Red Dragon

Red Dragon
by Thomas Harris

Red Dragon is a fascinating book that takes the unusual step of getting into the killer's POV early and often. The unique narrative gives the reader greater insight into Francis Dolarhyde's motivations and beliefs, and at times almost paints him as a sympathetic character. However, that very structure makes the novel a little unsatisfying in some ways.

Compared to some other killers in fiction, Dolarhyde is a nuanced character. He undergoes some change throughout the course of the book and has a fleshed out history. He fits many of the profiles for serial killers (childhood trauma, sexual repression, sadism, etc.) but the change in his character when he meets Reba starts to unravel his perception of himself. It was an interesting way to take a more or less stock "serial killer" character and turn him into an actual person, with actual emotions and relationship issues. It was as though not only did the reader learn that Dolarhyde was more than just a cardboard cutout of a monster, so did Dolarhyde.

What was unsatisfying about it was the way he went right back to where he started. He sees Reba with another man and snaps, and all the tension from his character building arc abruptly stops. The scene between him and Reba in his house near the end of the novel sort of worked, until it turned out that he was merely faking the whole thing as a way of escaping capture. What previously looked like real emotional trauma turned out to be fake, and the fact that the reader didn't get to see Dolarhyde preparing for this switcharoo (where previously we had a front row seat to his side of the story) felt like a cheat. It really undermined a lot of the other work that had been done on that character.

Will Graham is also an interesting character, and his ability to mirror the thinking patterns of others is pretty fascinating. Harris does a great job with the reasons that sort of ability would be more of a curse than a gift - particularly given Graham's line of work. It's odd how he feels that being able to empathize with a killer makes him a villain as well -- an uncomfortable line of thinking, considering we're writers trying to train ourselves to do the very same thing.

I'm not going to say much about Lecter in this post, mostly because I'll have more about him when we watch Silence of the Lambs. One thing that does fascinate me about him is the way he was handled in the film version of Red Dragon, released in 2002. He gets a much bigger role in the film,  acting as an advisor to Graham, presumably to parallel the relationship he later develops with Starling.  He's really quite a minor character in Red Dragon, but he's definitely the breakout of the group, and it's neat to see him retroactively become a major character in that version of the story.

The Church of Dead Girls

The Church of Dead Girls
by Stephen Dobyns


Spoilers ahoy -- don't read this 'till you finish the novel.

Stephen Dobyns’ haunting story of a town ripping itself apart in the aftermath of children disappearing was a great read. The horror was subtle for the most part, although there was enough graphic descriptions of sex and violence (particularly toward the end) to keep a veteran horror reader interested.

There are, to my mind, two ‘psychos’ in this novel. The first, and perhaps least interesting of the two, is the primary antagonist, revealed at the novel’s conclusion to be Donald Malloy. I say uninteresting because of the rather cut and dried depiction of his insanity--at the end of the novel he has become quite unhinged (rather suddenly, I might add) and spills his whole story out in one great swoop. And it all fits together rather neatly. His pedophilia and deranged attitude toward sex leads him to fixate on hands, specifically the left or ‘bad’ hand (interesting side note: the Latin for left, sinistra, is the root for the English word “sinister”. There are lots of theories as to why this is: a popular explanation is that prior to the widespread use of toilet paper, the right hand was used for eating and the left for cleaning up waste). Several of his victims were simply people who knew that he had unusual sexual appetites. It was a little too simple for me. It reminded me of episodes of CSI, where the cop tosses off a casual explanation for the crimes and kind of shrugs. I expected a deeper pathology, particularly after that much build up.
   
The reveal that Donald was the kidnapper/murderer was disappointing not just because of the clinical way in which the madness was treated, but also in the way he abruptly becomes insane. Whereas previously he is a ‘professional man’ who seems perfectly able to go about his business and blend in with society, the moment the reader realizes he is the bad guy he becomes an irrational boogie man that literally carries body parts around with him and basically commits suicide-by-cop. I was left wondering how on earth someone that far gone could have remained hidden as long as he did.
   
The second and substantially more interesting disturbed character is the nameless narrator. I suspected him throughout the novel (and so did the other characters, which was fun). It was clear that the author was playing with the expectations of the reader throughout, and I very much wanted something to come of the little quirks revealed throughout the book about him. Ultimately I was very disappointed by the ending. His open admission of defiling the corpse of Donald was, in my mind, unnecessary. The line from the psychic who departed the city, saying the hand was now in “a jar among other jars” was brilliant. I literally stopped reading and put the book down for a moment to savor that one line and everything that it insinuated. If he'd stopped there it would have been fantastic. But to have the narrator admit that it was him shortly afterward ruined the effect.
   
The story of the novel really wasn’t about either of these two characters, though. The story was about the town and a host of other people who live there, told under the backdrop of these crimes. There was a lot going on in the book; too much at times. I agree with reviews that have accused the book of having too many characters and spending more time than necessary on description and exposition. The narrator was fun to read about, but seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the town and its residents. Many scenes contained far more detail than the narrator could plausibly have heard from the other characters, particularly in scenes with characters who had an avowed dislike of the narrator (Ryan Tavich springs to mind).
   
All in all I enjoyed this novel. It was an interesting story, and well told. This is the first novel I’ve read by this author, and I will certainly read more of his work.

Psycho

Psycho

by Robert Bloch

The story of Norman Bates is probably familiar to most readers. Psycho is about a man with what would now be called disassociative identity disorder, more familiarly called multiple personalities. While acting under the delusion that he is his dead mother, Norman kills a young woman, and later a private investigator. The character was inspired by real-life killer Ed Gein. In some ways, the novel fails. Almost two thirds of the penultimate chapter is a block of exposition, painfully delivered through once-removed dialogue. The majority of the characters are pretty flat. The portrayal of women is less than enlightened. But it works as a compelling story, and that's mainly due to the central character and antagonist.

Norman Bates is an unassuming man who, by all appearances, is perfectly normal. His appearance (an overweight, balding man in his forties -- it's interesting to speculate about why a much younger man was cast for the part in the film) is consistently contrasted with his inner mind -- something the author was intentionally playing with throughout the narrative. The same theme crops up with Mary. Her thievery reveals her inner self and conflicts with her outer veneer of normalcy.

Norman has a host of neurosis, many concerning sex and women in general, but his mother specifically. These are revealed gradually throughout the narrative -- for example, in chapter 5, he is drawn to looking at his mother’s thighs and breasts, but also recognizes that he should not do so. He owns pornography, but chastises himself for spying on Mary in the bathroom. This conflict was explored more fully in some of the film sequels, in which Norman’s character lashes out against any woman he feels attracted to.

One of the interesting things about re-reading Psycho was to catalog some of the things about Norman that were meant to imply or show that he was crazy. First time readers of the book (who somehow managed to avoid the cultural touchstones of the film) weren’t supposed to know just how far gone Norman was until the reveal in chapter fifteen. Some of the clues were obvious -- his behavior is certainly abnormal, particularly when drinking and spying on Mary in the bathroom. There are also strong hints in his conversations with Mother. At one point she even says that if she were to be committed to an institution, she wouldn’t go alone. But his hobbies also hint at madness. His taste in books and interest in the occult is seen as damning evidence. Similarly, his interest in taxidermy is considered odd, although more was made of this in the film than in the book. The fact that Norman lives alone and was a life-long bachelor is also cited.

Another interesting element is how Norman has ended up in the collective unconscious as a serial killer. In the book he is only responsible for four murders -- his mother and her lover, Mary, and Arbogast. There was no direct indication that he had killed other guests at the motel. But somehow it's easy to believe that he's been doing it for years. The neighbors and locals in the book soon suggest Norman is responsible for other murders, and in the film the psychiatrist suggests that Norman is responsible for a series of unsolved missing persons cases in the area. It's certainly more disturbing to think that this episode was simply the most recent one, and that Mary's theft is the only reason Norman got caught at all.

Norman is, in many ways, a sympathetic character. Even his almost-victim Lila feels sorry for him, and admits that he has probably suffered as much or more than his victims. He seems to have been molded into a psychopath instead of choosing to be one. The portrait of Norman that comes out casts his Mother as the villain. She is thought to be the one who drove him to the madness that eventually led to her death, and to his own insanity. But it’s too difficult to separate Norman from his Mother -- everything the reader knows about Mother comes through the filter of Norman. He blames her, but is she really responsible? After all, the Mother character is just his beliefs about what she was actually like.

In the end, it’s all him.

Snow

Snow
by Ronald Malfi

Snow is the tale of a small group of survivors trying to fight off an invasion from unknown creatures that appear to be made of snow. The plot is something of a standard (almost a cliche), but the unique monster made this worth reading.

The monsters of Snow come in a few different shapes and sizes. At first, the creatures appear as nothing more than swirls of snow, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the storm. The only way to spot them is to look for patches of snow moving against the wind or try to spot the silver filaments at the center of the creatures. At times, the snow solidifies to create bladed arms, which are then used primarily as weapons. The snow monster is weak against fire. When exposed to fire, the creatures take on a solid form which is described as rubbery, pale, thin (its bones press against its skin visibly) and having only a single eye. In some sequences, the overall shape is described as resembling a manta ray. The creatures are capable of flight, and can join together to form a giant worm-like creature.

But apparently all that neat, unique, interesting stuff wasn't enough, so they threw in a horde of zombies too. I know, I know. I'm supposed to be the zombie fan, and I am. The sequence at the beginning of part two, where Shawna fights her way up the stairs, only to meet a horde of them at the top was an great chapter. Excellent zombie scene. But it didn't belong in a snow monster story. Neither, for that matter, do the strange no-face children.

A further word on the no-face children. I cannot quite fathom how, or why, the children's faces disappear, or why the monsters keep infesting children even after they learn they won't be able to eat in that form (which is supposedly the goal of the whole affair). The given explanation doesn't really provide any indication of how the children grow extra skin - and none of the other creatures endure any physical change as a result of the possession. It was a creepy visual, certainly - but every time it was mentioned I got pulled out of the story wondering how that could physically occur.

The setting was well described and even though it was playing with a familiar trope in the 'rag tag group of survivors' genre, the writing was well done and carried me into the story well. I read this early in the semester, and again before posting, and both times it was a fairly quick read. The zombies were more of an issue the second go-around, but both times I liked the natural progression of the story and rooted for the protagonist, despite his faults. This is the first title I read by Malfi - I recently purchased and read 'After the Fade', a novella he published in 2012. In it, strange monsters invade a small town and turn the population into zombies. Go figure.

Relic

Relic
by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Before I get too far into this post, a confession. I am absolutely infatuated with Special Agent Aloysious X. L. Pendergast. I love his funereal suits, excessive list of preternatural abilities, and the delightful deep southern style. That said, this is not my favorite book to feature him (although it is the first) - that honor belongs to Still Life with Crows, which I heartily recommend. Brimstone is a close second. But they're all good and everyone should go read them.

Now then.

Relic is something of a convoluted tale with a simple premise - monster runs amok in museum. The convolutions come about as a way to get the monster there in the first place. The museum of natural history is a great setting and I love the way it is featured in the book, but the authors have to go to great lengths to explain how the creature came to be in NYC to begin with. These narrative gyrations came across as heavy handed to me, particularly in the final chapter where Dr. Frock summarizes everything for a roomful of people who already know what he is talking about. The epilogue, though it contained new information and was largely a teaser for the sequel, was guilty of the same.

The monster of the piece, Mbwun, is gradually revealed to be the results of mutation caused to an explorer by ingesting a virus-infected plant. The creature has a mix of ape and lizard DNA and is described as having a very foul odor, three claws on the forelegs and five on the back, and a simian face. The creature is said to have human intelligence (explained later in the novel by the fact that it was once human), but poor eyesight and superior smell and hearing.

Mbwun was an effective monster in most of the important ways - it stalks through the museum and picks people off at a steady rate, and its later appearances during the exhibition fiasco was suitably dramatic. The creature is extremely dangerous and difficult to kill - almost comically so. A greater part of its invulnerability is the fact that no one believes it's real, a factor which gradually became less and less believable. The trope of the creature's odor giving away its location worked reasonably well, although it did get repetitive. But it was a clever enough creature to keep things interesting, and the way it played off of the museum setting and the Superstition exhibit made for a good combo.

The setting plays a big role in this novel, and for good reason. The Museum is pretty much a character in its own right, and it is the perfect backdrop for this creature out of legend and history. The story just wouldn't be the same if it took place in an abandoned steel mill or an old railway station. The only downside of the setting (and the characters necessary to populate it) was that there were a number of scenes that seemed to serve no function beyond saying "look how smart we are". It reminded me of CSI in that respect.

Relic is a fusion of mystery and horror - it starts out as a whodunnit, with characters trying to piece together the cause of grisly murderers. A shift occurs in the middle of the book, once the characters discover that the murderer is actually an honest-to-goodness monster, and the book shifts gears into a horror survival story. It's an effective combination, and made for a compelling and enjoyable read.

The Thing

The Thing
1982

This was the first time in recent memory that I've actually sat down and watched this movie in its entirety. The Thing is the story of an ancient shape shifting alien that is discovered in Antarctica and lays waste to its discoverers. The Thing (arguably Things) assimilates and then copies life forms that it encounters, including humans. I enjoyed the film in spite of a few plot holes, but I'd like to focus here mostly on the Thing itself.

The Thing's motivations are left unclear, as the viewer never gets to hear its side of the story. All the speculation about its desires and goals are told through the mouthpiece of the humans who are trying to locate and kill it. While it is undoubtedly a violent creature, it is unclear whether the Thing is acting out of malevolence or is just trying to survive, either as an individual or as a species. All we know for sure is that the Thing seeks to escape via the ship which Blair constructs - but is it escaping only from the situation to spread into the rest of the planet, or trying to go home? The film doesn't really delve into this area, instead focusing on the climate of paranoia and suspicion that the Thing's presence creates.

One of the more interesting elements of the film is the frequency with which the audience gets to see the Thing transform. The transformation sequence in the dog kennel is the first of many instances where the Thing ballons into a disgusting pulpy mix of various animal and humanoid body parts - most consistently dog, squid, spider, and human. The cephalopod and arachnoid parts don't have any origin in the film (we never see the Thing interact with either directly) but frequently crop up in the mutation sequences either as weapons or ways to move the creature around. Conversely, the tentacles and segmented legs might be what the Thing actually looks like when not mimicking another creature. This is never made explicitly clear in the film. Carpenter departs here from the practice of many other horror films, which keep the monster in the shadows. I think it works to good effect in this film, because the monster's chameleon ability keeps the audience guessing about where (or what) it is. The on-screen mutation scenes become necessary as a way to show what is being hidden by that ability.

Another question the creature raises is how many of them there are. The 'first' Thing is exhumed from the ice by the Norwegian team, and is subsequently killed, but not before infecting at least one other creature. The process of infection is cellular - after a period of time, the host becomes a Thing. The question now is, is this a new Thing, or has the original one just extended itself into another body? Is there a hive mind through which the various Things communicate? The scene with the blood reacting to the hot wire implies that there is not - otherwise the blood could be instructed to allow itself to die as a way to ensure that the host stayed alive. Of course, it's just as plausible that one of the people who 'passed' the test did exactly that, and the one who failed sacrificed itself to protect the species.

I personally view the Thing as a virus - in which case there is no single "Thing", only instances of infection, each of which has a strong survival instinct of its own. The body dug up in the ice could plausibly be a creature from another planet who simply contracted the Thing, or the remains of a human infected that began shapeshifting.

The final aspect of the Thing that fascinated me the most was the skillful way in which the narrative left the audience guessing about who is and is not infected. The nature of the monster lends itself wonderfully to this kind of speculation. One theory posits that the hero, MacReady, is infected throughout and is ultimately responsible for the infection of both Blair and Childs by sharing infected drinks with them. Others suggest the opposite, that Childs is infected and ultimately wins. The fact that there is such widespread disagreement and discussion 30 years later is a great testament to the skill of the writers and filmmakers.

The Wolfman

The Wolfman
by Jonathan Maberry

This might be the first time I've ever read a tie-in book (a book based on the film rather than the other way around), and the 'hollywood'ization of the plot is pretty obvious from the start. Things in this book happen in a formulaic way - they have to, because that's the way it happens in big budget films. The novel retains many elements from the 1941 film of the same name, but goes into new territory with Lawrence's history of mental illness and Sir John's role.

The Wolfman (and the Werewolf) is the major villain of the piece, and it suffers in my opinion from a common disease amongst Hollywood monsters, similar to the effects of gamma radiation: the monster is unusually large, impossibly strong, uncontrollable, and invulnerable to conventional attack. All it needed was green fur to complete the look. Maybe I'm being a purist, but the werewolf monster is meant to combine the predatory skills of a wolf (speed, superior sense of smell and hearing, and natural weapons in the form of teeth) with the cunning and intelligence of a man. Making the wolfman 8 foot tall with sharp claws, hyper-senses, and super strength was a departure from the myth, and felt unnecessary. If they'd reigned it in a little, the wolfman would be more about stalking and trapping his victims, and less about violent mayhem, and that's what I was expecting.

Werewolves occupy unique territory for me. The idea of a werewolf is compelling, particularly when it is not realized in the direct terms of wolf and man. I'm thinking of Jekyll and Hyde, or Norman Bates and his mother. A man and a monster occupying the same body. There's a lot of fertile ground there. Once the fur and fangs come in, though, it is easy to descend into the basic werewolf formula: unbeliever is bitten, transforms, becomes a believer, tries to kill a loved one, and dies.

One of the things that surprised me when I read this book was the character descriptions. I haven't seen the movie and don't plan to, so I had no idea that Sir John, described as  "tall and imposing", was played by Anthony Hopkins. Sir Anthony is 5'9" - hardly an imposing height. I was picturing someone more along the lines of Ian McKellan, or Peter O'Toole. And likewise to think that the "brutally handsome" Lawrence was portrayed by this man. It's amazing how even in a tie-in novel, the characters can seem vastly different in the reader's head than in the author's.

And may I also say, Maberry missed a real opportunity in that section by not describing Lawrence's hair as perfect.

Maberry has skill with description, setting and dialogue, but I think this particular book was severely hampered by the script he had to use. They hired a good writer to try to make a novel from an unwieldy plot. Consider Chapter 42, where Sir John appears in Lawrence's cell and explains away several questions about what has happened so far. A common tactic in films (I refer to it as "A Visit from the Department of Backstory"), but it comes off as an info dump in a novel. The love interest was forced and hollow - the two characters hardly exchange any dialogue before they inexplicably hook up.

Bottom line, I would have enjoyed seeing this story naturally develop in the hands of a skilled author without having to hold to the expectations of a blockbuster. I suspect it would have turned out much differently.