[.ca] Hannibal (ISBN 0553456636)

From Amazon.com:
Horror lit's head chef Harris serves up another course in his Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter trilogy, and it's a pièce de résistance for those with strong stomachs. In the first book, Red Dragon (filmed as Manhunter), Hannibal diabolically helps the FBI track a fascinating serial killer. (Takes one to know one.) In The Silence of the Lambs, he advises fledgling FBI manhunter Clarice Starling, then makes a bloody, brilliant escape. Years later, posing as scholarly Dr. Fell, curator of a grand family's palazzo, Hannibal lives the good life in Florence, playing lovely tunes by serial killer/composer Henry VIII and killing hardly anyone himself. Clarice is unluckier: in the novel's action-film-like opening scene, she survives an FBI shootout gone wrong, and her nemesis, Paul Krendler, makes her the fall guy. Clarice is suspended, so, unfortunately, the first cop who stumbles on Hannibal is an Italian named Pazzi, who takes after his ancestors, greedy betrayers depicted in Dante's Inferno. Pazzi is on the take from a character as scary as Hannibal: Mason Verger. When Verger was a young man busted for raping children, his vast wealth saved him from jail. All he needed was psychotherapy--with Dr. Lecter. Thanks to the treatment, Verger is now on a respirator, paralyzed except for one crablike hand, watching his enormous, brutal moray eel swim figure eights and devour fish. His obsession is to feed Lecter to some other brutal pets. What happens when the Italian cop gets alone with Hannibal? How does Clarice's reunion with Lecter go from macabre to worse? Suffice it to say that the plot is Harris's weirdest, but it still has his signature mastery of realistic detail. There are flaws: Hannibal's madness gets a motive, which is creepy but lessens his mystery. If you want an exact duplicate of The Silence of the Lambs's Clarice/Hannibal duel, you'll miss what's cool about this book--that Hannibal is actually upstaged at points by other monsters. And if you think it's all unprecedentedly horrible, you're right. But note that the horrors are described with exquisite taste. Harris's secret recipe for success is restraint. --Tim Appelo

Chronique amazon.fr:
Sept ans ont passé depuis Le Silence des agneaux. Depuis, Hannibal Lecter vit sous nom d'emprunt à Florence, en Italie, où le faux docteur, vrai serial killer, mène la grande vie. Sur ses traces, Clarice Sterling, agent modèle du FBI. Mais elle n'est pas la seule à le pister : Mason Verger, une des premières victimes d'Hannibal Lecter, attend sa vengeance. La lutte peut-elle être égale entre cet homme cloué à son lit d'hôpital, accroché à son respirateur artificiel, qui tente de tirer parti de toutes les potentialités d'Internet pour mener sa traque, et le redoutable Lecter ? Thomas Harris réussit ici un suspense rigoureux. La description, minutieuse jusque dans les détails les plus crus, reste l'un des points forts d'un livre qui révèle l'agent Sterling sous un jour nouveau... beaucoup plus sombre ! Thomas Harris a commencé sa carrière en couvrant comme journaliste les affaires criminelles. Hannibal est le troisième roman d'une trilogie commencée avec Le Dragon rouge et Le Silence des Agneaux. --François Picard

Horrifying and Tragic:
I am unsure whether to give this book five stars or one star - something which has never happened to me before in my long history of reading! It is especially odd since I have recently reviewed both the splendid Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs and given them both five star rave reviews without a single qualm. (SORRY - SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW) The case for 5 stars Hannibal is written beautifully, with the stunning metaphors and descriptive language I came to love in the past two books in the trilogy. Thomas Harris writes with a unique style that is a pleasure to read. The story is full of twists and turns and the ending is the most unusual, shocking one ever written - but whether this is a good thing remains to be seen. Hannibal Lecter's character is developed and deepened, which I liked, and we are given insights into what has made him into such a monster. Not much is added to the character of Clarice, but most of her background was discussed in Silence of The Lambs. Instead for most of the book we empathise with her as she has been held back from promotion because of jealousy and sexism. The case for 1 star By the end of the novel I felt completely depressed. Hannibal Lecter was the only character to come out on top. Although he was original and interesting I didn't want him to continue roaming free without any justice. Clarice Starling was stripped of all intelligence and power and became nothing but a brainwashed doll in an ending that was shocking and horrific. I could not understand how the author could bare to have Clarice sit down with Lecter and Krendler at the dinner table and take part in what followed. The reasons given; 'hypnosis' and 'drugs' were not explained satisfactorily. Other characters had also deteriorated. Jack Crawford had nothing left to live for and none of his dynamic, strong personality remained. Barney was unrecognisable from the 'nice' guy who was kind to Clarice and Hannibal in Silence of The Lambs, he had turned into a complete sleaze ball. The lovely Ardelia Mapp was left in despair. The characters that were added since the last book were corrupt and weird. Pazzi, the Italian police officer, seemed all right at first and then deteriorated into an unlikeable idiot before being despatched in a terrible way. Mason and Margot Verger were unbelievable. Mason was a paralysed paedophile missing most of his face / body, who got his jollies tormenting children and reminding his sister how she performed sex acts on him as a little girl. Margot was a lesbian weight lifter who had a burning desire for a child using Mason's sperm in order to receive her inheritance. (It's only when you write it down and read it over that you realise just how ridiculous it sounds). Yes, I know the ending has been mentioned in all the reviews before mine but I can't finish without mentioning it again. I found it frightening and horrible and not well explained. Overall, I'll give this novel 3 stars and try to forget it as quickly as I can. I always reread books I like but I don't think I ever want to see a copy of Hannibal again for as long I live, let alone read it. JoAnne

Delicious!:
'Hannibal' is a great read, and I really enjoyed it. The book raised a bit of a storm of criticism over the ending, which shows the depth of ignorance in the minds of the critics rather than any fault with the book. The book gives flesh and soul to Hannibal, making him the centre of the action, and completing his journey from what seemed to be the out of control darkly intelligent monster of the first two books, to a fully realised character with all too human virtues and flaws. Here Hannibal is the hero and anti-hero. His actions have purpose. He is in pursuit of, and aspiring to, the pure, the unsullied, virtuous, the highest of human creations. He kills those who 'deserve' it, the hypocritical, the ruthlessly cruel rich who abuse the power that wealth has conferred on them, those who would deny him his freedom for their own selfish and base greed. He does not kill at random, nor those that pose him no threat. He is as a superior being culling the diseased from the human flock. As such he is almost the kind of strong intellectual of the type that has been admired through the ages, a type that has it's roots in the world of the ancients of Greece and Rome. Indeed Hannibal is a character that the ancients would surely appreciate, their heros were rounded characters. People who had as many if not more faults than virtues. People who might kill unjustly but still be regarded as worthy. It is no surprise then that much of the plot of Hannibal is a reworking of one of the myths of the ancient world (Hannibal has found HIS Galatea!) So Hannibal is something of an aspirational character, strong in body and mind. But he is still flawed. He has unjustly assumed the power to kill and dispose of those he dislikes and despises, and that makes him less than human. Being both above and below us, Hannibal is truly special. Devour this book now. It is one of the best you are likely to read.

implausible ending ruins book:
The ending of this book is so implausible that it effectively ruins the book. (I am about to write about the ending, so if you don't want to know about it, don't read further.) Agent Starling's transformation at the end was completely out of character, and an insult to readers who had read the previous 500 pages. She is changed from being an independent, moral and law-abiding FBI agent to an amoral cannibal who without the slightest hesitation eats the brains of a fellow FBI agent, and then seduces her sociopathic captor and enters a long-term relationship with him. One of the things I appreciated about Silence of the Lambs was the psychological sophistication of the plot. And what I dislike so much about this book is that the author, for some reason, goes to the opposite extreme and creates an ending -- presumably for shock value -- which is not supported by anything that precedes it. As a professional writer who is capable of better work, Harris should be ashamed of this book.

Worst book of all time?:
The thing that stands out the most for me after reading this abomination is the obvious contempt, no, LOATHING Thomas Harris has for his readers. I believe he was so sickened by the 'fan mail' he has received for the Hannibal Lecter character that he decided to write a novel that would make his contempt so palpable that even the densest reader would detect it. And so we get crowds of tourists moved to lust at the sight of torture implements...Gratuitous slurs at gun show attendees...A little waspish slap at the people who tried to impeach WJC...And so on. The last two may give a clue as to the deeper roots of Harris' hatred : He has developed what I call Stephen King Syndrome. Remember the early King stories, in which he, the erstwhile struggling teacher/writer showed his knowledge of, and sympathy for, the struggles of lower middle class folks? Only to be replaced a few years down the road(circa IT, another bad book) by a man who slipped little remarks into the text to let us know how familiar he was with celebrities and their lifestyle, and an attitude towards 'poor folks' that slid first into pity, then contempt, then outright jeering. Thomas Harris is no doubt a very wealthy man now, and he probably moves in social circle where the members pride themselves on how much more "enlightened" they are than average Americans.It's rubbed off on him....Read the great Red Dragon, and his sensitive portrayals of even minor characters, who were rarely affluent. Notice Harris'; grasp of an overlooked prejudice (Since only white racism against "people of color" counts, y'know) : Contempt for poor whites, and the concomitant feelings of inferiority, strivings, and dislike of the wealthy people born poor (Will Graham, Clarice Starling) have. Then notice the little slams on the minor characters in Hannibal (eg the gun show attendees).It's as if everything Middle America admires-character, mores, politics, EVERYTHING-has become so anathema to Harris, he has to write a 500+ page novel in which all Good is shown to be nothing but sublimated Evil (a decades' old cliche) and in which no character is worthy of respect. Just to let us know how contemptible we, and everybody but Thomas Harris, truly are. The book itself reads like it was read into a dictaphone and printed without revision. How could the man who wrote such splendid, smooth, even at times beautiful prose as we read in Red Dragon and SOTL write so poorly as he did in Hannibal? More contempt for the "ignorant readers who won't notice a difference"? I don't know which is worse, the banal nature of the majority of the book's prose, or the straining-for-effect pretentious drivel as he strives for profundity (eg, the passages in HL's mind (the memory palace) , or the very last chapter of the book re : HL's and CS's relationship.) I agree with the reviewer who said that Harris has fallen in love with HL. He has created a character with certain superiorities of mind-and because he created him, TH now thinks those qualities are HIS. Another reason to despise the "lesser beings" out there in the real world! And Harris' attempts to-what, make the reader SYMPATHIZE with HL!?!-are grotesque : Spoiled rich brat brought up to regard everybody else as there to serve him loses his family in WWII . This causes an existential crisis , he loses all belief in God-and then goes out and inflicts the same pain of loss on others, but without the excuse of trying to avoid starvation, as the killers of his sister could claim. Nice ripoff of the Chikatilo story, but otherwise forced and trite. One thing about Hannibal that was handled well : The descent of Clarice Starling into psychopathology. It is foreshadowed well by two earlier passages that reveal her growing alienation : when she looks at the overweight nurse she is interviewing and realizes she's grown tired of a lack of "stylishness" around her, and when the sight of a man butchered like a deer almost makes her giggle. HL didn't have to do too much with the drugs and hypnosis to bring CS to his (and TH's ) state of mind : contempt for others as lesser things. It was already there in embryo. She sublimated it into a drive to protect, while HL preys...But the way childhood trauma-sudden death of loved ones- had warped them both in a similar manner is there before the drug-induced breakdown , and rebuilding into a sociopath. All that was good in RD and SOTL-the prose, the apparent insider's knowledge about FBI procedures, the sensitive handling of characters-is absent from Hannibal. Sadly, I hope Harris never writes another novel. And I wish I could cleanse my mind of Hannibal : It retroactively taints two fine novels that should have remained without a sequel.

Complex tale not for the squeamish:
It's been seven years since Special Agent Clarice Starling visited Hannibal Lecter in the asylum in "Silence of the Lambs." She's still with the FBI, although out of favor due to a recent shoot-out. Wealthy recluse Mason Verger has been planning Hannibal's demise since he was under Lecter's psychiatric care. That association left Verger paralyzed and hideously scared, with only thoughts of revenge to keep him alive. An Italian inspector has found Lecter living the good life in Florence, and is about to bring him to the diabolical Verger. Clarice, Lecter, and Verger are all well-written, complex characters. Clarice is a workaholic and a loner, Lecter is a cunning and refined man of the world, and Verger is, without doubt, the most repellent villain I've come across in a long time. The book's ending is surprisingly different from the movie version and completes the Hannibal-Clarice story nicely. I liked the book very much. It's scary, disgusting, and packed with action. If you're a fan of the Hannibal Lecter books, this is a must.