Hannibal (1999 novel)
I’m so squemish around horror that it took me until 2022 to watch the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991). But after it, I wanted more, so I read this book Hannibal that is the sequel.
I became slightly intrigued of this author a long time ago I read Stephen King’s “On Writing” tell about him. Paraphrased by someone else:
Fellow novelist Stephen King remarked that if writing is sometimes tedious for other authors, to Harris it is like “writhing on the floor in agonies of frustration”, because for Harris, “the very act of writing is a kind of torment”.
Watched the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991). It was good. I probably put it off for so long because I thought it would be more on the side of horror, but I realized and saw it was indeed more of a thriller.
The films adapting the prequel book sounded worth watching too, but I instead started reading the sequel, Hannibal by Thomas Harris. I figured the thriller-horror might work better for me in a less visual medium… (reading description of Mason Verger, a victim of Dr. Lecter, reaffirms my suspicion). Also I don’t read nearly enough books, so.
Not sure if this is the best kind of bed reading.
Reading more Hannibal. Very gripping. Usually I’m annoyed when books introduce new viewpoint characters, but this author makes it very smooth — the last few chapters bringing us Pazzi, a police investigator with the weight of history on his shoulders.
I also noticed that this “thriller” is not at all like Dan Brown’s thrillers, and how Brown adviced writing them in a Masterclass I watched some time ago. There is much less time pressure, but it’s like the characters are moving into inevitable conflict by the sheer force of their personalities. The reader knows something will eventually happen, and hurries by himself to get there. The neat pacing does not make him wait unduly. Maybe the ominous waiting is the “horror” part of the genre.
Reading more Hannibal. Probably better go to sleep before the next chapter as pigs seem to be featured…
Reading more Hannibal.
Dr. Lecter obviously had good papers and money. He was brilliant at concealing himself. Take the elegant simplicity of his first hideout after his escape from Memphis—he checked into a four-star hotel next door to a great plastic surgery facility in St. Louis. Half the guests had their faces bandaged. He bandaged his own face and lived high on a dead man’s money.
“We’re here in the great out-of-doors,” Starling said. “No listening devices around, unless you’re wearing one.” An urge hit her that she could not resist. To work with the dusty books she was wearing a loose denim shirt over a snug tank top.
Shouldn’t do this. Fuck it.
She popped the snaps on her shirt and pulled it open. “See, I’m not wearing a wire.” She wasn’t wearing a bra either.
In this book I see see the author often drop verbs from the sentences, particularly when describing things. And he alternates between the past and present tense, often at the chapter level. I’m not even sure I’ve read anyone else write in the present tense so this is potentially useful reference for my own work.
I think what the author is after with the writing is action-film quality. At least I always manage to see his scenes as if they were from movies — the camera moving and shaking, time advancing at a fast but constant rate.
Reading more Hannibal. Getting into a good rhythm now. Usually I find books really uneven in pacing so that I eventually hit a boring part and experience one or two reading sessions that arent’s so interesting and end up dropping the book without thinking. This one is very steady, with nicely short chapters. As with all books with changing viewpoints, I often anticipate reading some particular ones, but this one doesn’t have any bad ones — even the introductions are good.
Researching for this and Harris’ other books must have been hell. Nevermind the cruel parts, just describing Dr. Lecter’s tastes to that extreme degree is amazing (apparently cooking is a hobby of Harris though, hopefully without any human ingredients).
Every individual deer is different. You wouldn’t think that, would you? We have to send blood off to Portland, Oregon, to the Oregon Game and Fish, they can tell you if you wait long enough. They come back with ‘This is Deer No. One,’ they’ll say, or just call it ‘Deer A,’ with a long case number since, you know, a deer don’t have any name. That we know of.”
Starling liked Moody’s old weather-beaten face. “We’ll call this one ‘John Doe,’
Finished reading Hannibal. Great stuff. I liked the ending, but I think Starling could have used a little more motivation to set on that path. The book was rather split on the different characters, and I think it was indeed Dr. Lecter who was the main character of the book rather than Starling.
The description of Dr. Lecter’s memory palaces is noteworthy. It’s actually a real technique I learned many years ago from a Derren Brown book. It absolutely works but the I find the specific kind of “super memory” it gives you isn’t quite as applicable in real life. I have most wanted to use it to develop a fictional world that I can intimately sense, but the technique imposes a kind of immutability that is a bit difficult to work with when the design is still fluid.
A memory palace is also nice to create and explore without intent to remember anything in particular. Basically you just repeatedly and vividly imagine an imaginary place of your own making, based on some real place if you want but not necessarily. After some repetition the images will form naturally and it really feels like you are “exploring” a place and “building” new rooms in the palace. It’s very much like “concious dreaming”, but you do need to actively use your imagination to build it unlike in dreams where things happen automatically and the environment may be left rather vague (at least in my dreams).
I knew there was a TV series about Hannibal, but only now saw image of Mads Mikkelsen who is playing the role of Dr. Lecter and it’s quite intriguing. I’ve seen him in a film or two, but just the fact that he is Danish makes me think his acting will be really interesting. Maybe I will check out the series after all.