More Silence of the Lambs
Dec. 23rd, 2006 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mokie_shifuDamn but author Harris mentions St. Louis a lot. First there's Red Dragon's Dolarhyde, who's born somewhere in Missouri and ends up living and working in St. Louis. Then in Silence of the Lambs, Lecter escapes and legs it to St. Louis to lay low. And in between, all over the place, are little mentions, this person in St. Louis, that office in St. Louis, that thing that happened once upon a time in St. Louis, back when Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis, hey meet me in St. Louis, is that enough of St. Louis yet? And so forth.
I thought maybe Harris was a local. We get a little too excited about seeing our name in print hereabouts, and he seems to like naming landmarks in the way some local authors do, to prove their familiarity. According to Wikipedia, he's from Tennessee, but it says nothing of where he lived later, or where he is nowadays.
In more relevant news, maybe Silence isn't all that bad. It definitely suffers from a sluggish middle, and slogging through that was logoriffic misery. Then, suddenly, I couldn't put the book down. The artsy-awkward and pretentious wording has toned itself down as Harris forgets to be lit'ry and just tells us the damn story already; that helps immensely. The things that did not work well in the story were left behind or dropped away after Lecter's dramatic escape, which is a bit disappointing.
Sure, using a thief to catch a thief (or psycho, as the case may be) could be considered a hang-up in itself. The investigation had become dependent on Lecter giving information; he was holding Starling's hand through the whole thing. Which, by the way, explains Lecter's preoccupation with Starling. He talks in circles and preens his brain without his dominance ever being threatened (as it would certainly be by Chilton or Crawford*), or his intelligence ever being challenged (as it certainly is by Crawford). Clarice never shows an original thought that he hasn't reached first, never fails to respond appropriately to the doctor's provocative remarks.
And his manipulation of her has nothing to do with Lecter being ubersmart, either. Don't you believe that fish, Constant Reader. No, it's because Starling's fears about being just another FBI fembot are, in fact, justified. She makes a wonderful trophy bride of the beast.
(I said the book isn't all that bad. I didn't say I'd stop criticizing it.)
I thought maybe Harris was a local. We get a little too excited about seeing our name in print hereabouts, and he seems to like naming landmarks in the way some local authors do, to prove their familiarity. According to Wikipedia, he's from Tennessee, but it says nothing of where he lived later, or where he is nowadays.
In more relevant news, maybe Silence isn't all that bad. It definitely suffers from a sluggish middle, and slogging through that was logoriffic misery. Then, suddenly, I couldn't put the book down. The artsy-awkward and pretentious wording has toned itself down as Harris forgets to be lit'ry and just tells us the damn story already; that helps immensely. The things that did not work well in the story were left behind or dropped away after Lecter's dramatic escape, which is a bit disappointing.
Sure, using a thief to catch a thief (or psycho, as the case may be) could be considered a hang-up in itself. The investigation had become dependent on Lecter giving information; he was holding Starling's hand through the whole thing. Which, by the way, explains Lecter's preoccupation with Starling. He talks in circles and preens his brain without his dominance ever being threatened (as it would certainly be by Chilton or Crawford*), or his intelligence ever being challenged (as it certainly is by Crawford). Clarice never shows an original thought that he hasn't reached first, never fails to respond appropriately to the doctor's provocative remarks.
And his manipulation of her has nothing to do with Lecter being ubersmart, either. Don't you believe that fish, Constant Reader. No, it's because Starling's fears about being just another FBI fembot are, in fact, justified. She makes a wonderful trophy bride of the beast.
(I said the book isn't all that bad. I didn't say I'd stop criticizing it.)
