I wanted to give Thomas Harris the benefit of the doubt. I hear there were claims that he fundamentally doesn’t understand the Hannibal Lecter character and at the time I was vehemently against that train of thought. ‘How could the guy who created Hannibal not understand his own character?’ Well, after reading Hannibal Rising, you’ll know why…
I understand the circumstances to write the book was bleak. It even started off good for the first 20-30 pages. But it’s all downhill once there’s a time skip to Hannibal being a teenager. He’s basically been turned into a ‘good guy’ ala Dexter or something. What was once a sadistic evil genius has been turned into some kind of anti hero. I feel Thomas Harris let the stigma of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector in pop culture influence Hannibal’s character in this book because in the book Hannibal kills really deplorable people that you’d want dead anyway.
This book was written without passion and it doesn’t even try to hide it. There are several moments where we, as an audience, are supposed to be at the edge of our fucking seat even though we KNOW Hannibal is going to survive the encounters because, well, you know… three books exist in the timeline AFTER this.
Tension COULD have been built if it were written with a single ounce of passion. There is NO passion in this writing. I could practically feel Thomas Harris falling asleep at his computer writing the conclusion to this book because it just sucks so hard. I’m really not trying to be mean, I love Thomas Harris. I think he is a good author, but man… never read Hannibal Rising. It’s not even worth it.
by Nolls-97