Hannibal
by Thomas Harris
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Okay, let me confess up front: I loved Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. Loved them. I enjoyed the movies, too: the movie version of Silence of the Lambs scared the pee out of me, and even so, I didn’t want it to end. So, long years later when I finally got hold of a copy of Hannibal, I really, really, wanted to love it, too.
But I didn’t.
Well, that’s not entirely true. If I pretend that this wasn’t a sequel about characters I alread...more
But I didn’t.
Well, that’s not entirely true. If I pretend that this wasn’t a sequel about characters I alread...more
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Read in July, 2008
I was obviously relishing my next installment in the world of Clarice Starling and Dr Hannibal Lecter. The book opens explosively with dramatic happenings, despite Starling's FBI career being a slight anti-climax due to influences from former enemies. Again, I'd seen the film before I read the book and so most of the major plot occurences I was already aware of, but there are more differences between the two Hannibal medias than in the films of Harris' previous two novels. The film had the adva...more
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recommends it for:
everyone
I was surprised to see people didn't like this!
What else was suppose to happen except a love story between the good guy and the perfect villain? It's just plain pretty.
But that was really only part of the book. As much as I tried to hate Mason, I couldn't bring my self to it. He was just to well developed. He was sick, and creepy, and by all means someone I would be glad to kill myself. And on multiple occasions I found my self yelling at the book in the middle of class, but he was a great...more
What else was suppose to happen except a love story between the good guy and the perfect villain? It's just plain pretty.
But that was really only part of the book. As much as I tried to hate Mason, I couldn't bring my self to it. He was just to well developed. He was sick, and creepy, and by all means someone I would be glad to kill myself. And on multiple occasions I found my self yelling at the book in the middle of class, but he was a great...more
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Read in October, 2007
Terrible. I cannot believe this is the same author who'd written "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs." The character assassination of Clarice Starling and Jack Crawford were unacceptable to me. Harris should stick with what he knows. Instead of trying to write a love story, he should have followed the formula of the two previous novels. What made "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs" worked as a series was Jack Crawford. In both of them, he was the on...more
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Read in January, 1999
This book is twisted, darkly funny, Grand Guignol, and I think a perfect coda to the Hannibal Lecter story. This is the book for everyone (And you know that most of you fall into this category) who wanted to see how Dr. Lecter managed to live, kill, and not just survive, in the world after prison. What I thought was bloody brilliant was that aside from Clarice Starling, pretty much every other major character in this book is ugly, awful, and so reprehensible, that rooting for Lecter as the her...more
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I have a theory about this horrible book.
Both Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs are formidable pieces of pop fiction. They are well-written thrillers with great descriptions and characters. They were both adapted into great movies. They made Thomas Harris a very rich man.
I think Mr. Harris made a bet, maybe ...more
Both Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs are formidable pieces of pop fiction. They are well-written thrillers with great descriptions and characters. They were both adapted into great movies. They made Thomas Harris a very rich man.
I think Mr. Harris made a bet, maybe ...more
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Read in June, 2000
recommends it for:
I wouldn't
The book starts off wonderfully with Harris's visualization; you can see everything you read. There are complex characters introduced and of course a wicked weave between them. He shows the master insanity of Hannibal with his elaborate set-ups for escape from not only Starling but from a vile creature named Verger who sets out to seek revenge on the good doctor. And you are eating this up the whole time, because it seems that Harris is once again quite the masterful story teller. But then you g...more
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Read in June, 1999
I had waited ten years for the sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. Ten very patient years because I believed the longer the wait, the bigger the payoff. Wrong.
If Thomas Harris spent the last ten years meticulously writing this latest installment, I'll eat my liver. Now hang on, I don't mean to say this is a bad novel, in fact it will make a tremendous movie. That's the problem...it read like a screenplay.
The characters I grew to know in the last novel just didn't seem real enough and I didn'...more
If Thomas Harris spent the last ten years meticulously writing this latest installment, I'll eat my liver. Now hang on, I don't mean to say this is a bad novel, in fact it will make a tremendous movie. That's the problem...it read like a screenplay.
The characters I grew to know in the last novel just didn't seem real enough and I didn'...more
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Read in September, 2003
recommends it for:
no one. Ever.
The quality of Harris' work has taken a fantastic swan dive. I can hardly believe that this was by the same author as Silence of the Lambs. Everything about this book is a failure. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is Harris' warped new take on Hannibal Lecter, which turns him into a sympathetic anti-hero figure. What?! Harris explores Lecter's backstory and exposes the "root of his evil," so to speak. I won't reveal it here in case anyone is still thinking about making the mis...more
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recommends it for:
Thomas Harris fans, horror fans, Hannibal Lecter fans
I liked "Hannibal", but it was not one of the better books in the Hannibal Lecter story. The overall plot is a good one: Lecter has been spotted in Italy, plus since his escape one of his victims - a wealthy pedophile named Mason Verger - has placed a bounty on his head. Clarice Starling is eager to apprehend Lecter, and Mason Verger is eager to capture and torture him, so it's essentially a race to find him first. For the first time, Harris brings us into Lecter's head, but it isn'...more
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recommends it for:
ethicists, politicians, you
In Hannibal, we see the rise of Dr. Lector as an anti-hero, one who murders to make the world a better place. That the ending of this book was anathema to Hollywood, even with David Mamet adapting, is the best recommendation to read it. It is, among other things, a really weird love story. Those who love Dexter, in fiction or on TV, should embrace this novel for its courage and for blazing the trail. Harris, with at least three of his books containing Dr. Lector, writes remarkable morality plays...more
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When Thomas Harris took Hannibal Lecter out of his cage and put him center stage, he demonstrated the existence of two new universal truths. First, Lecter is a much more interesting, charming, and frightening character when he's relegated to the backdrop and his appearances are rationed out only when the story calls for them. Obviously overconfident with the success of The Silence Of The Lambs, Harris somehow saw fit to make Lecter the protagonist, but without the veil of history to blu...more
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Sadly enough, this is probably the lowest rating I have ever given a novel that I've read. This very disappointing followup to Silence of the Lambs finds a former victim of Lecter's plotting to ensnare and torture the doctor to death to please his own sadistic cravings. While at the same time, Clarice is also trying to find him, and, in effect, winds up rescuing him. Very unbelievable, very long winded, and exceptionally boring. The only really good things about this novel are the beginning in I...more
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Read in January, 2002
Hi, my name is Thomas Harris, the Floridian recluse who wrote the incredibly ingenious and psychoanalytical thriller The Silence of the Lambs. I decided one day that I really like money, and seeing as how Lambs was turned into a fabulous and Academy Award-winning film, thought I could bank on a sequel.
So, with Hannibal, I'm going to give you pure drivel and market it as the long-anticipated sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. In this "thriller" (heh, heh...more
So, with Hannibal, I'm going to give you pure drivel and market it as the long-anticipated sequel to The Silence of the Lambs. In this "thriller" (heh, heh...more
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This is probably the worst book I've ever read. I read Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs ages ago before they were movies, and loved them. The only explanation I can imagine for this book is that Thomas Harris got tired of being bugged for another Hannibal book by his publisher, and wrote this as a big "fuck you" to them and everyone else who didn't want him to write about anything else. I would normally never finish a book this tremendously awful, but so many people had read it that...more
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Read in September, 2002
Thomas Harris obviously loves language, and that's one of the main reasons I will continue to reread parts of this book, out of context, for years to come. This is certainly not the best of the 'Hannibal' series, 'Silence of the Lambs' being the standard, but it is still thouroughly enjoyable. An entire chapter is dedicated to Hannibal Lecters shopping appetites, and if we follow our monster's philosophy, it makes perfect sense. Elegance is never forgotten, whether firing a crossbow bolt into a ...more
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Read in January, 2004
Yes, that's right. Zero stars! ZERO!! This book is the worst piece of trash that I have ever set eyes. Yes, I did read the entire thing, hoping it would get better. No, it didn't. As much as I hated the movie version, (and I did) I have to give props to Ridley Scott for actually making an adaptation that was slightly more palatable than this p.o.s. book! It's Jerry Springer in written form. I can't think of one redeeming characteristic of this nightmare. This book is the reason that the...more
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Read in June, 2000
A well written and riveting account of two powerful mad men - one in pursuit of the other.
The title character is the mad genius Hannibal Lecter. He is being hunted by a wealthy, sadistic man named Mason Verger, who he disfigured years earlier.
Lecter is almost caught in Italy, but later is actually caught in the USA. We learn more about his past and how he copes with stress (to say the least).
He is saved by Clarice Starling, who gets injured and he then nurses back to health. He us...more
The title character is the mad genius Hannibal Lecter. He is being hunted by a wealthy, sadistic man named Mason Verger, who he disfigured years earlier.
Lecter is almost caught in Italy, but later is actually caught in the USA. We learn more about his past and how he copes with stress (to say the least).
He is saved by Clarice Starling, who gets injured and he then nurses back to health. He us...more
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
Those who want something mindless
This is the second time I've read Hannibal. Not because it was good enough to keep and re-read, but because I was going on vacation, and I wanted to take books that I wouldn't care if I left behind when I returned.
Hannibal fit the bill perfectly.
The plot is all right, although it has nowhere near the suspense of Silence of the Lambs. A lot of it seemed strained, and there were several places where Harris seemed to think that gross is the same as scary. It's not.
Rent it, don't buy ...more
Hannibal fit the bill perfectly.
The plot is all right, although it has nowhere near the suspense of Silence of the Lambs. A lot of it seemed strained, and there were several places where Harris seemed to think that gross is the same as scary. It's not.
Rent it, don't buy ...more
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Read in February, 2008
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