The Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Rating – 7 / 10
Hannibal the Cannibal, the protagonist, is considered to be the one of the most feared villains of all times. His acts of cannibalism on his victims gives you a very nasty feeling (something like “Eww..!!”) and must not be read by anyone with a soft heart.
Having seen the movie before reading the novel, I knew all the twist and turns in the story beforehand and that was killing my interest in the book The movie, Hannibal, is very well made/directed and it covers all the important facts in the book. The facts that were not covered were generally the tastes of Hannibal Lector, which are very peculiar of him, but didn’t seem very interesting to me while reading the book. In fact I found it so boring that around the end of the novel, I started skipping such parts in which Harris described in detail Hannibal’s likes/dislikes.
Lector had absolutely absurd yet classy tastes in almost everything he bought, which eventually helped the police to locate him. His fearlessness, and the fact that he is a psychologist as well as a dangerous killer, is beautifully expressed and is scary too but again the effect from the movie was much better than the book.
The only thing that was different from the movie was the ending. In the movie, Hannibal Lector runs away from Officer Clarice Starling after injuring his own hand. But in the book, it is clearly depicted that they get married finally. Hannibal wanted Clarice to take the place of his dead sister, whom he misses very dearly, but instead Clarice offers herself to him and they finally become lovers. Hannibal stops any further acts of cannibalism as soon as Clarice enters his life and the police is unable to catch him ever.
On the whole, it was a lovely book, but watching the movie before the book spoiled my experience of reading the book.
Hannibal the Cannibal, the protagonist, is considered to be the one of the most feared villains of all times. His acts of cannibalism on his victims gives you a very nasty feeling (something like “Eww..!!”) and must not be read by anyone with a soft heart.
Having seen the movie before reading the novel, I knew all the twist and turns in the story beforehand and that was killing my interest in the book The movie, Hannibal, is very well made/directed and it covers all the important facts in the book. The facts that were not covered were generally the tastes of Hannibal Lector, which are very peculiar of him, but didn’t seem very interesting to me while reading the book. In fact I found it so boring that around the end of the novel, I started skipping such parts in which Harris described in detail Hannibal’s likes/dislikes.
Lector had absolutely absurd yet classy tastes in almost everything he bought, which eventually helped the police to locate him. His fearlessness, and the fact that he is a psychologist as well as a dangerous killer, is beautifully expressed and is scary too but again the effect from the movie was much better than the book.
The only thing that was different from the movie was the ending. In the movie, Hannibal Lector runs away from Officer Clarice Starling after injuring his own hand. But in the book, it is clearly depicted that they get married finally. Hannibal wanted Clarice to take the place of his dead sister, whom he misses very dearly, but instead Clarice offers herself to him and they finally become lovers. Hannibal stops any further acts of cannibalism as soon as Clarice enters his life and the police is unable to catch him ever.
On the whole, it was a lovely book, but watching the movie before the book spoiled my experience of reading the book.
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