Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: I Am Sated.
Review: I have to admit that the fact that this novel, especially its *glorious* ending, is not everyone's cup of tea, only further whets my palate and assures that Harris is unmatched as a purveyor of the darker psychology of humankind.

If you saw more in _The Silence of the Lambs_ than a highly entertaining Suspense novel, if you read between the lines, then _Hannibal_ is certain to leave you utterly satisfied. If not, buy a Patterson or Cornwell novel and go at it. Consider that this novel took Harris approximately 3,000 days to write. Consider that he does not, as is the unfortunate vogue amongst most popular authors of the day, pump out a book every quarter year. This is an author who not only cares very passionately about what he publishes and the myriad details thereof, but has a very -particular- vision he's trying to express to you, the reader. I was moved, I was made to think and look inward, and I could simply not be more satisfied by this work, which is certainly the last we shall see of Dr. Lecter.

Because you know, after reading that astounding finale, I think he's sated now too.

Rating:
Summary: Ruined by a worthless ending
Review: As a huge "Silence" fan (movie and book), I have been waiting a long time for this novel. The majority of it has excellent descriptions, an interesting plot, and more juicy information about Lecter and Starling's respective backgrounds. These are the only good points in "Hannibal."

Although lesser characters from "Silence" appear, they are even more two-dimensional than before, and Harris relies on repeating information (that most fans know by heart from the previous story) as a substitute for actual character development.

The villian is more evil than any we've seen recently, but Hannibal is more sympathetic, and Clarice is more boring. In addition, Harris fails to develop any sympathy for new characters, and we hardly care about anything that happens to them.

The most disappointing thing about this novel, though, is that the ending is completely implausible, completely out of character for everyone involved, and completely unsatisfying. Throughout my reading of this book, I kept asking myself, "How is he ever going to end this?" Apparently, (I'm only guessing from the quality of the writing), he ran up against some sort of deadline and wrote the last 150 pages in three days. Drunk.

I cannot overemphasize how disappointing the ending is. It's as if he kills off everyone you care about with a fourth of the book left. I have never felt a stronger urge to throw a book after reading it than I did with "Hannibal." Don't waste your money, and your time would be better spent writing your own sequel. I guarantee you'd do a better job.

Rating:
Summary: Death to the Police Procedural!!!
Review: Poor old Thomas Harris ... he had backed himself into a corner with the Silence of the Lambs.

Red Dragon was the best piece of popular fiction I think I ever read. Silence was an outstanding book. But setting Hannibal Lecter free sounded the death knell for the formula which made both of those books so successful.

And no bad thing either. Just like Hitchcock with Psycho, Harris opened the floodgates for thousands of inferior copies. How many times do you read about a character which 'makes Hannibal Lecter look like Old Mother Hubbard'?

Those police procedurals with a flawed hero facing an omnipotent character, the embodiment of evil, should be put to bed now. Thomas Harris, who never really wrote to that forumula anyway, has done his best to aid this noble cause and has brought us an entirely logical end to the Lecter story.

By bringing Lecter out into the open, Harris immediately lost the fear of the unknown which added an extra pinch of spice to the central plot in the first two books. And to his credit he did not try to regain that element - instead he gave us an entirely logical story.

It's a simple story, it has to be, there are no really diverting sub plots avilable. Instead it concentrates on the search for the man by a number of protagonists. I am not going to delve into the plot further - that is for the reader to do.

I will merely say the ending took my breath away. It was so RIGHT. And to all the hypocrites who beat their pained breast at the 'depravity' of this story - Red Dragon brought us depravity and made it sexy; Silence took that sexiness to a new level; there are no redeeming qualities to either of these books, other than the fact that they are works of fiction, designed purely to horrify. To praise those two and condemn this hints at an inability to separate the relevant issues from society's current general attitude to violence.

My only quibble? The typos!

Rating:
Summary: A Monster For All the Ages
Review: Leave your emotional baggage at the door before you read "Hannibal". The reader, who chooses to bring along the hundred pound backpack filled with plot and prose from TH's previous two books, (they need not be mentioned here) will have no better chance of seeing the novel for what it is, than a camel has of passing through an eye of a needle. The book succeeds on the same level of those books, but then exceeds them by further exploring this idea. If Lecter is evil, if serial killers are evil, then we all stand accused. Especially "God". We all kill and torture in our own ways. TH's talent is to make his characters a focal point for this idea. THE ONE STAR REVIEWS need to read this one again.

Rating:
Summary: The Cannabalistic Frasier Crane or The Bride of Lecter?
Review: Thomas Harris posses great talent, but even he is not up to describing the monster that is Lecter. Harris goes so far as to suggest that Lecter is not human. If he is not human, how can Harris even adequately get into Lecter's head? I had the feeling that Lecter was an insane Frasier Crane.

Harris is not as smart as Lecter and therein lies the problem. How do you describe something that is beyond your capabilities? The Dante lecture that impressed top scholars, while competent, was not amazing. There is no way Harris could have composed a lecture that Lecter would have given because Harris is not Lecter.

Lecter's brilliance and evil cannot be described directly because that act would reduce it to a "human" level. When Harris attempts to do this, he weakens Lecter as a character and demonstrates the limits of his writing. By actually giving us the lecture, rather than describing it or simply its effects on the audience, Harris brings Lecter down to earth.

This gets me to my main point. The potential evil within the fallen human spirit, that Harris seems to find interesting, slowly dissipated when viewed directly. The devil viewed directly disguises himself to appear normal, but when we catch a glimpse from the corner of our eye, we see the true horror. Direct exposure is simply shocking and soon we are desensitised. The sideways glance and the slow seductive slide into madness and evil, is what is truly frightening. In Saving Private Ryan, Captain Miller (Hanks) demonstrated his humanity by being aware that the war was changing him. The recognition of the contrast is what makes the moment so dramatic. A more frightening book, _The Heart of Darkness_, captures the dramatic change. Kurtz is supposed to be civilised, but descends into complete barbarity. Unlike Harris, Conrad does not get into Kurtz's head and tell us about his shopping or his childhood. We are haunted by Kurtz because his slide into barbarity could be ours. See Kosovo for the modern day equivalent. A human Lecter is amusing because he is a snob,and apparently a hopless romantic. In other words, Harris has described a cannibalistic Frasier Crane.

As to problems within the story, is Lecter so stupid to take a direct flight into the USA after a very spectacular murder? Why not take an indirect flight and cross the border by train or bus? If Lecter is so extraordinary and radiates an amazing stillness how is able to blend in with the yokels?

As to the plastic surgery, it is nearly impossible to disguise the human ear through plastic surgery. Criminals can be identified by ear patterns. As to the collagen injections, they might help, but would not change the underlying bone structure of his face. Collagen shots need to be repeated, who is administering these shots? A full face lift leaves incredible bruising and swelling and takes time to heal. Who does the work and why not turn him in for the reward?

Why can't Lecter, who is so smart, understand that Clarice would be used as bait. Later he explains the political nuances from the trap. Yet, he is caught, on, of all things, a whimsy? Granted Lecter is not infallible, but then why suggest he has tremendous powers of self-control and this fails him when he thinks of Clarice?

Will Graham caught Lecter the first time because Graham could get into his mind. Who knows Lecter better than Graham, but no one consults him and nor is he mentioned in this book.

Why is Clarice, apparently, the only agent on this case after the very high profile Italian murder?

Finally, in SOL Clarice was a great female character with some bite. Seven years later she seems to need a psychiatric sugar daddy. In seven years Starling has not grown at all? When Hannibal makes Clarice his creature through drugs and hypnosis, what is the challenge in that? All Lecter really needed was a companion? I had a feeling I was reading _The Bride of Lecter_. If all that Clarice really needed was Hannibal or vis-a-versa, then Harris is suggesting that Clarice and Hannibal share a common bond. Pray tell, what is that bond? Hunter and Hunted do not appear to need each other. In other words, Lecter appears to be slumming, playing Pygmalion, or even playing Frankenstein.

If you really want to read a scary book, I suggest Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ because the story shadows reality. The consequences are very frightening, because like _Heart of Darkness_ they grow out of human nature. Shelley understood horror better than Harris because she understood that horror is unleashed when basic human wants get out of control. Harris attempts that in this novel and fails miserably because he wants to have it both ways. Lecter is either super-human or human with a very strange twist. He hints at the dangers of human nature, a la Shelley, when says, in the final line, "We can only learn so much and live."

Mr. Harris might say in his defence that our collective appetites have been stunted. He suggests it in the text when he asks, "What still slaps the clammy flab of our submissive consciousness hard enough to get our attention?" In other words, have we learned too much?

In _Frankenstein_ the horror comes from Baron Frankstein's thirst for knowledge. The ordinary slowly develops into the extraordinary because of the uncontrollable appetite. Harris attempts a similar feat with the character of Mischa. The effect is interesting but lacks the originality. Why? Starling is not a construct, but her own person. Harris fails to develop Starling, perhaps the greatest shortcoming in this book, and thus his ending is ruined.

To sum up, either you eat your problems or your problems eat you. To put it another way, "Can I have my money back Mr. Harris?"

Rating:
Summary: Good until the end...
Review: I looked forward to this book for the past eight years, ever since I first read the novel and saw the film version of The Silence of the Lambs. I am very disappointed in the direction Mr. Harris decided to take his two main characters. It just doesn't seem to fit them. Of course, I didn't create the characters, so what do I know? I thought the book was engrossing and very entertaining until the last 20 pages or so. This was *not* what I had in mind.... Too bad.

Rating:
Summary: One thumbs up, one thumbs down
Review: There's an old saying that if you throw something in a dark alley and hear a scream, you sure as hell have hit something big. Perhaps monstrous.

That's what Thomas Harris has done with "Hannibal"; for the most part, there are plenty of negative reviews on this board about the novel, but few tell us how or why "Hannibal" succeeded or failed as a novel.

With its characters, the novel does succeed, but in a way most people, I'm sure, find bizarre: Starling, the agent of good, becomes Lecter's Mischa-replacement, now an agent of evil. For a novel to be a novel, characters must change, and Starling has certainly changed in this one. And yes, I did find the plot plausible, but if you'll bear with me a few moments, I'll tell you how it could have been made stronger.

Probably the most confusing thing for readers who hated the book was the discovery of Lecter's sister, Mischa, who fell victim to a group of German soldiers on the "lamb" during World War II. In some ways, it does take away the mystery from Lecter; from being a Luciferian monster (maroon eyes, six fingers on the left -- in Latin, "sinister" -- hand, sharp wit, the need for civility and politeness) with a large stain of Original Sin, Lecter almost becomes human. We empathize with him at the loss of his sister; more than likely, he would have become a sociopath anyway -- in "Red Dragon," Will notes that Lecter was known to torture small animals when he was a child -- but the point is, we do have motive here, and a pattern that establishes Lecter's cannibalism.

Were I the editor of this book, I would have gone more into Lecter's past, perhaps describing how he was repatriated from war-torn Lithuania to Italy, where he was raised with his Medici-descended Italian relatives. There, he gets a good education, and begins practicing his "skills" as a future serial killer.

I would also have Lecter, as Dr. Fell, discover that one of the German soldiers -- perhaps a death-bed convert to Christianity -- has confessed his sins to a reporter; the news hits the wires -- a small blurb perhaps -- or perhaps a major news story; the leader of the deserting Germans, a colonel at the time, is now a leading financier and philanthropist living in Stuttgart or wherever. Lecter begins offing people in order to get his revenge; one of them is Pazzi, but instead of having him be evil, I would have him be a good cop; this in turn would make the scene where he's hanged that much more ironic and that much more tragic in the Greek sense of tragedy (that is, no matter what you do, the gods damn you).

From there, the plot could invoke Will and Clarice and have them working together as they hunt down Lecter. In the meanwhile, the prick Krendler is doing what he can to wreck Clarice's career, and does so by joining forces with the wicked German. We really don't need Mason in this one.

Take it from there. There are several thousand variations; but logically, I believe, it would have made more sense to have Mischa's torturers suffer and to have Pazzi play the good guy in order to bring in a twist of irony. I do recommend this book. Perhaps it's not as "good" as "Red Dragon" or "Lambs," but it is the last (?) book in this trilogy (?), and completes a cycle of sorts.

Rating:
Summary: SUPERB.....for 100 Chapters.But the last three. My God!!!!
Review: It might be unusual a person of my age reading a book of this nature. I, being only fifteen already own book and movie of Silence of the Lambs and love them. So as June the 8th approached I set aside my money and rushed to my local book store to buy it. I loved the whole idea about Mason Verger wanting revenge and the way he went about it. Which I felt was an understandable lust for revenge, however the way he wanted it done with the swine and suchlike was a wee bit over the top. But again understandable to a point. The whole part in Italy was excellent with you genuinely feeling the desperation of Verger through Pazzi. And in a funny sort of way I was routing for Dr. Lecter all the way through the book. And I urged him to be saved from the swine. So all in all, an excellent book......So Far. For 450 pages it was one of my favourite novels and was enjoying every thrill, scare and bit of tension. But what was Mr Harris thinking. The whole idea of Clarice and Dr.Lecter getting together was dispicable as well as totally unrealistic. It felt almost as if Thomas Harris wanted to finish it all too quickly without giving us a satisfactory ending. I was disgusted at the fact that Lecter put his urges of Cannibalism aside just for the sake of Clarice Starling. It is only for the last three chapters that I give it 4/5. Had the ending been a surprise with an excellent twist I would have loved the book and married Thomas Harris.

Rating:
Summary: Awful and dishonest
Review: Simple: if Clarice Starling was anything more than a plot devicce, or had any character at all, she wouldn't be so easy to turn into a monster. Compare, even with all her flaws, her strength and character in Silence with the cipher Harris turns her into here. Worse than a waste of time.

Rating:
Summary: The Silence Of The Editors
Review: "Where have you gone, Will Graham? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you..."

I can't believe I spent $29 for this novel! After enthusiastically awaiting the return of dramatis personae Lecter, et al, "Hannibal" was a tremendous letdown. Mr. Harris has squandered the occasion to continue the masterful "Silence."

"Silence" had intelligence- the dialogues between Lecter and Starling contained a mix of innuendo, fact and tension, especially the chapter in which cellmate Sammy is introduced. The latest effort is not up to Mr. Harris' considerable skills. That Starling could go from reviling Lecter ("they don't have a name for what he is") to naughty little Hannibal nibbling on her is beyond reason.

Fortunately, the novel is not totally devoid of interest. The background and ambition of Pazzi (and his subsequent demise) are detailed and lend themselves to the story, and Lecter's defense of his position (the analysis of The Divine Comedy) was obviously researched.

I should have heeded the reviews (most are like weather forecasters) and waited to hit up the sale bin when it bottoms out.