Dexter 201 and book meme
Oct. 1st, 2007 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ishtar79I missed my show so much I’d completely forgotten how utterly nerve-wracking it can be. I spent most of the episode with a massive knot in my stomach, for what I suspect might be all the wrong reasons.
Because at the end of the day, it does cause you to sympathise with a serial killer. And yes, the ‘victims’ are arguably deserving, but ultimately, that’s not why he kills them. Dexter operates within Harry’s Code because it’s been drilled into him, and because it’s ultimately the only way to make him palatable to a wide audience. But he’s not a vigilante-it’s not about what the victims have done in terms of the heinousness of the act, it’s just that what they’ve done marks them as victims, or prey, to be more exact.
Except…tonight, he did sort of personalize it, in a way that he’s never done before, and that made it strangely even more disconcerting. The parallels between the little girl and his own young self, his sympathy for the victim’s family that for the first time seemed genuine were a complete departure from the normal status quo.
I’ve always seen Dexter as a dark comedy-this episode was the first that I’d classify as horror. Because the disconnect is somehow easier when he’s in full smooth operator serial killer mode. Dexter as a monster is compelling, entertaining and at times hilarious (and let’s face it, hot). Dexter stumbling, hesitating, letting the victim escape, unable to conceal his true nature-well, it just makes him that much more human. And that humanity just brings out the horror in stark contrast.
Dexter unable to play God, unable to perform (snicker!)-well, that just makes him fallible. Vulnerable. And I really, really don’t want him to get caught, you know? I’m sure this will be a great season, not denying that. It just might give me ulcers.
A few more random observations:
-Aw man, poor Deb. I know a lot of people dislike her, but I love her, big dork that she is. Currently unbelievably traumatized, nagivating the deep waters of DeNile dork. Her relationship with Dexter is one of my favourite aspects of the show, and the final scene with them just about tore my heart out, because I kept imagining a scenario where she glimpsed her brother’s true nature. I hope they won’t do this to Deb-it would taint the one thing she’s got. I hope they won’t do this to Dexter.
-Rita sure seems to be coming into her own, doesn’t she (though obviously not doing any other kind of coming here)? She’s definitely Deb’s copassenger on the DeNile boat, and that level of aggressive voluntary blindness and desperation to cling to the illusion of normality…well, it just makes her more interesting than her ‘coming out of the trauma’ storyline. But she’s definitely not stupid. Her delivery of “Is it?” gave me *chills*. Shades of Darla coming through.
-Doakes is still equal parts annoying and entertaining. He checked out Dexter’s video rentals, for porn? Creepy much? And has he not HEARD of Net porn?
-Angel remains my one ray of uncomplicated sunshine in a dark, gloomy show. I just want to take him and transfer him to a happier place-like Ugly Betty, or something. Nobody’s safe in Dexter!
-LaGuerta cracks my shit up. “She hugged me!”. The incredulity and disgust in that one word was almost as funny as her stiff body posture and expression when under an expected hugattack. And getting a shitload of tmi from her new boss-poor Maria.
The book meme, gacked from…a lot of people.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today, 30 September 2007). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina (I think I tried to read it at age 11. A tad too ambitious)
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick (I tried, I did. I got ¾ of the way through before lapsing into a boredom-induced coma)
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex (Excellent book)
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey*
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down*
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Um, yeah, I need to read less fic, and more stuff that comes without ‘not mine!’ disclaimers. The saddest part is that most of those (the classics at least) I’ve read *well* over a decade ago. I used to be such a book lover in my childhood and teens-what happened? Damn you, Internet!
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 09:55 pm (UTC)The saddest part is that most of those (the classics at least) I’ve read *well* over a decade ago. I used to be such a book lover in my childhood and teens-what happened? Damn you, Internet!
Same here. Well, with small exceptions. I still read a lot of books, but I haven't touched a classic in ages.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 06:57 pm (UTC)Like I said, I was very young when I read them, I barely remember *what* I thought. At that age, all books were kind of cool by virtue of being *books* alone.
Oh, I forgot, Moby Dick. I was a teen when I tried to read it. Haaaaaaaate!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-01 10:16 pm (UTC)And Deb broke my heart this episode. Her reaction in the bar to that dude was so perfect. And Rita - especially after that final scene with her - is terrifying in her way, because I don't know how she's going to react, with the guilt of Paul's death on her head warring with her need for support and normalcy.
I love this show so very much.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 06:00 pm (UTC)Yeah, same here. And the balance is so delicate-neither alienating the audience nor whitewashing the character.
It really makes you question what worth motivation plays in justice - whether it makes a difference if justice is performed for noble or selfish reasons, and whether that conflicts with the idea of justice itself. If Dexter's brand of 'justice' is any worse than the system we have in place that allows killers to walk free.
Oh, there's no end to the implications. I'm completely death penalty myself, so I cringe when I catch myself cheering Dexter on. But yeah, we'll definitely get some interesting questions raised, and possibly some introspection for Dexter this season.
omg dexter!
Date: 2007-10-02 12:50 am (UTC)Re: omg dexter!
Date: 2007-10-04 06:03 pm (UTC)Re: omg dexter!
Date: 2007-10-04 06:06 pm (UTC)Re: omg dexter!
Date: 2007-10-04 10:54 pm (UTC)Sorry, the initials are used a lot in some forums I frequent, I didn't realise I'd been using the shorthand elsewhere. Oops!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 01:15 am (UTC)I've always liked Deb the Dork. I think it's great the way she's always trying to be a good cop--and she's not a bad one, she's just not a superstar. I feel for all her issues even when she wasn't being attacked by serial killers. Oh, and I also adore Rita. Talk about a character who probably would have been flat on many shows. I like all the supporting characters, especially the women.
I so don't want Dexter to get caught, but I wonder how they'll wrap that up! (I assume it will take the whole season.)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 06:48 pm (UTC)I suppose how this arc ends depends on whether there will be a season 3.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 05:26 pm (UTC)That's exactly what I thought when I read that meme. It shocked me into finishing one and starting two books yesterday. XD Nothing against wasting one's life but there is no excuse to stop reading, or slow it down like that.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 06:49 pm (UTC)