Rating:  Summary: HANNIBAL'S WINDOW Review: I read it through, finding many endearing metaphors, I intend to revisit. This book approaches from a stranger perspective. At times, it pushes "we" away then brings us in, into Hannibal's inner world and a darkerville of Clarice. Where it ends, I'm sorry, what the hell was that? I'm laughing, sick and wonderful. Besides ending, this is a four-star book. Will they movie-it? pass the ham sandwich *grin*
Rating:  Summary: Somebody pass me my anti-arrythmia pills. Review: I love Silence of The Lambs. I always like the macabre, so despite hearing all about the gruesome brain-eating and quasi-psychosexual scenes, I thought, "What the heck, I can stomach anything. This is Thomas Harris, what can go wrong?" Plenty, as it happened. When I finish this book, I feel so queasy and sick in my stomach. I'll pass the chicken, give me a salad please.
Rating:  Summary: Giving the People What They Want Review: After building Hannibal Lecter to such a mythic enigma in Silence, how could Harris possibly follow suit? Perhaps the long intermission between the appearance of that book and that of Hannibal indicates Harris' struggle with this question. He certainly didn't use the time to improve his writing style, which in it's current deevolution consists of cramming Ian Fleming-esque cataloguings of empty cultural tidbits into chapters which are hacked into public-friendly small pieces, while self-explicating much of the information he lavishes for an audience too lazy to open a dictionary.As for plot, even if the average reader succeeds in not anticipating the direction of the story, he won't be surprised, let alone satisfied, at his discovery. What's left, then? Oh, yes. Back to character. Bringing Hannibal the Cannibal back down from the lofty heights of inscrutable and indestructable monster to the realm of ultimately vulnerable (and perhaps even sympathetic) antihero? A daring idea, and the premise of the novel. Unfortunately, not even Harris can pull it off. Lecter is revealed to us in the light of contemporary pop-psychology, where every problem can be traced back to a single traumatic event. He is just another victim of his past, though one who has developed some remarkable adaptations to deal with that past. Clarice Starling, for all her indomitable will, is hamstrung by a run-of-the-mill Electra complex, forever at the mercy of a succession of men. The last of which is Lecter, and this is probably the most shocking aspect of the book. What does Harris mean, having Starling come so far only to leave her subverted indefinitely to the will of a predator? Does he think this ending will satisfy Hannibal Lecter's rabidly adoring public, perhaps even translate into a Beauty-and-the-Beast romance?While Harris again proves he can build exciting scenes with the best, the methodical, lean, plot-driven story of Silence is replaced in Hannibal with a mean, hollow, tunnel-visioned, and doomed attempt at character development. No wonder Jonathan Demme didn't want to touch it.
Rating:  Summary: Disappointing! Review: This book is a disappointment, poorly written and not well thought out. Expected better!
Rating:  Summary: Mason Verger - 5star Villian Review: James Harris hooked me when I read Red Dragon the first of five times. I've since read all his books and eagerly await any new novels. Mason Verger is the epitome of true evil - I think he certainly rivals Lechter as the true arch-villian. While not as seductively evil as Red Dragon, this new book is certainly a welcome addition for us serial-killer junkies. I only wish he would write more often than every 10 years.
Rating:  Summary: Brains to spare Review: First let me say I think that Harris is great but this has problems - not least supplying a 'motivation' of any sort for Hannibal but then what do we make of Clarice - can this work, I don't think so. Still at times it is disturbing and that is what it is meant to be - but the two previous were close to genius - this cares too much
Rating:  Summary: Good book but disappointing ending. Review: Another Harris cliffhanger is with us. Hannibal is loose and I too found that, once I started reading, I just couldn't put it down. It's Hannibal at his gruesome worst. I was most disappointed by the ending - not at all what I would have expected having read Tom Harris' other books in the Hannibal Lecter series. All in all though, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to all readers of psychological thrillers. Definately not for the faint of heart.
Rating:  Summary: Hannibal The Cannibal Lector Review: A great book. This book is the kind of book that will make you have nightmares weeks after you've finished reading it. I cant wait for the movie.
Rating:  Summary: "Hannibal" is fine dining. Review: A very different book, admittedly, from Silence of the Lambs, in it's own right Hannibal is better. Far better. Seven years after his escape, Hannibal Lecter is content to let the world move around him, provided he has what he loves most, beauty in any form. He also amuses himself by keeping up with the life of former...chat buddy?...Clarice Starling, who has learned the hard way the FBI doesn't take kindly to "Wimonfolk" encrouching on their territory. Hannibal's reasons for wanting to help Starling as his own, and never completely revealed. He's still obsessed with her (at one point he breaks into her car and licks her steering wheel). The biggest gripe I hear about the book is the ending. I disagree, I adored the ending. The world that Hannibal Lecter creats is enticing and intriguing. So is this book. Ignore the so-called critics. Give it a chance.
Rating:  Summary: I think not. Review: How I wanted to like this book. As a Harris fan from Red Dragon days, I hoped for a thrilling, thoughtful, tightly written narrative, starring the fascinating and pitiless Dr. Lecter. Sadly, we have a rather dull exploration of "taste" and madness. The ending, moreover, is simply an outrage. It subverts the stern morality which pervaded Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs; this consciousness of right and wrong allowed the reader to accept the horrific violence of Harris' novels. Without this moral center, Hannibal made this reader feel like an accomplice in pointless gore.
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