Hannibal (novel)

Hannibal
First edition cover.
Author(s)	Thomas Harris
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	Hannibal Lecter
Genre(s)	thriller, horror
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Publication date	8 June 1999
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	484 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-385-33487-7 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC Number	41315462
Preceded by	The Silence of the Lambs
Followed by	Hannibal Rising

Hannibal is a novel written by Thomas Harris, published in 1999. It is the third in his series featuring Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the second to feature FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling. The novel takes place seven years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs and deals with the intended revenge of one of Lecter's victims. It was adapted as a film of the same name in 2001, directed by Ridley Scott.

Synopsis

Seven years after rescuing Jame Gumb's last victim, Clarice Starling witnesses her career crumble around her when a drug raid goes wrong and she kills an armed meth dealer named Evelda Drumgo, who was carrying her child at the time, in self-defense. Hannibal Lecter, who has been living in Florence, Italy, under an assumed name since escaping custody, sends her a letter of condolence and requests more information about her personal life. Desperate to catch Lecter, the FBI finds a use for Starling once again. She meets with Barney Matthews, former orderly of Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He tells her what Lecter said about her and that he said he would never go after him if he escaped.

Meanwhile, Mason Verger, a wealthy, sadistic pedophile who was left horribly disfigured after a "therapy session" with Lecter, plans to exact gruesome vengeance against Lecter, using Starling as bait: He wants to feed Lecter to pigs and videotape it. He is aided by corrupt Justice Department agent Paul Krendler, Starling's personal nemesis.

A disgraced Florentine detective, Rinaldo Pazzi, also pursues Lecter in the interests of collecting Verger's bounty on him. However, Lecter kills one of Pazzi's men and hangs Pazzi where his ancestor, Francesco de Pazzi, was hanged in 1478. Lecter waves at a camera, the footage of which is later seen by Verger. Lecter kills one of Verger's men and escapes to the United States, where he begins pursuing Starling.

The novel briefly touches upon Lecter's childhood, specifically the death of his beloved younger sister, Mischa. The two were orphaned during World War II, and some German deserters found them on their family estate and took them prisoner. Lecter watched, helpless, as the deserters killed and ate Mischa. (This would be greatly expanded upon in the following novel, Hannibal Rising.)

Barney briefly works for Mason Verger, and gets acquainted with Verger's sister and bodyguard Margot, a lesbian bodybuilder whom Verger molested and raped as a child. Their friendship is briefly strained when he makes a pass at her, but they eventually reconcile, and Margot tells him that she stays in her hated brother's employ because she needs Mason's sperm to have a child with her partner, Judy.

Lecter is captured by Verger's men, and Starling pursues them, determined to bring Lecter in herself. Verger's men get the better of her, however, shooting her full of tranquilizers and taking her prisoner as well. Verger sets the wild boars loose on Lecter, but they lose interest in their intended prey when they smell no fear on him, instead going after Verger's men. In the confusion, Lecter carries the unconscious Starling to safety, and escapes with her. At the same time, Margot forcibly obtains Mason's sperm by sodomizing him with a cattle prod, and then kills him by shoving his pet Moray eel down his throat. Lecter, who had briefly treated Margot after her brother abused her, leaves a note claiming responsibility for the murder.

Using a regimen of psychotropic drugs and behavioral therapy, Lecter attempts to brainwash Starling, hoping to make her believe she is Mischa, returned to life. She ultimately proves too strong, however, and tells him that Mischa will have to live on within him. Lecter kidnaps Krendler and lobotomizes him, and he and Starling feast on his still-living brain before killing him. The two then become lovers, and disappear together.

Three years later, on July 9, 2000, Barney and his girlfriend go to Buenos Aires to see a Vermeer painting. At the opera, Barney spots Lecter and Starling; terrified, he flees with his girlfriend, reasoning that "we can only see so much and live."

Reception

Although the ending was controversial, reaction to the novel was generally very positive. Robert McCrum, writing in The Guardian, called it "the exquisite satisfaction of a truly great melodrama". Martin Amis writing in Talk (in an essay later reprinted in The War Against Cliche) said that Hannibal was a work of "profound and virtuoso vulgarity", stating Harris "has become a serial murderer of English sentences and Hannibal is a necropolis of prose".

Author Stephen King, an admitted fan of the series, has said that he considers Hannibal to be one of the two most frightening popular novels of our time, the other being The Exorcist.^[1]

Charles de Lint criticized Hannibal as a huge disappointment, citing "its disturbing subtexts, which . . . set [Lecter] up as a sympathetic character," and Harris' "twisting her [Starling] so out of character simply to provide a 'shock' ending."^[2]

The first printing of Hannibal was 1.3 million copies.^[3]

Characters in Hannibal

• Hannibal Lecter
• Clarice Starling
• Mason Verger
• Margot Verger
• Rinaldo Pazzi
• Paul Krendler
• Barney Matthews
• Cordell
• Oreste Pini
• Dr. Doemling
• Carlo Deogracias
• Romula Cjesku
• Gnocco
• Jack Crawford
• Ardelia Mapp
• Evelda Drumgo

References

Notes

1. ^ King 1999
2. ^ Books to Look For, F&SF, January 2000
3. ^ James

Bibliography

• James, Tiffany. "Hannibal / 20th-Century American Bestseller". http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/bestsellers/search.cgi?title=Hannibal. Retrieved 26 December 2010. 
• King, Stephan (13 June 1999). "Hannibal the cannibal". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/13/reviews/990613.13kingct.html. Retrieved 26 December 2010.