I am re-reading the Hannibal Lecter books of Thomas Harris, and I had forgotten just how good they are. Disturbing, yes, but brilliantly written, full of well-researched medical and procedural information, and with very little filler or waffle; every line is well-crafted and relevant. Every character is deep, believable (albeit hyper-exaggerated) and interesting.
I got through ‘Red Dragon’ in three sittings and tonight I will start on ‘Silence of the Lambs’.
The real triumph, I think, is in making the ‘bad’ guys so damn likeable. Francis Dolarhyde bites chunks out of people and massacres families, but you still find yourself sympathetic towards him and understanding some of his decisions. Anti-heroes as heroes has become a bit cliché in the 21st Century – every central TV character seems to have serious underlying mental issues – but when these books were written it was nowhere near as commonplace. Murderers were Evil and needed to be caught or killed. But Thomas Harris’ murderers are intelligent, charming and relatable.
Or maybe that’s just me thinking that, and I should take some kind of online sociopath test to see if I need therapy…
Okay – I just took an online test and scored 10%, meaning “you do not have any sociopathic tendencies”. It was a free test on a website with the word ‘health’ in it, it took me 3 minutes to complete it and nearly all the questions had spelling mistakes in, so I’m seeing this as a definitive diagnosis.
I’m fine.
RC 15-9-20
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