The Sculptor

The Sculptor
by Gregory Funaro

The Sculptor is an awkward novel about a serial killer obsessed with the work of Michelangelo.

I didn’t care for it.

Yes, this book was annoying. You see, when a narrative uses certain tropes over and over, I sometimes feel like it deserves to be mocked. Yes, Mockery, as you know, is the practice of derision or ridicule and comes from the old French mocquer. Thus, while reading this book, you see, I got the feeling that it was the sort of book that, yes, deserved mockery. So it was that the book was destined to be mocked and that I, yes, was destined, you see, to mock it.

Anyway. The psycho featured in the novel is Christian Bach, who was raised in an incestuous relationship with his abusive mother, which led to his obsession with sculpture and Michelangelo’s Pieta. Also serial killing, because that's what happens to all victims of abuse, no matter what. The connection between these things and Dr. Hildebrant’s book was, to be honest, lost on me. Nevertheless, Dr. Hildebrant somehow intuits Bach's incestuous feelings with complete accuracy. This stunning (almost miraculous) feat of empathy was one of many things that left me unimpressed.

Bach is a cliche. He is extraordinarily muscular, cultured, independently wealthy, and is a polymath in art, chemistry, medicine and anatomy. He has an enormous lair that conceals all his nefarious activities and consistently outwits the police and the FBI. Basically he’s a Batman villain, complete with Capitalized Villain Name and themed crimes.

So close . . .

I found almost every aspect of his character to be either a general cliche or an idea taken from another source. It reads like a blatant attempt to capitalize on the popularity of other works - a fusion of Hannibal Lecter with the Da Vinci Code.

Toward the end of the novel, when Bach’s back story is finally revealed to the reader, we learn that he was sexually and physically abused by his mother and that they saw a sculpture of the Pieta in their church and decided they liked it. At best, this explained a fascination with that particular sculpture, but there was no real effort to explain the connection between this dysfunction and sculpture in general, aside from one instance of playing with play doh as a child. There was likewise no rationale for how any of that inspired him to use actual dead bodies for the sculptures instead of, say, wood. Or plaster of paris. Or marble. Or literally anything else.

Nobody had to die.

The other characters were similar in their striking resemblance to other figures from fiction. I stopped keeping track of the parallels between Dr. Hildebrant and Dr. Langdon after only a few chapters. I couldn’t quite decide which of the various ace FBI profiler characters Sam was meant to resemble (personally I think he was a watered-down Agent Pendergast, but that may just be because I’m a fan) - he may as well have been all of them. Both characters were flat and broadly uninteresting. Agent Markham’s back story was at almost complete odds with his actual behavior toward Cathy (I will never love again and will dedicate myself to avenging my wife . . . until I meet an attractive woman), and hers consisted exclusively of “recently divorced.” There wasn’t much there to make me want to keep reading, and their inevitable happy ending undermined both his drive to avenge his previous wife and her new-found independence from her cheating husband.

In closing, I will repeat that I didn't care for this book. Usually in these posts I try to balance my negative thoughts with positives, but in this case I couldn't find much I liked. Your mileage may vary.

Misery

Misery
by Stephen King

Misery is almost a straight-forward torture story. Paul Sheldon is held against his will and systematically abused, both physically and emotionally. The novel starts when he’s captured and ends when he’s freed. But the stories within the story are what separates this novel from routine gore and makes it something unique. Misery is one of my all time favorite Stephen King books.

Annie Wilkes is everything you want in a villain. She’s acutely insane, but manages to maintain well enough to believably escape detention in spite of a criminal career that spans decades and includes dozens of murders. The character was loosely inspired by real-life killer nurse Genene Jones, who was convicted of poisoning children with the intent of resuscitating them. But where her intentions were not explicitly murderous, Annie’s are. The catalog or horrors she inflicts on Sheldon are numerous, and her gradual descent as she stops trying to hide her real nature from Paul is one of the most compelling parts of the book.

Annie is, in many ways, a child. Her refusal to swear (and the ridiculous babble she concocts instead) is somehow scarier than any string of curses. She’s just as petulant as a child that doesn’t get her way, only with substantially more dire consequences. King does an excellent job of using her childish behavior to create tension. These small touches early in the novel let the reader know that something is deeply, deeply wrong.

Paul Sheldon becomes a bit of a psycho in his own right by the end of the novel. Partially because of addiction and partially just because of the brutal conditions, Paul starts to lose it after only a few chapters. This is the first book we’ve read this semester where the psychosis seems to be catching. By the time he’s finally found by the police, Paul can’t even string together a coherent sentence. Living with Annie’s insanity has eroded his own, to the point that he is no longer functional, even after rescued. The lingering effects of that paranoia and extreme fear in the final chapters feel real. It’s true that in many other types of story, the reader would never see Paul after he was rescued. His long convalescence is no happy ending. But it fits perfectly for the self-aware yarn on writing that King is spinning.

From a mechanical standpoint, the story is unique in several ways. Almost the entire novel takes place in a single room, with a single character, who is more often than not talking to himself. There’s a great deal of self awareness in this trick - King likely was also alone in a room somewhere when he composed it. He is writing about his own process for writing, his own ideas about what works and what doesn’t (and why). He manages to sneak a lot of his ideas about what is and isn’t good writing into the mouth of Paul Sheldon, and because of the story it doesn’t seem forced. 

It’s amazing that King is able to accomplish so much without losing the story. At the end of the day, it’s still a book about a man who is being tortured. Misery is a very complex book, and those layers are what makes it a fan favorite.

Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs (1991)
directed by Jonathan Demme

The Silence of the Lambs is an excellent film and one of my all time favorites. Anthony Hopkins, Jodie Foster and Ted Levine are all excellent in their roles, and the film remains a modern day classic of suspense.

Arguably both Buffalo Bill and Dr. Lecter serve as the film's primary antagonists. It's difficult to say which of them is creepier. After this most recent viewing, I personally vote for Bill. Whereas Lecter is deeply disturbed and unsettling, Bill's psychosis is much more pronounced. He seems genuinely unable to function in a normal way. His interaction with Starling at the end of the film, for instance, shows an almost complete breakdown. Even if she didn't see the moth, I think she still would have questioned him - he wasn't able to maintain a facade.

Incidentally, if you want to make your brain hurt, watch this film and then watch one of the campier episodes of Monk.

Gumb was a sort of fusion of different serial killers - his method of capturing Catherine was essentially the same as Ted Bundy's, including the fake cast. His fascination with skin and questionable sexuality came from Ed Gein. The inspiration for the basement torture room comes from Gary Heidnick, who kidnapped and imprisoned women in his Philadelphia home. Gumb's pathology is said to be due to childhood abuse, which is common for killers. More of his backstory is available from deleted scenes or the documentary "Silence of the Lambs: the Inside Story", but to be honest I kind of liked not seeing it. After reading Red Dragon and seeing some of the drawbacks of going deep into the killer's background and POV, it was a little refreshing to have Bill stay a mystery.

One of the most fascinating elements of Lecter's character is how self aware he is. The way Hopkins portrayed the character is as though Lecter knows he is playing a role - the monster that knows he is a monster. He is perfectly aware of what the other characters think of him, and he plays to that expectation on purpose. In the break out scene, for example, he takes the time to string up one of the bodies in a grotesque but artistic display. Doing so serves no purpose, other than to intimidate the other police and live up to his reputation.

In spite of that reputation, Lecter is more able to hide in a crowd than Bill is, after a manner of speaking. When he's in his cell and everyone knows he is a monster, he revels in that role and enjoys the attention it brings. But after he breaks out, he seems to have no trouble disappearing. Unlike Bill, he can hide in plain sight. He's only creepy when he wants to be, and he only decides to be that way when it suits him. And of course, his escape makes sequels possible, and for a great film and a great character, that's a must.