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"Hannibal Rising": A Mouth Watering
Taste of Early Lecter
 By Mark R. Leffler The expatriate novelist Gore Vidal has observed that there are no longer any famous novelists. He meant that in today's internet age no author can achieve the level or fame that F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway had fifty years ago.
But there are still some names on the
best seller list that are almost as well known as mid-level
celebrities like Danny Bonaduce and Nicole Richie. Hell,
even Anne Rice and Stephen King are famous enough to get
recognized in the street and appear on Regis and Kelly.
Thomas Harris has pulled off
the rare trick of writing multi-million selling novels like Silence
of the Lambs (1988) and creating the most memorable anti-hero of
the last quarter century, Dr. Hannibal Lecter without doing the
talk show circuit or any print interviews.
As reclusive as J. D. Salinger
or Thomas Pynchon, Harris emerges every five or ten years with
a new novel, and fans have been anxiously awaiting Hannibal Rising
(323 pages, Delacourte Press). After allowing Lecter to fade
slowly into the sunset with Clarice Starling in his last novel,
it appeared that Harris had closed the door on the cannibalistic
therapists' saga. What new story was there to tell?
The seeds of Hannibal Rising
first appear in the few hints of Lecter's early life that Harris
sprinkled in his previous books. Hannibal (1999) hinted at a
privileged childhood in pre-WWII Europe until starving Russian
soldiers murder his parents and kill and eat his little sister
Mischa. Suddenly the good Doctor's culinary predilections seem a
little easier to understand. Hell, if that happened to you it might
make you a little eccentric, too, wouldn't you think?
With Hannibal Rising, Harris
has pulled a George Lucas, deciding to go back to tell the
story of "Hannibal the Cannibal" from the beginning. The story
was originally conceived as a screenplay for a film, which will be
released in March. Italian film producer Dino deLaurentis owns
the film rights to Harris' books and characters and apparently made
Harris an offer he couldn't refuse (although it's hard to believe that
the immensely wealthy and notoriously reclusive Harris needed the
lira).
After committing to pen a screenplay about Hannibal's youth, a portrait of the serial killer as a young man originally titled Behind the Mask, Harris decided to also use the story for a novel. He signed a two book deal with his publisher, although it is anyone's guess whether the next and possibly final Harris book will be another Lecter story.
Hannibal Rising begins with the
gruesome tale of his brutalization at the hands of the Russians, being
rescued and placed in the care of his artist uncle and his Japanese
wife, the elegant and refined Lady Murasaki. Of course things
go badly and the final two thirds of the book is occupied with the
swath of bloody revenge Hannibal exacts from those who have wronged
him. Thus Harris has turned Hannibal from a monster in a cage into a
wounded aesthete trapped in a world he never made.
While this reader enjoyed the book
immensely, a glance at other reviews in print and online prove that
this is a minority opinion. Many reviewers have been disappointed that
the new story doesn't match with the sinister evil implied in the
earlier books in the Lecter saga, Red Dragon (1981), Silence
of the Lambs (1988) and Hannibal (1999). Some critics have accused
him of just dashing off a novelization of his screenplay, implying
that the novel is just a bunch of action scenes without the intricate
plotting and extensive research of the earlier books.
Part of the problem is with the
Hannibal we are presented, as a young man struggling to find a
purpose and reason for living after experiencing unspeakable evil. The
impeccable manners, appreciation for beauty and hatred of the vulgar
are present, but the dark wit and immense intellect are just emerging,
like a butterfly from a cocoon.
In Hannibal, Harris introduced the
concept of the "memory palace" of Dr. Lecter, where he stores and
visits mental images from his past. They are like museum exhibits,
carefully displayed and tastefully lit, accompanied by classical music
if he wishes. It is a concept Harris discovered in his research and
the author employs it effectively to show how monsters are rarely
born. Early in Silence of the Lambs, Lecter tells Starling "Nothing
happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a
set of influences." But in these two most recent books, Harris has
done exactly that.
What is staggering about Harris
achievement with the four books in the Lecter saga, is that he has
taken a secondary character he created in Red Dragon, and has
brought him increasingly into the spotlight until he made readers root
for his triumph and escape in Hannibal. Reportedly Sir Anthony
Hopkins has lamented what he sees as Harris' decision to make a
hero out of such a fascinating villain. Still, part of the brilliance
of Harris' development of the story is how consistent he has stayed to
the details of Lecter's life.
Just one example of this consistency
was discovered upon rereading Silence of the Lambs. In
Hannibal Rising Lady Murasaki teaches the young Hannibal the
Japanese art of origami as a sort of therapy. In the earlier book,
written almost twenty years earlier, Harris has Lecter amuse himself
while being grilled by the FBI by silently folding an origami chicken.
A little touch, but such attention to detail is impressive.
Just as it nature takes thousands of
years to turn coal into diamonds, Tennessee native Harris takes his
time plotting and writing novels. He has produced just six novels in
thirty years. As an AP crime reporter based in New York City,
Harris and some friends came up with the plot of a novel about
Palestinian terrorists attacking the Super Bowl. Harris quit
his day job to write Black Sunday (1975) which was made into a
movie starring Bruce Dern and Robert Shaw.
Six years later he published Red
Dragon. which introduced the world to Dr. Lecter, who is consulted
by retired FBI profiler Will Graham who is on the trail
of The Tooth Fairy, a serial killer who is murdering families
without apparent motive. Another seven years passed until Silence of
the Lambs, where trainee Clarice Starling seeks Lecter's help in
tracking down another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. At the
book's end Lecter has escaped and is about to go underground.
For a while it appeared we had heard
the last of the charismatic cannibal, then in 1999 Harris brought his
most famous creation back for a curtain call with Hannibal. Dr. Lecter
is living as a man of style and taste in Italy as an art consultant,
until he is flushed from hiding by a former patient he had drugged and
induced to mutilate himself. Starling fights to bring Lecter back into
custody and they end up as the most unlikely set of lovers since
Whoppi Goldberg and Ted Danson. The ending upset so many
readers that reportedly Jody Foster refused to appear in the
sequel and the producers of the movie changed the ending completely.
With Hannibal Rising, Harris
has taken the story of Hannibal Lecter almost completely full circle.
While not as intricately structured as the police procedural
narratives that preceded it, it portrays a brilliant but damaged child
almost redeemed by the love of family but unable to bury the memories
that haunt his dreams. When Lady Murasaki visits him near the novels
end, he tells her he loves her, only to have her reply "What is left
in you to love." They both know the answer: nothing.
Fans of the earlier books will find
many of the elements of the earlier novels, interests that Lecter and
Harris likely share: European travel, a love of fine food and art, an
appreciation of manners and hatred of crudeness and vulgarity.
In the end, Harris writes, "Hannibal
had entered his heart's long winter. He slept soundly, and was not
visited in dreams as humans are." It is a benediction or sorts. One
senses the respect Harris has for Hannibal. This may be our last visit
with him. If so, it is satisfying on many levels.
Note: Fans of the good Doctor and Mr.
Harris might enjoy visiting the Hannibal Lecter Studiolo online
at
www.hannibalstudiolo.com
where they will find message boards for all the books and movies, role
playing games and news about all things Lecter.
If you visit, you might want to bring
a dish of fava beans and a nice Chianti.
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