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beatriceeagleSo, if you are one of the many people on my flist who doesn't watch Criminal Minds, I suggest you skip this post, as there is nothing else in it.
Alright. On my way home from camp, I was in an airport for five hours, and during that time I discovered a used bookstore. In an airport. I went in and found a copy of The Collector, free, because someone had highlighted in it. (Who cares? It's legible.) Anyway, that was just too good of a coincidence to pass up, what with the plot of Fisher King 1 and 2, so I took it and read it and now I'm reporting back.
So, a quick overview of The Collector. It's about a man, Fred Cleggs, who is obsessed with a girl named Miranda. He wins the lottery and uses the money to kidnap her and keep her captive in a specially outfitted room in his basement. The book is divided almost exactly equally into a first person story told by Cleggs and the diary of Miranda while she is captive.
Well, the big thing that jumps out at you, when comparing The Collector to Criminal Minds is that it is literally about the making of a serial killer -- how he develops the inclination and ability to kidnap and kill. And that's, obviously, a large topic in Criminal Minds.
But there are other things. For one, the "good" side -- Miranda's side -- loses. Miranda dies. And if we never got to read her diary, it probably wouldn't affect the reader, because Fred Clegg's point of view is pulled off very convincingly. His thought processes are disturbingly clear. (Another point that definitely connects it with Criminal Minds -- the bad guys always have a reason and a justification.) But the diary lets us see Miranda as a person, and thus her death is that much worse.
You know, we really should have known that Rebecca would die, eventually. The book is even set up such that your expectations follow the same pattern for Miranda as they do for Rebecca. By the end of Fred Clegg's first part, you're sure she's dead. You're also sure she's dead during all of Miranda's diary. But then Clegg's point of view picks back up again, and she's not dead yet, and you start to think she's in the clear -- and then you slowly realize that there was never any chance of her living.
Clegg doesn't kill Miranda. She dies of pneumonia, while he refuses to get her a doctor. It's passivity that kills her, and I think that's nicely parallel to Criminal Minds as well.
But the book is really about, more than anything, trying to keep your decency in the worst situations. It's about having compassion even for monsters. Because at times -- not all the time, but much of the time -- Miranda does have compassion for Clegg. She tries to understand him, tries to help him. She fails, but she makes the attempt. And all throughout her captivity, she maintains her decency. Her moral compass. She tries as hard as she can not to sink to his level. Once or twice, one might argue that she slips, but she's always in there, clinging to her decency.
And that is very much Criminal Minds.
Of course, this is on five hours of sleep, having just finished the book before I slept, so I'm not at my most coherent. Still, I think it's got the idea.
Alright. On my way home from camp, I was in an airport for five hours, and during that time I discovered a used bookstore. In an airport. I went in and found a copy of The Collector, free, because someone had highlighted in it. (Who cares? It's legible.) Anyway, that was just too good of a coincidence to pass up, what with the plot of Fisher King 1 and 2, so I took it and read it and now I'm reporting back.
So, a quick overview of The Collector. It's about a man, Fred Cleggs, who is obsessed with a girl named Miranda. He wins the lottery and uses the money to kidnap her and keep her captive in a specially outfitted room in his basement. The book is divided almost exactly equally into a first person story told by Cleggs and the diary of Miranda while she is captive.
Well, the big thing that jumps out at you, when comparing The Collector to Criminal Minds is that it is literally about the making of a serial killer -- how he develops the inclination and ability to kidnap and kill. And that's, obviously, a large topic in Criminal Minds.
But there are other things. For one, the "good" side -- Miranda's side -- loses. Miranda dies. And if we never got to read her diary, it probably wouldn't affect the reader, because Fred Clegg's point of view is pulled off very convincingly. His thought processes are disturbingly clear. (Another point that definitely connects it with Criminal Minds -- the bad guys always have a reason and a justification.) But the diary lets us see Miranda as a person, and thus her death is that much worse.
You know, we really should have known that Rebecca would die, eventually. The book is even set up such that your expectations follow the same pattern for Miranda as they do for Rebecca. By the end of Fred Clegg's first part, you're sure she's dead. You're also sure she's dead during all of Miranda's diary. But then Clegg's point of view picks back up again, and she's not dead yet, and you start to think she's in the clear -- and then you slowly realize that there was never any chance of her living.
Clegg doesn't kill Miranda. She dies of pneumonia, while he refuses to get her a doctor. It's passivity that kills her, and I think that's nicely parallel to Criminal Minds as well.
But the book is really about, more than anything, trying to keep your decency in the worst situations. It's about having compassion even for monsters. Because at times -- not all the time, but much of the time -- Miranda does have compassion for Clegg. She tries to understand him, tries to help him. She fails, but she makes the attempt. And all throughout her captivity, she maintains her decency. Her moral compass. She tries as hard as she can not to sink to his level. Once or twice, one might argue that she slips, but she's always in there, clinging to her decency.
And that is very much Criminal Minds.
Of course, this is on five hours of sleep, having just finished the book before I slept, so I'm not at my most coherent. Still, I think it's got the idea.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-19 05:15 pm (UTC)Dude.
I guess I need to read this.
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Date: 2007-07-19 06:18 pm (UTC)Oh, and there's also something of a love story -- the vast majority of her diary entries are about a man who she's in love with. (Who is about twice her age, hence the title of the post.) And all of that ties into her determination to see the parts of life that are worth living, and her hatred of people who don't.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-20 11:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-20 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 02:51 am (UTC)I'm sure that's the reason he included it, really. I was surprised by my reaction to it, really, because I was so much more sympathetic to her before I read the section. I didn't expect to have such a change of heart.
Another thing that's interesting to me about that book is that it was one of the first psychological thrillers (or so said my prof) but it's nothing like what I think of when I think of psych. thrillers today: compare it to, say, Hannibal. Even though it is really tame in comparison, I think it's almost more chilling, at least in retrospect. It's such a straightforward telling, not sensationalized, not delving into horror (as I think tends to happen, though I really don't read a lot of psychological thrillers so I'm probably talking out of my ass). There's something about it that feels more real to me. (Not that real serial killers don't do some pretty horrifying things - the paper's here have been full of little details about Robert Pickton, who is on trial right now, which I can't read because it makes me sick to think about.) I don't know, it was an interesting book, anyway.