seemed to me that the author had gone willy-nilly through a similar site and stuffed every indication of a serial killer into there…as if the character was made first, and the history created later. It wasn’t as if “See, here’s all this horrible stuff that happened to this boy, and this is the result,” It was more like, “See, here’s this serial killer. See how he fits all the stereoptyes? See the background?”
That being said, he was one of the more sympathetic ones. The scene where he takes the blind girl to touch the tiger - that was a moment you don’t often see in serial killer books.

James Gumb - I had very little sympathy for him at the time I read the book. His back history was only given by Lector and you really don’t hear any of it from his own mouth. My sympathy was all directed towards his victims - “it puts the lotion in the bucket.” I still don’t feel he is much more than an animal.

Mason Verger - was one of the most despicable excuses for a human I ever saw. I loved to hate him. The ending was most satisfying. I had no sympathy for him whatsoever. He should have died and his carcass long since rotted away.

3. Did the emphasis on the minutiae of investigative procedure – most seen in the first two books – add to the verisimilitude of of the stories or slow down the action unnecessarily?

Definitely added to the verisimilitude…I love those kinds of minutiae.

4. What scenes did you find most genuinely scary? Touching? Sexiest?

Genuinely scary - the part where she’s stalking Jame Gumb in the basement in Lambs.
Also the part in Hannibal where he is drugging Clarice and brainwashing her.
Touching - A lot of the parts in Lambs where Clarice is left high and dry by the department. Also the parts about Crawford and his wife, and his heartbreak. As well as the aforementioned tiger scene.
Sexiest? Well, the obvious part which is frightening as well as sexy - the very end of Hannibal, when she proves much stronger than he expected, and they become lovers. I’m not sure what kind of thrill that is or what it says about me, but there it is.

5. Which of the film adaptations did you think best, and why? Do you prefer Manhunter to Red Dragon? Did you think Jodie Foster or Julianne Phillips was a superior Starling? Brian Cox or Anthony Hopkins? William Petersen or Edward Norton?

Ugh. I’ve only seen Silence so I can’t speak for sure. But - there was a different Lector than Hopkins?? Pardon my French, but fuck that shit.

6. Which of the supporting characters or minor do you find most engaging?

Pazzi. I felt for him. I understood what he was going to do before he seems to have thought of it, and oh how I wish I could have warned him…plus the whole thing about his ancestor suffering the same fate…

**7. Hannibal Lecter vs. the Joker: hoo’d win? :smiley: **

Tough one! Both of them are psychological terrors, both of them know how to play the mind, both of them are insane on their own terms. I would have to give the victory to Lecter but only slightly, and it would be after a long hard ordeal. I think Lecter would even respect the Joker.

Criticisms of the book:

  1. Cheap, cheap, totally retardedly cheap ending of Red Dragon. Ugh, I am still disgusted about it when I think about it. Goddamn cheap thrills.
  2. Hannibal seemed to be written entirely for TV. Not well, in other words.
  3. Paul Krendler was so ridiculously mean that it was over the top and I kind of stopped believing it after a while.