Hannibal

Rating:
Summary: Harris' fine line between shock and schlock
Review: Harris is trying to shock us with "Hannibal". It's clearly his mission. But by the end of the story it numbs us so much that the effect is lost. The story is suspenseful from beginning to end; it's a good read and was very hard to put down. Harris sets us up so well, though, it's almost impossible not to feel let down by the final plot turn.

The story is vividly told and gripping. I felt as if I was in Italy; the description was so rich I could clearly picture each scene. This detail makes the story compelling and gives it the patina of authenticity. I really felt Harris - and, by extension, Lecter - was an expert Italian scholar. This reassurance unravels as the book moves forward, however. With elegant bravado Lecter bluffs his way into a hospital and steals a very esoteric medicine chest, but what he is able to do with these drug combinations seemed implausible. It planted a seed of doubt and made the whole book less real.

Clarrice is ostensibly the hero, but she isn't. Lecter is clearly the hero, really the anti-hero as hero, which is nothing new. The story has no moral value or message. Who's the good guy? Do we care? Do we really empathize with any of these characters? Perhaps Harris doesn't mean for us to do so, which is shown in Clarrice's fall from her middle-class values at the end of the story. Is this meant to shock us? It just left me shaking my head in disbelief.

This book has an unabashed pretentious quality about it. It revels in it! It sweeps the reader up in its tide for quite a while. I will never feel quite the same way about sweetbreads, I suppose, and I enjoyed the book. Nevertheless, I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not tried so hard to top itself and, of course, "The Silence of the Lambs".

Rating:
Summary: The ending grows on you
Review: I found this book very hard to put down. It kept my attention and every so often threw in a twist or two that I didn't see coming which made me want to read even more. I was tempted to turn to the back and read the end to see how it would turn out, but I am glad that I waited. I can't say that I was pleased with the ending at first as I don't think I would have ended it that way, but as the days passed after finishing the book, I grew to enjoy the ending. A more predictable or conventional ending would not have the same impact. I found myself changing my point of view about Dr. Lecter from one of wanting him to get his just desserts to one where I was pulling for him at the end. True skill by Mr. Harris in transforming the audience to root for a monster. With luck there will be another installment of these characters in the not too distant future. I will definetly read and re-read this book again.

Rating:
Summary: Not in the same league with the last two
Review: HANNIBAL is a pretty good novel. It definitely kept my interest but by focusing so completely on the character of Lector and giving his deviant tendencies a motivation it removes the very thing that made him so terrifying in RED DRAGON and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: his incomprehensibility. Nothing Harris could have come up with would have been sufficient to explain the depthless evil of the Lector we used to know, but the explanation he comes up with here is so bland, so...ordinary...that it comes off as false, like a bad joke the author is playing for his own amusement. I didn't buy it at all.

As well, the author seems to have been at a loss for how to end his story. Again, the ending, while definitely a surprise, comes off like a malicious joke. Is Harris laughing at his readers? I doubt it, but it certainly comes across that way.

Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece of the Macabre
Review: I can't believe all the negative reviews I've read! Hannibal is Thomas Harris' best novel yet, and a worthy successor to Red Dragon and Silence Of The Lambs. Violent and gruesome to be sure, but the psychological aspects of the story provide more horror than the physical. Agent Clarice Starling, slammed by the media after a drug bust goes bad, begins pursuing the fugitive Dr. Lecter. Also pursuing the Doctor is Mason Verger, a multimillionaire victim of Lecter's. Paralyzed from the neck down and left with a horribly mangled face, Verger's physical scars are nothing compared to the ugliness of his soul. An evil, unrepentant pedophile who amuses himself with the bodies of poor inner-city children, Verger plans to take revenge by having Dr. Lecter eaten alive by pigs. What Starling doesn't know is that Verger has a high-ranking FBI official on his payroll. The plan is to ruin her career and use her as bait to catch Lecter. The Doctor, however, has other plans - to "adopt" Starling as a replacement for his beloved, long-dead baby sister Mischa. Verger's sister Margot also has plans - to have a child with her female lover using Mason's sperm, so she can keep the family fortune. Her soul is damaged, too - by the childhood sexual abuse suffered at the hands of her brother. The ending of this dark Wagnerian opus is simply spellbinding, and you will not soon forget it! I wasn't surprised that Jodie Foster turned down the movie offer - she's a very conservative actress who doesn't like taking creative chances. If you have an open mind, and you're not squeamish, you should take a chance and read Hannibal! I also recommend the unabridged audio version read by British actor Daniel Gerroll - his Dr. Lecter must be heard!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: Thrilling and culture together ! I love the way he describes one of the best city on earth: Florence. I readed it in just 1 week, amazing...

Rating:
Summary: A tad disappointing ...
Review: Not only did I read and love Silence of the Lambs but after Isaw the movie I vowed never to see it again because it frightened meso. Needless to say, I too, waited in anticipation for the sequel and was more than disappointed. The book started out catchy and kept my interest for a while. Then it was a little hard to follow when the plot switched to Italy, but that turned out to be okay. Even the "brain-eating" storyline in the ending lived up to my Lecter expectations. But about the very end with Hannabal and Clarrice "hooking up"....all I can say is, "Mr. Harris, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?". Therefore, my recommendation is~ do not waste your money on this like I did.

Rating:
Summary: Great beginning and middle....but the end is horrid.
Review: This book really kept my intention until the end, when it completely went off the deep end. Highly unbelievable and absurd.

Rating:
Summary: Love it or hate it
Review: I listened to this audio book on the road. I really liked the extreme fantasies the author developed for his Hannibal. But it could have been even better and more mysterious. The first one is better - simply genious.

Rating:
Summary: Predictability, Surprise and Suspense
Review: After having read Harris' other novels years ago, I was more curious rather than exspecting anything in particular to happen. The novel starts in a predictable but fun-to-read way. Up until the end of the Florence-part my opinion was: so what? I could have told you that was gonna happen!- nevertheless, it WAS enjoyable reading! When I then noticed that the book was only about half-finished, I began to get more curious. I then was surprised by the sudden turn the plot was taking, and the suspense held up right up to the last page. It took me four days to read the first half of the novel, and I read the second half in one afternoon: I JUST COULD NOT PUT THE BOOK DOWN! (I was running to the bathroom like when watching a movie in the cinema!) However, the ending is strange: some of the bad guys get what they deserve, but some of the bad ones get away with it, and some of the good ones pay for it...... not a black and white ending!

I ENJOYED READING THAT BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: Simply Dreadful: Burn This Book!
Review: As they used to say on Saturday Night Live: Ïrredeemably Bad! I didn't care much for either the book or film version of Silence of the Lambs, with its ludicrously-named protagonists 'Hannibal the Cannibal' and 'Jame Gumb', but this alledged sequel was ridiculous, vile, and an insult to the intelligence of the reader. An appalling waste of paper and ink. My choice for Worst Novel of 1999.