Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Eh
Review: A good read, but it's no Silence of the Lambs. I did like it better than Red Dragon, though. Much gorier than either of those two. Ending was a little unbelievable. And Hannibal seems to have developed near superhuman powers, where in Silence of the Lambs, he was just really really smart.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Silence of the Lambs
Review: This book isn't really that bad. It's nicely written, but when you get down to it, the plot isn't very original (a nemises bent on revenge). I liked Hannibal Lecter better in TSOTL, because this book wasn't as "creepy" when Lecter is free. We do get a look at his private life, and learn that he is a fine art lover and is an accomplished piano player. This book is more of an action book then a "suspenseful" one. The ending, however, was quite surprising. If you liked Silence of the Lambs, it's a good bet you'll like this one.

Rating:
Summary: A Thrilling Ride From Start to Finish
Review: As a particular reader, I tend to choose books that catch me from the beginning. This book does just that. It's brilliantly written, captivating, and spellbinding. You are on the edge of your seat through every twist and turn. It's definitely two thumbs up!

Rating:
Summary: An alright Book.....but Anthony Hopikins is better!
Review: Synopsis:

Agent Clarice Starling, age: 32, 7 years after the events in "Silence of the Lambs". A drug bust she goes on goes wrong, 2 agents die including a friend and she kills 5 people. This is the final nail in her coffin according to Agent Paul Krendler her superior who sees her as a smart-mouth female FBI agent, but really hates her because he was rejected by her years ago and has since been seeking revenge for that and the gathered animosity of Starling being a woman. A few days after the newspapers have been plastering her name all over as the FBI's hired killer, Starling receives a letter from Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Krendler pulling all the strings he can is about to have Starling removed from duty when she is saved by her old boss Jack Crawford. Crawford made a call to Mason Verger, an extremely wealthy owner of a butchering company, and also Lecter's 6th victim. Verger, who was horribly disfigured and handicapped by his encounter with Lecter, now survives solely on a respirator and has ever since been plotting the capture of Lecter so that he can video tape him being eaten alive by specially bread pigs. Crawford convinces Verger that the search for Lector, heard from for the first time in 7 years, would go bad if Starling were relieved of duty. So pulling his own strings Verger has Starling assigned to finding Lector. But Verger has his own people working on the case and gets a tip from a cop in Florence named Pazzi. The book moves to Florence where we experience Pazzi's discovery of Hannibal Lecter as Dr. Fell the curator of an art museum or something. Figuring he can get more for Lecter if he cuts a deal he contacts Verger privately and arranges to orchestrate the capture of a live Dr. Lector for Verger in exchange for $3 Million. The plan goes wrong and Pazzi ends up a Lector rendition of some art piece that Lector likes, hung by the neck. Lecter also kills one of the other men sent to capture him. And escapes, and jumps on a plane to America. Back in America Starling is tracking Lector using artsy stuff he liked before he was caught like fine wines and Jaguar's. She has leads but nothing definite. Verger spends some time setting up some more for Lector's demise and paying off people like Agent Krendler, and Barney the head orderly that worked at the Asylum Lecter was at during "The Silence of the Lambs". Barney becomes workout buddies with Verger's sister Margot, who was molested by Verger when they were children. Her main motivation in life is to have a child with her lesbian lover. She also wants the money from the Verger estate whenever Mason dies but Molson Verger, their father, recently deceased stipulated in his will that only one of Mason's sons or a proper DNA tested heir could inherit the fortune. Meaning that ... Margot Verger asks Barney if he will help her kill Mason Verger and get his sperm so she can artificially inseminate her lesbian lover. Barney declines and quits his work for the Vergers. Mason Verger tells Krendler it's time to make Starling vulnerable so that Lector can show up again like he did with the drug bust gone bad. Krendler points of out to the other Agents at the FBI that Starling communicated with Lector by way of newspaper telling him danger was near. (This ad, in the personals, was actually placed by Mason Verger). Starling is officially put on suspension. Lector follows her to Safeway one night and tries to leave some Champaign in her car while she's in the store but just as she's coming out she see's him being abducted by Verger's men who shoot him with a drug dart, grab him and drive away. They take Lecter back to the Verger estate and tie him up in the barn and burn his eye and chest with a branding iron. Lector tells Margot that he can kill Mason for her if she lets him go and she can even rip hair out of his head to keep as evidence to put on Mason and when he's safe Lector will call Margot gloating on her tape recorder about how he killed her brother. She declines but rips hair out of his head anyway and then walks back in the house. Just as the ones who captured him are setting up to feed him to the pigs, Clarice shows up and shoots one and ties up the other two, then unties Lector. A fourth man shoots her twice with drug darts and she is carried away by Lector who opens the gate to let the pigs eat the two tied up men alive. Margot finds out what happened, pays everybody involved off and kills her brother Mason, steals his semen and puts Lector's hair in his hand. Later Margot goes to bribe Barney, he assures he will never reveal her and gives her proof and they part with that understanding.

(Even people that give this book 1 star and hate the ending will usually agree that so far this has been a good story. Past this point is where the controversy lies.)

Clarice wakes up in some house and is kept drugged by Lector. After she recovers physically he keeps her drugged and begins intensive hypnotherapy addressing her father. She often feels that she is outside of herself and watching herself do things. A common affect of mind-altering drugs. The drugs allow her to see and talk with her father and Lector also shows her his bones which he had dug up at an earlier date. We are led to believe she comes to terms with his death. One night Lector sets up dinner, slips a needle into her arm, and reveals Agent Krendler tied up. Krendler and Starling have an obviously drug stimulated (not induced) conversation about nothing coherent, then Lector pulls off the top of Krendler's head having cut it with a bone saw earlier and serves Krendlers brains to Starling and himself. Then Lector, saying to Starling the next time she hears this sound it will mean she is completely free and self-sufficient, shoots Krendler with a crossbow. TWANG! Later in front of the fire Starling offers herself to Lector and he accepts. Scene switches to Barney and his girlfriend in Buenos Aires 3 years later. Barney sees Starling and Lector at an Opera through spotting glasses. The Next time he looks he's sure he sees Lector looking at him through spotting glasses. He and his girlfriend leave on an airplane for Rio right after the lights go back down for the 2nd act. The Last chapter describes Starling and Lector's relationship as no longer containing the drugs or hypnosis it did in the early days. Starling develops much like Lector and their sex is great. She finds out Jack Crawford died, and she sends a note to her old roommate Ardelia to not worry about her. The Last few lines talk about Starling someday awakening from the sound of the crossbow IF she even sleeps. And that we as the readers should follow Barney's example less we catch the attention of these two...

Rating:
Summary: Not the best....
Review: First of all, let me point out that I love Thomas Harris; I think he is a wonderful writer. Now, HANNIBAL is the third book in a series with RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS being the previous books. HANNIBAL takes place seven years after Hannibal asks Clarice Starling, "have the lambs stopped screaming?" Most people are probably going to venture out and see the movie, so I won't get bogged down in a long-winded review; just the basics. Hannibal has been enjoying his freedom and taken resident in his favorite place among places: Florence. Hannibal infiltrates Clarice's life one more time when she becomes the center of attention because of a botched sting operation, and her name is splattered throughout the papers as a "DEATH ANGEL." Hannibal finds out and drops her a line, and we are off to the races in search of the infamous Hannibal the cannibal. Only this time there are a plethora of cooks trying to stir the soup: Mason, a multimillionaire, who has a vested interest in seeing Hannibal tortured, joins the hunt offering millions for his capture. A corrupt Italian policeman, and Clarice starling are all searching for Hannibal Lecter. The plot is excellent and the characters are vivid and tangible, but the books fails. It seems that Thomas Harris was more concerned with pleasing the movie industry rather than pleasing his loyal readers. The book reads like a screenplay in some parts, and in others it captures the beauty and emotion of the first two books in the series. In all it is a good read, but the satisfaction factor is close to zero. For those of you wondering why Jodie Foster turned down the role of Clarice ( she felt as if the character had been betrayed) when you come to the last couple of chapters in the book you will be enlightened. Come one, Mr. Harris, you can do better.

Rating:
Summary: Terribly loose plot.
Review: I refer to Michael E. Hill's review with whom I agree, and I'd like to make the following remark: at the second chapter of this book we learn that Dr. Lecter had originally escaped to Brazil. Fine. Then he flies to Europe. Why? Why doesn't he stay in S. America, like many other wanted criminals? Instead he goes to Italy, i.e. a developed country of W. Europe, where an extradiction convention with the US applies and where there is a long tradition of succesful struggle against terrorism and organised crime! In other words, he did his best to be apprehended! And when he's is tracked down, he doesn't return to Brazil but right back to the US, where he's among the 10 most wanted convicted criminals! With the FBI and a tycoon after him! Do me a favour!

Mr. Harris' stories used to be realistic and probable and this was one of the reasons of their popularity. "Hannibal" is neither. And I don't understand why Dr. Lecter's personality had to be "explained" - let alone the "explanation" itself...

I hope that Mr. Harris will give up this "cinema oriented" work and return to his brilliant, breath-taking, original inspiration.

Rating:
Summary: I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife.
Review: The first time I ever heard of Hannibal was when I was listening to the radio and I heard a preveiw for the movie. Have you heard the line "I'm giving serious thought to eating your wife" ? Creepy. I immediately decided to get the book and I wasn't dissapointed. There are so many psychological and religious issues in this book! I'm an eighteen year old college student and some of them went beyond me. I'm hoping to figure them out when I take Psych 101 this fall!

Hannibal Lecter is a fantastic villain, cultured and educated, who would kave no problem killing you if you threatened his freedom. This is evidenced by Pazzi's untimely demise. I enjoyed learning of his past, his childhood even. Although some may disagree, I like it when a villian is given a past: it makes him more human and it makes you think "Could I have ended up like this?"

Clarice Starling in SOTL was an enthusiastic young FBI trainee looking towards her future with bright eyes. In Hannibal, she is cynical, beaten down after seven years of subtle sabotage of her career by Paul Krendler. She knows her career is going nowhere and this is what makes the ending of the book more realistic to me. Clarice can stay in a dead-end career working for the organization that betrayed her, or she can run off with this facinating man, so much like herself, and travel the world.

Mason Verger is one sick puppy. He makes Hannibal Lecter look like a fluffy doll. Hannibal was a killer and cannibal, yes, but when reading about him one feels a sense of elegance and taste coming from him. Mason radiated evil. He is a child molester, a man who raped his own sister repeatedly and violently enough to cause her to need stitches. He tries to entice Hannibal Lecter into a bit of S&M (shudder) which leads to Hannibal getting Mason high and convincing him to remove his face with a knife. And the way he plans to kill Dr. Lecter is vicious and brutal. In the end, you actually find yourself rooting for Hannibal.

What really got me was the ending. It was so unexpected for me, I just gasped out loud (which got me a lot of wierd looks, I'll tell you). I loved it, though. It makes me wonder what kind of choice I would have made.

All in all, I give this book 5 stars and recommend it to anyone who loves a good involved story. Just make sure you have a strong stomach.

Rating:
Summary: A good book but...........
Review: I felt that I was obliged to write a review about a book that I anticipated a lot from. I just finished reading it yesterday. I must say that the plot was so flowing, it went by fast and it took me a very short time to finish the book. It started from the top level, declined a bit, and then went up again till the end, where the biggest Fall Down ocurred unfortunately. Clarice Starling had been my favorite character throughout Silence of the Lambs and hannibal though the ending was a disappontment. I admired her personality, how solemn she was, quiet, self respectful and calmn. I even wished if she was part of Red Dragon, that's how much I liked her. I felt that she was somehow close to me in personality. But the book didn't do her good. it was so unfair to her and a real betrayal was waiting for her at the end. I don't want to give the ending away, but I feel that I must say something about it, so if you are planning on reading the book anytime soon, stop reading my review from this point and on. I'm not going to say, don't buy the book, it is not worth it, because that is not true at all. the book was very fascinating to me up to a certain piont, and again I mean the ending in here. the first thing is, the description about Italy, and the Capponi Library was so touching, it opened a big picture in front of my sight that made the imagination of the place anything but hard. But I still felt that it consumed a big portion of the book while Mr Harris could have used it to bring out an interaction between Clarice and Lecter instead, the sort of thing that made Silence of the Lambs unforgettable. Clarice, the main character in Silence of the lambs, was forgotten for many chapters in Hannibal, until it grew really boring to me and I started flipping pages just to see if she was going to reappear anytime soon. but through that time, I still admired her personality and felt that she was the same brave Clarice we knew before. I had this solid feeling up until the attack at Mason Verger property, this attack was also admired, because it showed her courage. But after that, the disoppointment found its way into myself. I couldn't help saying out loud :What Is The Matter With Her????? she was shot by a tranquilizer, that doesn't mean that she should lose her reason, her sense, her principles! that doesn't mean that Clarice should be gone forever!! I still can't believe what happened, this twisted, and rather distorted ending, flipped my admiration to her by 180 degrees, I didn't hate her, But I didn't like what she did either. How could a brave FBI agent become associated with a criminal- which by the way I do respect a little for his beautiful taste- that she had been longing to capture? And one more thing that wasn't clear for me: she was supposed to get kicked out of the bureau after the drug incident at the fish market, but she didn't, then a Made Up ad in a newspaper was used to get her out of the bureau, my question is: couldn't they have used the first charge to dispose her instead of the second that was so not making sense to us?? Not that I'm saying that the first charge was true, but at least she didn't deny shooting the woman, eventhough she was right at doing it. I can write forever about my disappointment with the book, but I still can't give it less than four starts, because I did enjoy it, and I would have given it five stars should Clarice not have turned out to a totally different person and disappointed me , bringing to your attention again that she is still my favorite character in all the books that I have ever read. One thing to hope is that the movie will bring Clarice back into where she belongs, and reload my respect and admiration to her. I'm hoping so because I didn't see the movie yet and heard that the ending was altered, something that I thank God for.

Rating:
Summary: Too Much Hannibal, too little cannibal.
Review: Hannibal starts out as a great novel; fast paced, bloody, and suspenseful. The first chapter made Hannibal seem very very promising. However, almost everything else after that, has gone to the pigs. I felt that the story lacked a great deal of character development. Very little was done with Starling, I felt she played a small role in the whole novel untill the ending. What was missing from Hannibal was the unsuspecting nature that Harris carries on in all his previous novels; Red Dragon kept me up very late into the night. Hannibal never really delivers any thrill, in fact the novel seems to just build up useless fact after fact for the "grand" finale; which isn't very grand. The characters all lose their personalities. Dr. Lecter didn't seem like Lecter anymore, and Clarice Starling, seemed like she walked in from a different story.

Rating:
Summary: I LOVE LECHTER
Review: This book was recommended in "On Writing" by Stephen King - a book I highly reccommend.

Thomas Harris, who produces a novel just once a decade, offers us now Hannibal. I read the other two...The Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. Of the trilogy, Silence is the strongest. Hannibal is for open minds only, and the conclusion is very different than that of the movie. There is an entire sub plot involving Verger's lesbian sister that adds another demension to the story.

Thomas Harris has a gift for bringing Lechter to life. This book is no exception. Clarice is further developed as well. Because of her roots in lower class America and her rise to the top, she appeals to many women, myself included. In fact, I can nearly see myself making the choice she makes in the conclusion. This book ties in heavily with the Silence book, and I recommend you read them in order if you are going to read this one at all.

If you love Lechter as I love Lechter, read this book. He does so many more admirable things. You may also enjoy this book if you are a lover of fine literature and explosive prose. This book is edifying to the reader, offering rich insight to Italian culture and history, as well as human nature. However, if you want to read this book because of the movie, or because everyone is reading it, don't.