the Doctor lives in his own world

[incandescens]

Reading books about psychopathic killers in horror cinema does little for one's comfort of mind, even if it does help envisaging soulless entities who feed off human souls and who fail to ever actually understand the human emotions and motivations which lie behind the high stories that they enact. Or others, too.

---

The completely exaggerated character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter transcends even the most twisted outlaw-ideals (to which Panzram and Kemper felt so closely related) in fascination, because essentially the murderous rebel still accepts the existence of an authority in all his vehement denials. But Dr. Lecter acts absolutely beyond mortal politics, ideologies, and ethical values. Outside of society. The killer stands above these things. Of course, he stands above all other criminals too, as the books of Thomas Harris and their respective cinema adaptations never get tired of emphasising. Whether it is the sex maniacs sharing his cell-block or the transsexual born loser Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs), or the paedophiliac lecher Mason Verger (Hannibal) -- for Lecter they are all mere zombies driven by their instincts, who deserve contempt and punishment just like the bad guys who are in it for the money and act under cover of the FBI and psychiatry. Harris wants to tell us that his protagonist smiles at the traditional categories of Evil, just as he smiles at Good. The Doctor lives in his own world.

-- Bad Blood, Christian Fuchs

Comments

[a-machine.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a fun read, actually.

I love me some Lecter. He's way too archetypical and cartoony and pure not to love. :)

[cappadocius.livejournal.com]

Call me parochial, but I had serious problems with Hannibal - I still labor under the belief that in good fiction, the villain... the guy who eats people should not win, should not get the happy ending.

[incandescens]

Don't worry; I disliked the ending of that, too, however well written it was.

[liralen.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I tried to pick up Red Dragon after rather enjoying Silence of the Lambs several years ago, and I couldn't get through it. I suspect that being a mother has changed a lot of things that I find entertaining...

[incandescens]

I'm just trying it myself, having read the two others but never having got round to the first. It's interesting, but -- if one were reading it for enjoyment, it would be a very intellectual sort of enjoyment, I think. I hope.