… was great. Unexpectedly so. No snow, of course. Just walked through the rain this morning through empty streets to my empty office – skirting weird amounts of spirit bottles round the glass bins and being kind of relieved when I finally hit on a bus at Josephsplatz - realizing how far, far away I had been …
And I
just realized why I started like this – but that’s the next paragraph. First I
have to save an observation I made reading “Coriolanus” – which might be the
last Shakespeare I will be reading for some time. I had planned on reading it
since August because I had then seen the film with Ralph Fiennes - directed by Ralph Fiennes - and noticed that I
found it extremely interesting. But I had to read the play first and didn’t get
round to it for some time. I won’t write anything about “Coriolanus”, though,
but I just accidentally spilled a theory about comic relief scenes in “Shakespeare”
being in fact there to hint on something extremely dark, or vexing, or some
kind of uncomfortable truth. But in a way that everybody is free to read the
hint or not. And every time I do that – spitting out audacious theories like
this – I am uncomfortable with it and am actually setting out to verify them by
trying to falsify them. And I was successful in this case, reading the squabble of
Aufidius’ “servingmen” AS IF it actually WAS a comic relief scene – which it
is, of course! But then I came on this discussion of the benefits of war that
may be a “great ravisher” – but peace, on the other hand, is “a great maker of
cuckolds” and “MAKES MEN HATE ONE ANOTHER because they then LESS NEED ONE
ANOTHER”. And THIS totally played into the feeling I had about this play. It
really scrapes the bottom of why “Coriolanus” felt so particularly unpleasant,
having almost nothing to offer apart from the kind of naked truths nobody is
ever prepared to say right out: We will never be rid of bloody conflict, not
because it makes any sense but because we really NEED it. Maybe not me, but somebody
always really needs it.
That was
that … And now to why I started with my true to live description of my walking
to work this morning. I finally read “Red Dragon” and “The Silence of the Lambs”
after having now seen both the films with Antony Hopkins as Hannibal, having
finally managed to get “Red Dragon” with Ralph Fiennes. And because I find this
and the series with Mads Mikkelsen such contradictory adaptations of the same
book I got round to reading the books after all and certainly didn’t regret it.
On the contrary: Unlike the films, I totally enjoyed them. “Silence of the
Lambs” is a great book – and probably unbearably thrilling if one doesn’t know
the story already. But “Red Dragon” really is a delight! (It’s the first one. I
bought them all, including “Hannibal” and “Hannibal Rising”, because I wasn’t
sure which one was first and which ones got into the series. Probably bits of
all of them.) This book actually made me aware for the first time what I value
most about reading and written fiction. And why I was so obsessed with “realism”
once upon a time that I thought: If I’d ever write a doctoral thesis it will be
about this. Of course it is about the WRITING – but what EXACTLY? Reading “Red
Dragon” I consciously observed for the first time that it is about HOW CLOSE
you can get writing to the reality YOU ARE CREATING. Not any kind of reality
that actually exists – which is how we “naturally” define realism - but
the fictional reality a writer is able to create and which we re-create
reading. So, it may be the worst kind of bullshit imaginable – if it is written
in a manner that it is so close to our skin – or kind of goes under the skin –
that we are compelled to believe it. Of course I must have experienced this any
number of times, and have gotten better at READING like this – but I never
OBSERVED it like I did in this case. And this was, of course, behind my
fascination with the series. But even though the series really is ABOUT this –
as I observed, it is not about the horror but about how to get under our skins
with all this “bullshit” and offending human stuff “aesthetically”, without putting
people off – it mostly cannot reach the book, especially in a character like
Will Graham where everything that is so special about him is actually IN his
thoughts. At one point during the third season Lecter actually opens Will
Graham’s skull with a surgical saw – naturally to no avail! It isn’t even a
powerful metaphor in this case, just heavy-handed. Where Richard Armitage’s Red Dragon is concerned there was a lot more of this incredible detail that
could be made visible, and I admired even more the way he committed to this and the amount of detail he managed to get in. It was totally worth it – but a
lot of what makes this character so special and kind of unique is in the backstory.
I loved Thomas Harris’ obsession with the CHANGING – because I think this
really is the way we LIVE – and are not already dead while we are living – even
insignificant and nondescript people like myself. (Of course, most of the
change is involuntary and unpleasant, and threatening. And this is ALSO in the
book.) As to that, Richard Armitage’s Red Dragon is amazing, and Ralph Fiennes’
totally nondescript. They were zero interested in his “becoming” – as in his
background, so, in the film, the Dragon never “took off”. In the series he did,
and I think Richard Armitage even tried to get as much acquainted with the
backstory as he could and to put as much of it in in the only way available to
an actor: by putting as much of it into his head when he played the character.
It certainly paid off, but we are not able to see it, most of the time. So,
even the amazing Red Dragon had to remain a fragment compared to the incredibly
graphic reality of the book.
And the
best thing about this kind of CLOSE READING – reading as if I could touch the
fictional reality with my nose, or my skin, or whatever – is even that I LEARN
to read in this way and partially am able to “augment” my own reality in this
way, and reading other text in this way. (This is probably why I don’t
understand why anybody needs 3D and virtual reality, and why it feels
invariably coarse and awkward to me. I always knew that I could do so much
better in my head.) I totally noticed this when I started to read “Uncle Vanya”
yesterday. It certainly happened BEFORE – when I probably saw a play by Chekhov
for the last time between twenty-five and thirty years ago and was SLIGHTLY
uncomfortable having all these people spilling their guts on a stage. And this
time I felt DISTINCTLY uncomfortable from the moment I started reading. It was
late, but even if it hadn’t been I wouldn’t have gotten much further than the
first few lines. And it FELT GREAT! I am full of apprehension now – though I still
cannot imagine the REALITY of sitting in the theatre and seeing this. Often the
reality isn’t half as good as this intense anticipation of what it might be …
But, IF I make it, I already know that I am in for a surprise.
