Vivid characters outrace obvious plot machinations and pedestrian prose in Thomas Harris's Red Dragon, the first novel featuring the impeccably-named Hannibal Lecter, who would go on to success in three written sequels, four film adaptations, an Academy Award for Sir Anthony Hopkins, and cultural immortality. Fascinating, then, how he barely factors into Red Dragon, which focuses much more on grandma's boy / schizophrenic / deformity-stricken / Scandinavian body-builder Francis Dolarhyde. Careful readers will note how Thomas Harris built that name on subtle femininity (Frances), mental anguish (dolor), and a previous two-faced literary monster (you know).
That's how Harris works. Graceless, but efficient. He builds his villains and heroes brick-by-brick, leaning heavily on his exhaustive research with the FBI. His hero, Will Graham, plays like the basic cliches he would inspire: he has a proclivity for understanding diseased minds, he's ready to leave the force once and for all, and his family life suffers from the way he focuses relentlessly on his job. The word "archetype" doesn't do him justice. It must've taken tremendous resolve for Harris to avoid a badge-and-gun scene (as in, "You're off the case, give me your--"). In short, Graham feels perfunctory.
That adjective could be leveled against much of the plot, which follows the familiar beats of serial killer fiction, which always requires that detectives be one step behind the killer until the final scenes, mostly because that offers an easy dramatic structure. Precise homicide. Investigation. Sloppier homicide. Improved investigation. Et cetera. Countless books and movies have followed in the footsteps of this rubric, which always leaves the "heroic" detectives looking somewhat ineffectual, unable to apprehend the killer until the arrival of the third act allows them to. One of the pleasures of the film Seven is watching Somerset's resignation to such a role; he notes, "We're here to pick up the pieces."
What keeps Red Dragon humming is the strong portrayal of the monstrous Dolarhyde. Serial killers have an intrinsic tug on our attention, and Harris, late in the book, wisely steps away from the main narrative to focus on Dolarhyde's upbringing under a severely disturbed grandmother. Her horrific abuse leads to unavoidable shame, further bolstered by events later in his life. In one shocking scene, Dolarhyde's older brother slams his face (complete with cleft palate) into a mirror repeatedly. This sad detail, along with a half-dozen others, accumulates into the warped persona of Dolarhyde, who goes by the moniker of the Tooth Fairy, although he prefers Red Dragon.
That name comes from his obsession with the infamous painting by William Blake, a lovely watercolor that showcases a muscled, dominant devil standing atop a fair woman. Such images are damn near the source of modern horror (see also: Fuseli's "The Nightmare"), and, regardless of the prose, Harris taps into that bottomless reservoir. At the end of the novel, the tension lies not with Will's pursuit, but with the tragedy of Reba, a blind woman who's developed some affection for the better part of Dolarhyde's nature. Although she forces her way into his life, she willfully lays beneath him, and once again, the virginal woman falls under threat from a demonic male.
A final word. Given the prominence of the Red Dragon, I only thought it fair to post some of Blake's works. I know little about the man, and these images make me wish I knew more.
"The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun," 1805-1810
"The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed With the Sun," 1805-1810
"Antaeus Setting Down Dante and Virgil," 1826
"The Ancient of Days," 1794
"The Lover's Whirlwind, Canto V," 1827
"Christ in the Sepulchre," 1805(?)
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