Silence of the Lambs and the Dragon Tears

Today, I started reading Silence of the Lambs. The book written by Thomas Harris and made into a fantastic movie. I saw the movie. Normally I prefer to read the book before watching the movie, but in this case, I had watched all three - Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Red Dragon - First. Just finished reading Red Dragon yesterday- good book, but I kinda expected a better ending.

That's not why am blogging tonight though. Part of a conversation in the book- silence of the Lambs- really captured my attention, I have read a great deal of the book but I keep going back to that page and read it again. Very interesting. Read though, u'll find out why.

Clarice Starling (CS) wanting Dr. Hannibal Lecter (HL) to answer a questionnaire for the behavioral science department:

HL: Officer Starling, do you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?
CS:No, I think you can provide insight and advance this study.
HL: And what possible reason could I have to do that?
CS: Curiosity
HL: About what?
CS: About why you're here, About what happened to you
HL: Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences. You've given up good and evil for behaviorism, officer Starling.You've got everybody in moral dignity pants- nothing is ever anybody's fault.

Isn't it just the trend now. Nothing is anyone's fault. It's all a cause-effect relation now. Crimes committed, then the tragic story of the culprit just brings out the little frightened person in him and the bad people who turned him into a monster. And our sympathy turn to the other direction. So what is it exactly. Is a person good or evil because they are just good or evil. Or are they good or evil because of what has been happening to and around them. Think back to school days, am sure every bully was a bully for a reason, did it justify them being bullies? Did it make the kid being pushed around feel better. Imagine if it turned every pushed around kid to a demented teen. PLEADING INSANITY???

Am I making sense? Not sure, but I've just asked a question as small as a star in the milky way when it comes to us humans.

The Good thing about books, you can always return to pages you've marked. Dean Koontz has a book called Dragon Tears, isn't his best book but not bad, I read it a long time ago, but still remembered this bit. Check this out.

as a child, he had enjoyed fairy tales even more than children usually did. The worlds of the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, springtime hills were always flawlessly grew, velvet smooth. Order prevailed. Villains invariably met with justice, and the virtuous were rewarded- though sometimes after hideous suffering. Hansel and Gretel didn't die in the witches oven; the crone herself was roasted alive therein. Instead of stealin the queen's newborn daughter, Rumpelstiltskin was foiled and, in his rage, tore himself apart.

in real life during the last decade of the twentieth century, Rumpelstilskin would probably get the queen's daughter. He would no doubt addict her to heroin, turn her out as a prostitute, confiscate her earnings, beat her for pleasure, hack her to pieces, and escape justice by claiming that society's intolerance for bad-tempered evil-minded trolls had driven him temporarily insane.

JUST SOMETHING FOR YOU TO THINK ABOUT, AND FOR ME TO KEEP WONDERING ABOUT.