From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #88 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Sunday, April 23 2000 Volume 02 : Number 088 Today's Subjects: ----------------- SILENCE OF THE LAMBS [Kathleen Woodbury ] Re: SILENCE OF THE LAMBS [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 03:35:48 -0600 From: Kathleen Woodbury Subject: SILENCE OF THE LAMBS At 04:45 AM 4/22/00 -0400, Jennifer wrote: >> Did you ever read =The Silence of the Lambs=? > >No, I never did. Lois told me it would give me nightmares. She is an >excellent judge of this measure, so I let it go. Interesting. Let me say, first of all, that I don't enjoy horror. I read THE SHINING in order to see how it was done (because I had a story idea that I thought might work as horror). That novel just about killed me. I do =not= like to be scared (and the playground, and the woman in the bathtub were almost more than I could take). That said, I submit that SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is not horror. The only thing even close to supernatural is Hannibal Lecter and he's really not all that supernatural--he's just very smart and very ruthless. I also submit that RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS are, more than anything else, explorations of the effect on decent, caring people (Will Graham and Clarice Starling, respectively) of the kind of work they do in hunting down serial killers. Both are deeply affected by this work, and the books, IMHO, focus more on what their work does to them than it is about the work of the serial killers. The serial killers, because they are able to objectify people in order to do their killing, are not as interesting psychologically as the FBI people who have to not only identify with the victims to understand the crimes, but identify with the criminals in order to catch them. (Hannibal Lecter, BTW, is interesting in part because he doesn't objectify people, but he is still ruthless toward them--he perceives them as inferior beings, instead of objects.) I found the books, especially SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, wonderfully done and very insightful. The price of indentifying and caring was very high for both Will and Clarice, and that was what made the books worth reading. I don't think you'll have all that many nightmares, Jennifer. I don't recall having any. I think SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is a very good book. Phaedre workshop@burgoyne.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 22:35:31 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: SILENCE OF THE LAMBS Hi! Phaedre responded: >I don't think you'll have all that many nightmares, Jennifer. I don't >recall having any. I think SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is a very good book. I second that. But if you want to stay away from nightmares, run as far away from the movie as you can! The movie messed me up for *years* (and I'm not exaggerating). I was only able to bring myself to read the book a few months ago, and I was surprised by how relatively inocuous it is as compared to the film. Oh, it's disturbing, yes -- but in a thought-provoking way. It's more of a "psychological thriller" than horror. I haven't read _Hannibal_ yet, though - a friend told me she'd had her first nightmare by page 52. That was enough warning for me. I'm not a fan of horror at all - have never been able to stand Stephen King (my aunt was his 10th-grade English teacher, so I've heard too many stories to turn me right off of anything he might have written afterwards), and I generally don't like to freak myself out. But I've greatly enjoyed Dan Simmons - his _Song of Kali_ is hands down the scariest book I've ever read. *That* gave me nightmares. You couldn't pay me enough money to get me to go to India after reading that, ever. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #88 ****************************