ebolamonkey
New Member
I recently finished reading this and it was kind of slow and disappointing. I felt the characters were underdeveloped and the book lacked a good organization. Although I read the book after I seen the movie so I think that kind of destroyed my sense of anticipation though the movie and the book are clearly different (this also goes for Hannibal - well most notable difference is the ending).
For instance the living son of the Jacobi's was a totally random character the author created to fill the missing plot. There is no personality in this character or why he was even there and had the author choose to put the films he carried in a shoebox and burried it it would have had the same effect.
Besides Dolarhyde's relation to Reba which was somewhat more well explained his other relations were kind of a "shadow" of his past. Perhaps the author intended to show that this Dolarhyde character had no feelings but it leaves the reader out of the real reason why he was abused into a monster. Only a few instances cannot change a person forever and some of us cope with more than what Dolarhyde puts up with and come out alright.
The organization was somewhat random... He was doing Tom Clancy jumps with chapters then all of a sudden links things up again... This felt weird because one chapter ends and you feel another Clancy jump but you prepared to jump and you take a step foward to the next chapter, bummer. And the ending, the resolution seemed very rushed though I felt this should have been a climax or very dramatic and well done but it was rather written with haste as if Thomas Harris is being chased by the publishers. The climax were the abuse scenes and I thought this was well done because the reader is pushed into the icy cold river and struggles fast to get out and be safe; one can almost feel the sisscors of the grandma coming down on themselves, so to speak. But then I thought about the Italian castrati and how much they have to deal with being without balls, heck, at least they can sing and get fame.
The worst part of the book was the Dragon itself... Its just his mind chatter taking on a stronger voice and he having two personalities and fiddling with the possibilities of the two merging back into a stronger self. I thought this was pitiful because the Dragon, besides telling Dolarhyde to add 20lbs more onto his 280lb limit, didn't really do anything... Now talking about weight lifting, 280lb is a bit but not enough to get you to "easily compete in the local bodybuilding touraments." I believe guys back then used Steroids and they stil do now but it was more common back then and everyone felt it was alright. 280lb bench would be laughed at as I know people who do 500lb and 600lb or more and squat and do deadlifts and such around the 800-1000lbs. Bench pressing and barbell alone does not win any competitions but this is a minor detail...
Continuing on the Dragon... Harris uses the Dragon yet he uses the Dragon from TWO different cultures. One is the biblical Dragon, the Red Dragon from Revelations, the Dragon of the Blake. The other Dragon is the Red Dragon from the Chiense Majong piece... Two cultures interpretation of the Dragon has similiarities and also bears its differences as well... The chinese dragon originated from the conquest of Huang Di. He incorporated the emblems of the defeated enemy into his own. So " That explains why the Chinese dragon has a body of a snake; the scales and tail of a fish; the antlers of a deer; the face of a qilin (a deer-like mythical creature with fire all over its body); and two pairs of talons of eagles; and the eyes of a demon." -Wikipedia. Too long to post here but you can read up about the Western interpretations of the Dragon and Biblical meanings as well here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon .
So what is the Red Dragon? Its your pessimestic inner self that you can scream out loud... haha... you got to be joking... Is it Dolarhyde's becoming? What is his becoming? It is not clear... Is his becoming random binomial elimination of the family films? This would led him to eventually get more suspicious and run out of victims and get found out... The Dragon wasn't intelligent, he was lucky, he wasn't a Dracul, he was Dolarhyde's fear spoken.
Or at least this is how I felt, feel free to give some opinions about this book.
-E
For instance the living son of the Jacobi's was a totally random character the author created to fill the missing plot. There is no personality in this character or why he was even there and had the author choose to put the films he carried in a shoebox and burried it it would have had the same effect.
Besides Dolarhyde's relation to Reba which was somewhat more well explained his other relations were kind of a "shadow" of his past. Perhaps the author intended to show that this Dolarhyde character had no feelings but it leaves the reader out of the real reason why he was abused into a monster. Only a few instances cannot change a person forever and some of us cope with more than what Dolarhyde puts up with and come out alright.
The organization was somewhat random... He was doing Tom Clancy jumps with chapters then all of a sudden links things up again... This felt weird because one chapter ends and you feel another Clancy jump but you prepared to jump and you take a step foward to the next chapter, bummer. And the ending, the resolution seemed very rushed though I felt this should have been a climax or very dramatic and well done but it was rather written with haste as if Thomas Harris is being chased by the publishers. The climax were the abuse scenes and I thought this was well done because the reader is pushed into the icy cold river and struggles fast to get out and be safe; one can almost feel the sisscors of the grandma coming down on themselves, so to speak. But then I thought about the Italian castrati and how much they have to deal with being without balls, heck, at least they can sing and get fame.
The worst part of the book was the Dragon itself... Its just his mind chatter taking on a stronger voice and he having two personalities and fiddling with the possibilities of the two merging back into a stronger self. I thought this was pitiful because the Dragon, besides telling Dolarhyde to add 20lbs more onto his 280lb limit, didn't really do anything... Now talking about weight lifting, 280lb is a bit but not enough to get you to "easily compete in the local bodybuilding touraments." I believe guys back then used Steroids and they stil do now but it was more common back then and everyone felt it was alright. 280lb bench would be laughed at as I know people who do 500lb and 600lb or more and squat and do deadlifts and such around the 800-1000lbs. Bench pressing and barbell alone does not win any competitions but this is a minor detail...
Continuing on the Dragon... Harris uses the Dragon yet he uses the Dragon from TWO different cultures. One is the biblical Dragon, the Red Dragon from Revelations, the Dragon of the Blake. The other Dragon is the Red Dragon from the Chiense Majong piece... Two cultures interpretation of the Dragon has similiarities and also bears its differences as well... The chinese dragon originated from the conquest of Huang Di. He incorporated the emblems of the defeated enemy into his own. So " That explains why the Chinese dragon has a body of a snake; the scales and tail of a fish; the antlers of a deer; the face of a qilin (a deer-like mythical creature with fire all over its body); and two pairs of talons of eagles; and the eyes of a demon." -Wikipedia. Too long to post here but you can read up about the Western interpretations of the Dragon and Biblical meanings as well here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_dragon .
So what is the Red Dragon? Its your pessimestic inner self that you can scream out loud... haha... you got to be joking... Is it Dolarhyde's becoming? What is his becoming? It is not clear... Is his becoming random binomial elimination of the family films? This would led him to eventually get more suspicious and run out of victims and get found out... The Dragon wasn't intelligent, he was lucky, he wasn't a Dracul, he was Dolarhyde's fear spoken.
Or at least this is how I felt, feel free to give some opinions about this book.
-E
