Hannibal

[robinturner]

Last night I finished reading Hannibal. The book was, as is normally the case, much better than the film (which suffered partly from the absence of Jodie Foster, and partly because most of the important events take place inside the characters' minds). Afterwards I went into that state of aesthesis which I rarely achieve these days (though I used to get it frequently in my Tantrik days). Everything was clear and beautiful to an almost unbearable degree. I had to play Go with myself to calm down.


What I loved about the book was that it could give an aesthetic sense to the most horrific acts - Hannibal's way of coping with the death of his sister is to make cannibalism into art. I really don't see why people find him so scary - he's the kind of person I would love to have as a neighbour.

Oh yes - a nice side-effect is that it's made me much more interested in cooking!

Comments

[oblomova.livejournal.com]

"I had to play Go with myself to calm down."

I read this as "I had to go play with myself to calm down." Not that there's anything wrong with that -- it's my favorite relaxation technique, to be sure.

[solri.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of how I continually have to warn my students against saying "I feel myself good" ("feel" in Turkish is a reflexive verb, like in German). I've had quite a few red faces in class from that!