Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Caveat Emptor!
Review: An author of genius has succumbed to pressure; the book feels as awkward as a seven month fetus. Perhaps the wait was too long, and the expectation too high, but I know I gasped out loud when I saw that the book was being published, and I gasped with horror when I read it.

Rating:
Summary: Please read it and decide for yourself.
Review: I thought that this book was exceptional, in the fact that it left everyone who read it with a vaguely disturbed feeling. It seems prepostorous on the outside; Why in the world would that pair work out? Clarice Starling is immortalized for her sharp thinking skills, and unbreakable set of morals. And yet, part of me is wondering. Is there any other way the story could have worked? Hannibal is Hannibal. Clarice is Clarice. But throughout silence of the lambs, we had that enticing dialogue and exchanges between these two adversaries. When the FBI betrays Starling, is there anyone else she can depend on the protect her. I, personally, loved the ending. There is no way anyone could have predicted it, which drives innumerable people crazy. Please read the book, and decide for yourself. Every review here is valid. I suggest, however, that you make your own.

Rating:
Summary: Colorful, abnormal personalities; each with their own agenda
Review: show that Harris continues to create characters who are uniquely his own. If you expected a cookie cutter sequel to Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, you may be disappointed. I wasn't, and thoroughly enjoyed the outlandishly psychotic behavior of each personality. Afterall, this is the story of Lecter and Starling who are, oddly enough, attracted to each other from the outset. Add to this strange fascination of Starling's moth to Lecter's dangerous flame; a former child molester who had been a client of Dr. Lecter's and had made the mistake of offending Hannibal's sense of decency, paying for it with a loss of face, literally; now out to seek revenge...well, what can we expect? Crazy people don't behave sanely. I liked the twists and shuddered at all the right places. Harris writes to please himself and those of us willing to accept the bizarre antics of his characters, aren't offended.

Rating:
Summary: This Hannibal doesn't satisfy my appetite
Review: Boy, what a disappointment. Including this summer's Phantom Menace, I have now been left utterly flat by two events I've anticipated for over a decade. Mr. Harris has an obvious disdain for his readers. I almost got the feeling that he was writing angrily, as though he felt put upon by all the demands for a sequel . The sequences in Italy were very good, and should have served as the opening of the book. Starling should have been in the career predicament she was in. All of that was fine. But Mason Verger and his sister Margot ? Was mister Harris writing a sequel to Silence of the Lambs or a new James Bond movie with a half-baked villain and his stereotypical sidekick? If you wanted to bring a past victim back to seek vengeance on Lecter, why not his ultimate victim, Will Graham from Red Dragon? I would have created a scenario where Lecter wreaked the havoc he does in Italy (you'll have to read the book to find out what havoc, exactly), and the FBI gets wind of it via VICAP. Starling, who is in the doghouse because of the shooting described at the book's beginning (again, read the book...this part is not too bad), is given a second chance by Jack Crawford who assigns her the mission of apprehending Lecter. In order to do this, however, and since she has never actually apprehended him, Crawford orders her to seek out and work with Will Graham, ex FBI agent and original captor of Lecter in Red Dragon. In Silence, we learned that Francis Dollarhyde had, with Lecter's long-range assistance, attacked Graham and his family. Although Dollarhyde was killed in the process, Graham was left horribly disfigured ( I believe the description of his face was "like a Picasso" and his wife and child left him. Starling would have to convince the now disfigured and alcoholic Graham to help her, then wonder throughout the book whether he would, when the moment of truth came, help her, or look to revenge himself on Lecter. In addition to this, fans of the two earlier books would have enjoyed the cat and mouse between Lecter and his nemesis (Graham) and his favorite (Starling). The movie tie in to this would have been tremendous, since Dino De Laurentis owns the rights , and he made the original Manhunter, based on Red Dragon. Hopefully, when the movie does get made, it will have a more coherent and believable plot line that will respect our intelligence and not insult it as the last third of this unfortunate book does.

Rating:
Summary: A Shame.
Review: After finishing Hannibal last night I just had to go in and read the other 117 reviews left by the other readers and I have to agree with all of them, even the ones that loved this book. I waited 11 years to read anything by Thomas Harris and I wish he had picked a new topic and not mined the fields using Hannibal and Clarice. Apparently Mr. Harris has such major mojo with the publisher he gets away with having his book unedited. No editor worth their salt would have let Hannibal out without making a few major changes. The ending (and no I won't give it away for people that haven't read the book) is so stupid and unbelievable, I thought surely any minute the characters would wake up and realize it's a dream. Also did anyone else find all the major name dropping of the finer things in life annoying? Is Thomas Harris really trying to make a commentary on the moronic masses by having Hannibal looking down at the way the average person lives and eats and dresses? I really felt cheated since this book robbed me of several hours of my precious time that I could have spent on something else. For those that love Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs don't despair there are still auhors out there writing good novels. Pick up anything by Kent Harrington (Dark Ride or Dia de los Muertes) and you will have a new favorite author.

Rating:
Summary: A Pitch Black Comedy
Review: Rather than rehash the Hunter-Hunted angst he created in the first two novels, Thomas Harris goes off in a bold startling new direction. Like the difference between James Whale's orginal 'Frankenstein' and the long awaited sequel 'Bride of Frankenstein', Harris transplants his tortured characters from serious gothic to a wild pitch black comedy in order to keep them fresh and interesting. This novel is surely going to let down those who want a rehash of the more serious tone of the first two novels. But that type of story has been done to death in endless knock offs by Patterson, Cornwell and the like. I loved this beautiful sick novel and will never in my life forget the startling tableau of Lecter and Starling at the dinner table 'having their revenge.' I cannot imagine how they will ever make this into a movie and don't care. Harris has taken the exhausted serial killer genre and dropped kicked it into the new millennium.

Rating:
Summary: Are the Lambs still Screaming?
Review: This book is NOT the sequel I expected.

This book is NOT the sequel most of those who have SEEN Silence of the Lambs will expect.

This book is NOT the sequel most of those who have read - like me - both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs.

This book is all of these things.

It is also quite simply brilliant.

Don't let your own expectations blind you what Harris is created.

Rating:
Summary: mmmm...mmmmm...good
Review: Have you ever had the experience where you pick up a glass of liquid and think "ah, ginger ale... this is going to taste good", and then it turns out to be champagne instead? Your first reaction is "yuck..this ginger ale tastes really weird". Then, after it sits on your tongue for a minute, you stop defining it by your expectations and realize, "oh, it isn't ginger ale. It's champagne. Wow, this is great."

That's how I reacted to "Hannibal". It's so truly creative and unique and odd that it defies definition. Thinking of it as a "thriller" doesn't work. It's an exploration of nihilism and perversion meticulously crafted by a brilliant writer.

Reading this was like looking at some of Mapplethorpe's more perverted photography or reading the graphic sex scenes in Nabokov's "Lolita". You're enticed by the plot and delighted by Harris' writing style and then you feel this convulsion in your stomach and you realize that what you've read is truly grotesque . "Upsetting" is one of those words that critics banter about.... you see it plastered on the cover of thriller after thriller. Well "Hannibal" is upsetting, and I'm not talking about the cannibalism. I'm talking about the ending.

Clarice Starling has always been a very appealing character to me. The picture of her twangy, abrasive rural accent and lack of social charms move her beyond the realm of "good guy" to that of nice human being. Dr. Lecter manages to annihilate her as a person. It's beyond murder. The ending of this book is one of the darkest things I've ever read.

I'm appalled by this book, but it's so unique that I feel an incredible admiration for Thomas Harris. It would have been easy for him to crank out a scary, thriller and instead he's produced something much more complex.

Rating:
Summary: The Jar-Jar Binks of your summer reading
Review: There's plenty of entertaining head candy in this Timothy McVeigh meets E.M. Forster picaresque, but be prepared: you will be hurt by its ending. It's an irritating final volley of chapters that casts doubt on the entire novel. Thomas Harris has developed a seductive group of characters and packaged them in a lunchbox of condescension and implausibility, neatly tied off with a silken bow.

The author scraped the frontal lobes of Eco, Kundera, Anne Rice and Tom Clancy and deep-fat fried 'em in a vat. Enough nancy-boy high mindedness for budding pseudointellectuals (one review here speaks glowingly of Harris' "uber-intelligence") and more than enough gore for the Jerry Springer literati. Nutjobs and stock brokers alike will happily indulge in the repetitive product placement here--Spyderco and Jaguar, you owe this book big time.

Frustrating. Disappointing. If nothing else, what is our society saying about itself when an author feels compelled to grant ideational, enviable status to a sadistic cannibal? Hannibal's become a lovable scamp, a James Dean serving up Jimmy Dean headcheese.

Thomas Harris has finished his trilogy, and the third installment is an Ewok-filled letdown. Sir, please get to work on Episode I.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth the wait
Review: Thomas Harris has satisfied his faithful readers with a tour de force that uncovers even worse villains than the evil Dr Lecter. No skip reading here, his prose demands every word be savored. As Hannibal nears the end, a final twist is added, that no one can anticipate!