"The world is more interesting with you in it."

[katernater]

Todd is away at the wedding of a mutual friend, so I've taken most of this afternoon and evening as a "mental health experiment," during which time I've pretty much bummed around and done nothing but fix a little dinner, read, and watch movies I've been meaning to push through my queue. I finally gave Hannibal Rising a go, having avoided it in theaters after I read the book. It was about what I expected. I admired Gaspard Ulliel's performance as Hannibal Lecter, but I really didn't need all of that character backstory -- what made the man so damn scary in The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon was the fact that his absolute nutjobbiness seemed to come out of nowhere. Once you tack on a sad backstory about baby sister's teeth in a stool pit, you start to empathize with him and that takes all of the fun out of it. It has, however, made me consider going back to give Hannibal a re-read. I love that book. It's pure poetry.

I picked up my cap, gown, tassel and hood at the campus bookstore yesterday. Graduation is exactly one month from today. I can't believe it's really almost over.

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

As seen on TV Tropes, which I won't link to out of general courtesy: "A mass murderer is scary; a mass murderer who kills because he had a crappy childhood is merely pathetic."

[katernater.livejournal.com]

Exactly. And I was biased against the film/novel to begin with, because it was assumed that Dino De Laurentiis (who owned the rights to the character), sort of pushed Thomas Harris into writing a hackneyed screenplay so he could cash in on the franchise. Harris has always been one of my favorite authors, so Hannibal Rising was a particular disappointment.

[mr-liam-to-you.livejournal.com]

Hannibal is one of those books I can read over and over and over and never get sick of it. I think I've read it at least 15 times since it came out however many years ago. (I went through a weird I-want-to-study-serial-killers-for-the-FBI phase when I was a young teenager. XD)

And the Hannibal movie is just gorgeous.

I wasn't really thrilled with Hannibal Rising. I agree, he's more terrifying (and intriguing) without the backstory.

Ahh now I want to go re-read and re-watch Hannibal :D

[katernater.livejournal.com]

Ha ha! The inscription on the dust jacket of my copy reads, "Happy 16th Birthday, Katie! Love, Mom & Dad". Which sort of gives you an indication of the kinds of things I ask for as gifts. XD I wanted to join the FBI when I was younger, too! I read The Silence of the Lambs for the first time, and The X-Files was in its golden age, and I read all of those serial profiling books that John Douglas put out, and I was completely wrapped up in all of it for a good two years. (I wanted to be a Navy SEAL for a while, too, until I found out that they drown you. Twice.)

I actually wrote a letter to Thomas Harris that I never sent.

We should do a cooperative re-watch/re-read!

[mr-liam-to-you.livejournal.com]

omg yessss X-Files. XD I was like 9 years old, and my classmates were like "I want to be a doctor/teacher/astronaut/firefighter" and I was like "I WANT TO BE AN FBI AGENT AND WORK ON THE UNSOLVED CASES. 8D"

Then when I was like 12 or 13, I saw Silence of the Lambs on TV and was oddly fascinated by Lecter, and my FBI dream became slightly more realistic. Instead of searching for aliens, I wanted to hunt serial killers :P

Co-op re-read/watch would rock!

(Holy shit, they actually drown you? That's. Intense and terrifying.)

[katernater.livejournal.com]

We would have gotten on well in grade school. XD

I'm up for it! 'Got my dusty old copy off the shelf. I'm flipping through it now -- I actually went through a couple of years ago and highlighted sections I thought were particularly well written. There is a lot of highlighting in this book.

(Yep! It's part of the training. I got wind of that and was like, "Okay, let's start thinking about alternative career options where my lungs filling with water is not a requirement for advancement.")

[katernater.livejournal.com]

I mean, just listen to this stuff:

God's choices in inflicting suffering are not satisfactory to us, nor are they understandable, unless innocence offends Him. Clearly He needs some help in directing the blind fury which which He flogs the earth.

Gorgeous prose.

[mr-liam-to-you.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, definitely re-reading :)

I usually don't find "mainstream" prose exceptionally beautiful or, I don't know, meaningful I guess (I usually just fly through and think "Good story" rather than taking note of various passages or words), but my copy of Hannibal is covered in margin notes and underlined passages that I found especially eloquent or effective.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

This is gonna' be fun!

[ceitfianna]

Congrats about graduation. I was realizing that my next semester will be my last one at SI, which is crazy.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

Are you excited? Nervous? Do you have plans for after graduation?

[ceitfianna]

Excited and nervous. I'll be trying to get a library job and I have no idea where or what it will be.

That's wonderful and scary, but I feel like SI is preparing me for lots of things.

[katernater.livejournal.com]

I haven't known you for very long, but I have complete confidence in your abilities and I know that you will do great things with your life.

[ceitfianna]

Thank you. I'm looking forward to what's next.

[another-myself.livejournal.com]

Sending you hearts! <3!

[juryrig.livejournal.com]

Yaaay! That's so exciting that you're graduating! :D