Messages from & to the Dammed

Part 1

Dear Richard,

The title is far more appropriate than I imagined. Marlow is going to Hades [1]. He is like Odysseus in that he is a sailor. Unlike Odysseus, he not only does not understand what he is getting into, he is supposedly bringing a message of salvation, not answer a question [2]. However, his salvation and return from Hades may very well be due to the fact that he does put everything in question instead of accepting his role as an apostle of light. The fates are literally at the doorway weaving his fate. And what is that fate? Not only his death, of course, but the end of the world. Even the snake from the Garden of Eden is there. This is all perfectly appropriate to Doctor Hannibal Lecter with his collection of church collapses and tales of an inherently malignant God. As Doctor Lecter asked me to ask you, *Have you read your NATURAL HISTORY OF RELIGION, Richard? It would truly be a appropriate appetizer.*

     You think this is exaggerated? Let us see. My edition of *The Heart of Darkness* is certainly the best one. There were accidents that happened to the original manuscript as well as at least one, and I think more, incidents of censorship. Conrad used much less punctuation – a point I am always acutely aware of both in myself and others. The critical apparatus brings up two controversies – one is about Conrad's racism – or is it Marlow's? - which, however appropriate it is - and it is, is not at all clear what it means or intends or even if either Conrad or Marlow are committed to it or are simply reflecting the language and attitudes of the times.

     There is certainly something double edged about the matter. The  *black* man is both something lesser and, as in Herman Melville, something greater than the white man. The white man is bringing his civilizing salvation to the ignorant black man while at the same time, in the heart of imperialism itself, London, a very malignant darkness is coming to this formerly great and glorious city, the sun is setting on the British Empire at the same time, as in the roughly contemporary THE TIME TRAVELER by H. G. Wells, the sun is literally going out, leaving the whole earth in greater and greater shadow. And, of course, the whole message of the book is, if we are not already *black*, we will be. So it certainly is a quixotic racism. Are there any comments from the British peanut gallery [provocative aside]?

     The other controversy is Francis Ford Coppola's inheritance of the *Heart of Darkness* tradition which, without reading about it here though it is here, I certainly agree with. And certainly Colonel Kurtz reflects Doctor Hannibal Lecter MUCH more thoroughly than Marlow's, though Marlow himself is a pale – I am sorry but that is the truth of the matter – reflection of the active, superbly intelligent, and intense Clarice Starling – complete triumph of feminism! Colonel Kurtz actually talks to the river boat man played by the incomparable Martin Sheen, and we learn much about his thinking straight from the man himself. If any of yall have seen or will see the expanded version of APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX! – though there are several unfortunately and very disruptive segments included that should not have been, there are others that sharply disclosed Kurtz's literal intelligence in military matters – not merely *He was intelligent* and assume . . . but, with the French segment, both deleted segments keenly analyze why American policy failed so badly in Viet Nam.

     Obviously the film editor thought the American film audience too stupid and impatient to tolerate such demonstrated intelligence from its fictional film characters whereas the readers of Harris' book merely read the analytical passages in a breeze and say *WOW! Boy he's smart* and quickly bypass them to go on to the gory parts. All the passages in Harris requiring intellectual acuity and depth analysis are merely noted or totally ignored in everything I have read about his novels.
The only intelligent analysis I have seen is from a reviewer of a bad book on Harris at amazon. com – QUOTE--


*December 28, 2002 Reviewer: Ms. Standfast (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

I had expected something with a little more depth, but perhaps that's because I'm a member of a vanishing species (someone who majored in literature in college). Harris' novels are arguably the most "literate" crime thrillers around, displaying not only loving research of forensics and police work but a command of European literature and culture much deeper than mere "props" for the erudition of Hannibal Lecter. I have seen very little commentary on them that discusses this, or the deft mingling of "our common squalor" (a phrase from "Lambs") with images from Donne, Eliot and Dante. Lecter is also a character with a grand ancestry in history and myth, and I would have loved to see an exploration of what he owes both to genuine killers and the demons of fiction and tradition.

O'Brien's interpretation the title-page quotation in Lambs, "Need I look for a Death's Head in a ring, that have one in my face?" While he sources it correctly (Donne's Devotions) he doesn't even bother to connect it with the Death's Head Moth used by killer Jame Gumb to mark the flayed remains of his victims and to represent his ambition to be transformed through wearing their skins The deeper implication that Lecter's monstrosity parallels something that might be mined out of all our psyches
(given greater play in HANNIBAL) doesn't occur to him.

    As for the all-but-operatic repetition of theme, imagery and incident that occurs throughout the novels, or the delicious subtle parallels between characters -- such as Will Graham's relationship to his family as a stepfather versus Francis Dolarhyde's as a stepchild, pointed up by Graham's facial mutilation at the end of the book RED DRAGON -- well, let's say I was hoping to see a good critic go to work on that, and I'm still waiting. * Ms. Standfast from, of all places, Arlington, Virginia [Quantico], has other very intelligent but surprising reviews of books very far from the likes of Harris so she is certainly not just an ordinary *horror* fan by any means. This not only parallels the lack of understanding of Coppola but this also points out the *thrill* factor that teachers use to get high schoolers to read *Heart of Darkness* which, if we are honest, is a *horror* novel also where severed heads and murder are in abundance.

NOTES chapter I [Roman numeral] [1] paragraph 21 - Antwerp? *I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulcher. [typescript – canceled reference to empty streets and boulevards, big houses tightly shut, and a disquieting sense of turpitude.] paragraph 22 – *A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow . . . dead silence, grass spouting between the stones [sic below] . . . arid as a desert.* [2] paragraph 12 - *What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it, not a sentimental [Ms. mouthing] pretense but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea – something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer sacrifice to . . . * ADDENTUM – ALLUSION? paragraph 4 *Marlow . . . had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol.* What this means I do not know, but they are far too close in the text to ignore. Paragraph 14 - *It was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. It seemed somehow to throw a light on everything about me – and into my thoughts . . . No. Not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.* two edged Paragraph 15 - *. . . as though I had a heavenly mission to civilize you.* This *you* is *you fellows* Marlow is talking to, that is, the Director, the Lawyer, and the Accountant – heaven, earth, and hell. Paragraph 20- Marlow's predecessor - * . . . the grass growing through his ribs was tall enough to hide his bones. They were all there. The supernatural being had not been touched after he fell.* Lecter with the bones of Starling's father. Paragraph 25 - * . . . and by and by I expressed causally my surprise at him not going out there. He became cool and collected all at once. 'I am not such a fool as I look, quoth Plato to his disciples,' he said sententiously . . . * Paragraph 27 - *It appears however I was also one of the Workers, with a capital – you know. Something like an emissary of the light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time . . . I ventured to hint the Company [!] [MY exclamation points & comments in brackets] was run for profit. Paragraph 28 - *'You forget, dear Charlie, the laborewr is worthy of his hire,' she said brightly. It's queer how out of touch with truth women are! They live in a world of their own and there had never been anything like it and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether [the idea, para. 12], and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset [!]. Some confounded fact, we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation, would start up and knock the whole thing over. 8 The snake gave the apple of the knowledge of good and evil to man and not woman. Paragraph 29 - *I don't know why – a queer feeling came over me that I was an imposter . . . a moment of . . . startled pause pause before this commonplace affair [Manuscript: *affair as though it had been an unheard of undertaking*] . . . I felt as though instead of going to the center of a continent I were about to set off for the center of the earth.* Dante places Satan at the center of the earth. [3] the end of the world . . . if you want [APOCALYPSE NOW!] [4] the Snake . . . if you want to meet him [5] it is up to you