Musings on Thomas Harris' "Hannibal Rising"

I finished the hotly-anticipated fourth book in the Hannibal Lecter series last night. (Okay...lukewarmly-anticipated.)

Rather than write a formal review, which sounds like too much work at the moment (the baby and I both have a cold), I thought I'd offer my thoughts on it in Larry King-like stream-of-consciousness style:

• Hannibal Rising isn't a thriller. I don't know what it is -- a character study, maybe? -- but it's not a thriller.
• Despite that, I found it to be reasonably entertaining.
• I still don't recommend it, though.
• Readers who are expecting another Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon are going to hurl this book across the room in anger.
• Although it's not as much of a gorefest as Hannibal, it's still pretty bloody. But in a strangely dispassionate way.
• Lecter's really kind of a stiff in this book. He's almost boring, which considering what a brilliant character he was, is very nearly a crime.
• At times Hannibal Rising reads more like a treatment for a screenplay than a novel -- which isn't surprising, given that Harris apparently wrote the screenplay at the same time he did the book.
• How can the movie be finished at the same time the book is published? I have no idea.
• Some of the writing is god-awful -- there are some real howlers in it -- but most of it's okay. Some of the parts in the first half of the book (telling of Lecter's youth as a Lithuanian noble) are quite evocative.
• The book actually does a pretty good job of explaining how Lecter came to be the man (monster?) he is.
• I would have liked to read more about how he became so fiendishly clever, a topic the book barely touches. Probably because it would be hard to explain.
• Hannibal Rising strikes me as a lazy book. It seems that Harris put only a bare minimum of effort and imagination into it. It's also rather short.
• If the movie follows the book in anything other than name, it'll be duller than Paris Hilton.
• This makes it sound like I hated Hannibal Rising, which I didn't. It was a decent book, and I enjoyed it while I was reading it. But nobody picks this up looking for a decent read. They want to be thrilled, horrified, intrigued, scared, amazed, shocked, etc. Hannibal Rising does very little of that.
• You know how in Silence of the Lambs, Dr. Chilton shows Clarice Starling a picture of a nurse whose face Lecter mauled? Chilton says, "His pulse never got above 85, even when he ate her tongue." Well, that's Hannibal Rising. While reading it, my pulse never got above 85.
• I can think of no reason why this book was written, other than the money. Thomas Harris was once a brilliant writer, and even his junk is interesting to read, but he has squandered a truly great talent, and that's a damn shame.

Comments

[Maxine]

Well, I wasn't going to read it before I read a review, and I'm still not going to read it, after reading your helpful review. I also enjoyed Erica Wagner's take in the Times on Saturday - a thoughtful article about why she didn't think much of Hannibal Rising in the context of the earlier books.
I did like Red Dragon (and the original Manhunter movie -- did not see the remake). S of L was sort of OK, and I hated Hannibal. I thought the author was taking the mickey out of his readers.

[Lana Lang]

I guess I must be suffering from attention-deficit disorder, but I kind of liked the format of this review.

David Montgomery needs to get a job with USA Today, pronto.

[Mgmax, le Corbeau]

The power of the Lecter character came from the fact that he was the monster in the cage who was so deadly he couldn't be given the slightest opening. He was like the alien in Alien-- there's no fighting him, all you can do is guard him as tightly as possible.

So Harris sent him to live in Italy for a decade, looking at art and living the high life. That was when the air went out of the whole idea for me. That he now gets a traumatic childhood that 'explains' how he became him is just more silliness.

[The Sanity Inspector]

Very few writers, whatever their talents, ever come up with a bigtime franchise character like Hannibal Lecter. When you've got a horse, you ride him!

[Bookworm]

I laughed out loud when you said that some of us would hurl the book across the room in anger, I almost did exactly that!! I must say that I was disappointed with Hannibal Rising, but I remain firm in defending anyone who simply calls him "Hannibal the Cannibal."

[Beverly Lein]

I loved Hannibal Rising in a world gone to hell I can see why the young boy turned into the known monster of Hannibal the cannibal. If anyone ever witnessed someone eating a brother or sister I can see the mind snapping. It was well written and very exciting. The book kept me spell bound front the first page to the last. Please pass this note on to the author I look forward to any and every book you write. Beverly Lein

[Dean Hewell]

Harris needs to drop Hannibal and start writing about the most interesting and complex character in the whole series......Will Graham.

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