Rating:  Summary: Overly gross, implausable, very disappointing. Review: After waiting 7 years for the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, I was very disappointed in Hannibal. This story was mostly implausible to me especially the ending. Much of the time I felt that Mr. Harris was gratuitously gross. In my opinion, this book contained none of the subtilty of the first; everything was overdone. I also felt lost in much of the references to Italian culture; one would have to be a student of the classics to comprehend many of the references.
Rating:  Summary: Harris' Fans will Love/Hate this book! Review: With this novel Thomas Harris completes what only John LeCarre and Martin Cruz Smith had previously accomplished: a modern trilogy of novels in which the protagonists lose even as they win and fail at the moment of their greatest successes. Like LeCarre's George Smiley and Smith's Arkady Renko, Smith's Clarice Starling is a leading character whose inner flaws drive her to success, then cast her down. But unlike Smiley and Renko, who are cast down into heartbreak, HANNIBAL's Starling falls all the way to madness at the climax of this novel. It is perhaps the clearest sign of Harris' courage as an author that some of his readers will be not just disappointed, but enraged by the end of this novel. Those who fling the book away in anger will have missed several of Harris' almost unsung virtues: -No author now writing has Harris' gift for invoking all the reader's senses with the written word. It is perhaps ironic that he uses a madman like Hannibal Lecter to do this most effectively. -No one else (except possibly LeCarre) can expound on subjects ranging from combat tactics to gourmet cooking to art and history without seeming to lecture or to deviate from his story. -And no living writer can hope to equal Harris' understanding of the Appalachian mindset. His images of mountain people, from Starling's kerchief-bound hair in SILENCE to her use of a black-iron skillet as crystal ball in HANNIBAL are alone worth the price of admission. It's been reported that both Jonathan Demme and Anthony Hopkins are refusing to participate in adapting HANNIBAL to film. In a sense, they've made the correct decision; this novel may make an awful movie. It is, however, a brilliant concluding stanza to the Hannibal Lecter trilogy.
Rating:  Summary: Worst book I have ever read. Review: This book is not merely a bad book, this book is so bad that it left me angry and wanting my money back. I could almost accept a book that had a disjointed narrative that spends too much time with weird uninteresting characters, a villain that is more disgusting than disturbing, and a silly side trip to Italy which feels like it was thrown into the book to so the author could write off a trip to Italy as a business expense. Those things I could accept. But an utterly illogical ending that betrays everything the Silence of the Lambs was about -- this I can not accept. This book is puke.
Rating:  Summary: Simply AWFUL! I'm a Harris fan, but this book is VERY BAD. Review: If this book were sweetbreads, I would not serve it with fava beans and a nice chianti, instead, I'd serve it with malt liquor and cheeze whiz. I have read every Harris book multiple times and he is one of my favorite authors, but honest to god, this book reads like a boring travelogue for the most part, builds to a climax which never happens and instead meanders off into an utterly incomprehensible, unexplained, illogical, undeserved ending. If you must read this book, STEAL IT or go to the library. Give your money to charity or flush it down the toilet, but don't encourage this kind of self-indulgent crap. No wonder Jonathan Demme walked off of this project.
Rating:  Summary: Brutal, horrific, and unpredictable. Not a let down Review: A lot has been posted by many disappointed readers regarding the book (mainly the ending). These people are way off the mark. This book does not play it safe. If you are a fan of this genre, you will absolutely enjoy this book. Chapter 9 of this novel has to be the most hoffifying thing I have ever read. The ending is definitely justified, giving us on of the darkest "happy" endings I think I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
Rating:  Summary: Expected more however did not impress much ! Review: As said expected more in-depth and more exciting, however it is the same thing as the past ( well what do you expect it is a sequel ) but hello ! the reader is more anxious. Till half way down the road the reader is still guessing and gives the impression as the Lecter guy never appears and just keeps on describing Clarice and her life history, and also praises Dr. Lecter as if he is Godfather or what. It is surely made good for a commercial success for the hollywood thing but as far as the book is concerned it is okay, written with the perspective of making a movie ( probably ).
Rating:  Summary: Ugh! Review: It cannot be overstated what a disappointment this book is! Harris abandons the masterful, nigh-unbearable it-could-really-happen tension of his previous books and just goes off the cartoonish deep end here. The Italy section is very good, but the rest of the book is just preposterous and insulting.
Rating:  Summary: A great book waiting to be made into a great movie. Review: I'm not an avid book reader, but when I saw "Hannibal", the sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs", I knew I had to get it. This is a great novel from beginning to end. I recommend this book to anyone. I just finished it and I want to read it again. Thomas Harris has done it again with a terrific masterpiece, I just hope his next book doesn't take so long to come out as "Hannibal" did!!
Rating:  Summary: MIND CANDY Review: This was a thrilling book. I found that although the end is probably not what most readers would want or expect, I was gratified by the twists and turns of the second half. I feel Red Dragon was a better book and was my favorite, but this one will remain as one of the better horror,psychological fiction of all time. Dr. Lecter would be pleased, no doubt.
Rating:  Summary: Ugh! The "Alien 3" of the Lecter trilogy Review: Ending is just like getting the rug pulled out from under you. Why bother to build characters one can identify with if you are going to do what this book has done at the end? Starling is not Starling. Jack Crawford was utterly wasted -- why not just leave him out entirely? Harris spends a lot of effort trying to make Mason Verger an evil man and Lecter more or less a hero. I felt manipulated and did not buy it.
|