Harris disappoints in
follow-up to ‘Lambs’
By Samuel McKewon
Editor
So I’m sitting here in disbelief at
the final chapter of “Hannibal,”
Thomas Harris’ much-awaited sequel
to “Silence of the Lambs,” and won
dering just how Harris thought he’d
get away with such an odd, meander
ing novel that lacks a singular focus
from the get-go.
It isn’t so much that there isn’t
interest in the recluse author’s fourth
novel, it’s that through 486 pages,
there is not one single moment of
urgency in this tale of Dr. Hannibal
Lecter and FBI Special Agent Clarice
Starling. It starts without one. It con
tinues without one. And just about the
moment “Hannibal” looks likes it will
smell of tension, and not just mere
top-this gory shock, Harris botches
the scene and cascades toward an
unreal and entirely ridiculous finish.
Not that parts of the novel aren’t
fine pieces of work, capable of putting
a chill in the spine. Harris’ novel opens
The Facts
Title: -Hannibal"
Author: Thomas Harris
Delacorte Press 486 pages
Grade: C+
Rve Words: “HannibaT lacks power, urgency.
simply enough, seven years later than
the first, with Starling enveloped in a
tragic drug raid that will carry itself
through the book. It plays strong and
believable.
And not much later does
“Hannibal” introduces us to the real
villain of the book, one of the Lecter’s
few surviving victims, Mason Verger.
Verger, the inheritor of a meat-packing
conglomerate and a monster in his
own right, wants vengeance on Lecter
for a bed-ridden, crippled body and
deformed face, the description of
which Harris plunges into with vivid
detail, beginning a path of graphically
told carnage to follow.
Verger has been planning for
Lecter’s ultimate torture and death,
and has set up camp all around the
world to find him. The cannibalistic
doctor eventually emerges in
Florence, Italy. Lecter, still one of the
best developed and most horrific per
sonas ever created, still relishes his
tastes, his smells, and he still will not
be denied.
Lecter’s persona holds a larger
place in this book, as does his past, and
Harris gives us the treat of touring
inside his vast mind of memories and
passions. We come to see his thoughts
for Starling, too.
These passages, as well as the
description of a smart but doomed
Italian investigator who searches for
Lecter, are what Harris does best. The
doctor’s fetishes and behaviors are
fleshed out into their full glory here,
the best scene coming upon a plane
ride as he waits for passengers to fall
asleep so he can savor his pate. Harris
gives depth, although Starling’s real
identities are held off until late in this
Please see HANNIBAL on 10
P August 1999
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