Thomas Harris’ “Red Dragon”
Consider this an urgent plea. I’ve just finished reading Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon, and I’d desperately like for you to read it, too. You may have already! I am late to the game; the book came out 40 years ago, after all. So if you have read Red Dragon, then I’d just like to revisit it with you now. And if you haven’t? I’d love it if you did. Because then, we could talk about it.
Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you first met Hannibal Lecter wearing Anthony Hopkins’ body. Usually, actors embody a role, but not then. Not in Silence of the Lambs. Hannibal Lecter took the form of Hopkins, just as Lecter would later take the shape of Mads Mikkelsen. Maybe you were enthralled, maybe you were repulsed. And maybe that was a compelling dynamic, and so the character stayed with you.
I have to confess that I have not finished NBC’s Hannibal. It’s a beautifully ugly series, and it’s one that I like to savor. Because it feels perfect, and so I don’t want it to be over. It is finite, so I stretch it out. I’ll watch two episodes, and then I’ll make myself wait. You can’t have filet mignon every night, right? It’s better to make it a special occasion-thing.
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I can’t help, though, but see the characters in Red Dragon as they were cast in NBC’s Hannibal. Will Graham on the page is still Hugh Dancy, just as Agent Crawford’s face is Lawrence Fishburn’s. I feel like that’s not an issue though, because it all feels consistent. And honestly, Red Dragon probably works however you picture the faces.
So, this book came out before Harris wrote Silence of the Lambs, and Lecter is a smaller (though still important) part of the story here. A similar role: Hannibal Lecter again functions as a consultant in an FBI investigation. The whole “it takes one to know one” thing is big for Harris. When they meet, unlike Clarice Starling, our hero here, Will Graham, has dealt with Lecter before. Specifically he has been dealt a vicious knife wound from the hands of our awful Doctor. Lecter, in this story’s timeline, is confined for eating people and attacking Graham, who was just on the verge of capturing Hannibal the Cannibal. So, they’ve got history. And yet, Graham is pulled, just like we are, to Dr. Lecter. The monster who almost killed him is the man he asks for help. Because he needs it.
The Tooth Fairy is this story’s Buffalo Bill. He’s our big bad, and boy is he both. There are details to his crimes that rank amongst the most stomach-churning words I’ve ever read. Reader beware. It’s the Tooth Fairy’s patience that has allowed him to evade capture. Only two scenes, spaced weeks apart. The Tooth Fairy strikes when the moon is at its fullest. He is a composed, methodical killer. Where other killers are undone by their own passion, the Tooth Fairy is precise and deliberate with his every movement. All of which is to say, Will Graham has his hands full.
And how is Will Graham as a protagonist? He’s a very-nearly flawless investigator, close to omniscient in his detective work. So how does Harris manage a compelling story with a perfect investigator? By keeping the bad guy one step ahead, every step of the way. The seen-it-all Graham is only pulled in as a last-ditch effort by the FBI. He’s batting cleanup, when they pull in the big guns to pick up what others missed. Graham is so thorough in his approach that the process leaves him changed each time he allows himself entrance into the killer’s mind. Why is it that our hero is so readily able to relate to these psychos?
