Post by kitchin on Jul 15, 2015 16:10:09 GMT -5
Ok, I give up, but others have compared Mads's version of Hannibal to Humbert Humbert as well. From a discussion down deep in the old country for Episode 5 Contorno:
donjuannebulon: [blah blah ...] Ann Rand [... blah blah]
BenderBukowski: Hannibal would find Ayn Rand and libertarianism in general to be vulgar. He's a modern european AKA socialist wandering a savage nation - Humbert Humbert would be a more apt comparison. The idea of him engaging in class warfare is an absurdity - the fellow could never lower himself to something as petty as that. You might recall the asylum custodian as the sole character from the books and films he was content to leave alone because he found his blue collar dutiful nature inoffensive. [blah blah ...] Baltimore/DC is filled with plenty of Randian psychopaths, direct beneficiaries of the global war machine. Lecter for his part prefers utilizing his own humane butcher to put food on his modest plate, the distinction is really no different between hunting wild game and buying meat at the grocers.
Joe Propinka: I read him more as an old-school aristo than any sort of socialist. He likes people who know their place; he certainly doesn't think everyone belongs in the same place. And he uses the language of noblesse oblige: "I offered you a rare gift" and all that. Plus his whole conflict with Mason is totes out of Henry James (or as you note, Nabokov), the predatory European who with the imagery of history and nobility on his side versus the crudely rapacious, vulgar American.
And admiring someone who knows their place and does their job to the utmost of their abilities is not exactly something Ayn Rand opposed. She pretty clearly believed in some form of the natural aristocracy as well. Hannibal is not a Randian or a Libertarian, nor is he a socialist. He's more like an especially vicious satire of America's longtime cultural inferiority complex with regard to Europe.
donjuannebulon: [blah blah ...] Ann Rand [... blah blah]
BenderBukowski: Hannibal would find Ayn Rand and libertarianism in general to be vulgar. He's a modern european AKA socialist wandering a savage nation - Humbert Humbert would be a more apt comparison. The idea of him engaging in class warfare is an absurdity - the fellow could never lower himself to something as petty as that. You might recall the asylum custodian as the sole character from the books and films he was content to leave alone because he found his blue collar dutiful nature inoffensive. [blah blah ...] Baltimore/DC is filled with plenty of Randian psychopaths, direct beneficiaries of the global war machine. Lecter for his part prefers utilizing his own humane butcher to put food on his modest plate, the distinction is really no different between hunting wild game and buying meat at the grocers.
Joe Propinka: I read him more as an old-school aristo than any sort of socialist. He likes people who know their place; he certainly doesn't think everyone belongs in the same place. And he uses the language of noblesse oblige: "I offered you a rare gift" and all that. Plus his whole conflict with Mason is totes out of Henry James (or as you note, Nabokov), the predatory European who with the imagery of history and nobility on his side versus the crudely rapacious, vulgar American.
And admiring someone who knows their place and does their job to the utmost of their abilities is not exactly something Ayn Rand opposed. She pretty clearly believed in some form of the natural aristocracy as well. Hannibal is not a Randian or a Libertarian, nor is he a socialist. He's more like an especially vicious satire of America's longtime cultural inferiority complex with regard to Europe.