So maybe I was a wimp. But I remember, at the age of 11, not being able to make it through even the first five minutes of the film version of "The Silence of the Lambs."
To put it bluntly, the movie is terrifying. Now, nine years later, after numerous viewings and armed with a twisted mind and a somewhat tougher constitution, I still find it frightening from beginning to end.
That's why, when author Thomas Harris decided to release "Hannibal" after almost 10 years, I tore into it like Dr. Lecter devouring a liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Having never read Harris before, with only the film to compare to the novel, I was disappointed to discover that the man can't write. To put it nicely, Harris is one of the worst authors I've ever read.
It's easy for an English major to sit in an ivory tower sniping, taking potshots at popular fiction while quoting obscure passages from "The Waste Land." But this isn't the case. Harris makes John Grisham look like James Joyce.
"Hannibal" is not only poorly written, but it reeks of an author attempting to consciously produce art.
The novel begins a few years after the previous novel (and film) leave off. Clarice Starling - once the precocious FBI wünderkind - has stagnated, unable to benefit from the notoriety she gained by catching famed psychopath Buffalo Bill. And Hannibal Lecter, the ultimate antihero and famed psychiatrist, is still at large.
After a botched drug sting turns into a public relations disaster for both Clarice and the FBI, the wheels are put in motion to dismiss Starling from the force.
The novel follows the political infighting within the FBI for a while. Then it decides to focus on Italian police officer Rinaldo Pazzi and his quest to discover the true identity of a mysterious doctor.
One of "Silence of the Lambs"' most redeeming qualities is the depth and subtlety of the main characters. Unfortunately, Harris spends most of this book talking about tangential characters - random people who really have nothing to do with the advancement of the plot or the development of the major characters. And, chances are, when you focus on uninteresting characters, you get an uninteresting story.
A subplot revolves around one of Hannibal's former victims, Mason Verger, a rich bachelor who was gnawed on by Dr. Lecter. Verger is missing most of his distinguishing facial characteristics. Regrettably, he's also missing most of his distinguishing literary characteristics. He's a one-note character, consumed entirely with revenge. And, for some reason, his preferred method of revenge on Lecter is death by wild boars. Let me repeat that: death by wild boars. Consequently, pig training takes up a large portion of the book. Also factoring into the story is Mason's bodybuilding lesbian sister, whose goal is to have a baby. Infinite monkeys pecking away at infinite typewriters could have done a better job at this.
The main problems with "Hannibal" revolve around the fact that Harris seems to have no idea what he's doing. That's a paradoxical claim considering that he invented the characters, he put them in their respective environments: He, of all people, should know how these characters should behave and react. But he doesn't seem to. Instead, characters do things that aren't consistent with the personas created in the original.
Take, for example, this philosophical musing on life, delivered by the brilliant Hannibal himself in a letter to Clarice: "Look into the skillet, Clarice ... If it is well cured, it's a black pool, isn't it? It's like looking down a well. Your detailed reflection is not in the bottom, but you loom there, don't you? ... We are elaborations of carbon." And it only goes downhill from there. Perhaps we're supposed to be frightened or intrigued by Hannibal Lecter's deconstruction of the metaphysics of a kettle. Either way, this is a good example of Harris' laughable delusions of artistry. Throughout the novel, his style is a conflicting mess of rudimentary ideas and elaborate, pretentious, overwrought constructions.
So, the bad news is, the book isn't really up to par with the original. The good news is that it's having problems being made into a movie. Jonathan Demme, director of the Academy-award-winning "Silence of the Lambs," has already declined to join the project and Jodie Foster has expressed doubt about her potential involvement. Only Hopkins is signed on tentatively for the film version.
For a book that took 10 years to come to fruition, the end product seems rushed. Perhaps this is because Harris wrote the novel so that it could be easily adapted into a movie script. Some of his scenes might actually work on the big screen, but they don't really gel within the context of the novel. If further cinematic glory was his intention, then he failed: Studios have already rejected the first draft by acclaimed screenwriter David Mamet, and the story is currently being gutted.
I guess I can't really blame Harris for sacrificing any artistic integrity he might have had earlier in his career. Selling out seems to have been profitable, since the book has spent months atop The New York Times Bestseller List. Also, as unfortunate as it may seem, the movie will most likely be made eventually.
So, why all the animosity in this review? To put it simply, Harris took it for granted that we, as readers, would accept anything he wrote. His characters were already well-known. His last project spawned an Oscar-winning film. All he had to do was touch his pen to paper, and brilliance was sure to grace the pages. Behind the surface of this novel, there's egotism at work. And there's nothing worse than a cocky idiot.
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