“Clearly, the first two books were better. Nevertheless, what I like about this one is the development of the Lecter mythology.The unravelling of the background and the origins of the pathology.The one element that very few readers have noticed is the connection to Dante.I believe this is a key piece to this puzzle.Several examples: Hannibal has a drawing of the Duomo in Florence (Dante's hometown) in his cell in the previous book.Hannibal gives a lecture on Dante and inspector Pazzi's (his police nemesis) family is connected to the Medicis.It turns out that Hannibal Lector is,in fact, half Italian and it is no accident that he flees to Florence in this book.The Hannibal Lecter saga was originally intended to be a trilogy-just like Dante's Divine Comedy.Hannibal recedes into the psychosis of his mind the same way that Dante descends into the underworld in the Inferno.Hannibal frequently refers to the Deadly Sins which are Catholic terms used in the structure of Dante's circles of hell.Clarice clearly represents Beatrice-Dante's love. Dante only saw Beatrice 3 times during his life. Lecter sees Clarice only3 times in the second book.Most importantly, it is Beatrice's love that ultimately brings Dante back at the end of the Divine Comedy and it is Clarice 's love that brings Lecter back at the end of this book.”
“I liked most of this book. I've never seen the film (though I would really like to) and it strikes me that a couple of the casting choices were superb - notably Gary Oldman as Mason Verger, who I can imagine would be perfect, and Ray Liotta as Krendler, who is just made to play nasty policemen. :] To be honest, the ending struck me as unbelievable. Throughout the other novels, Starling has always been a very level-headed character, and although she had issues, they didn't seem to me to be that bad. Perhaps the events of this book drive her over the edge, I don't know. This book is incredibly atmospheric, however, and I found myself really feeling for a lot of the characters - particularly Dr. Lecter when he's in the aeroplane. I found this book deviated a little from the standard 'crime novel' feeling of the first two (Red Dragon & Silence of the Lambs), which I thought was really good - let's face it, crime novels tend to appeal to those who like short words and easy to understand plots, and this was slightly more intellectual. I did feel though that Harris wrote some things simply for shock value - the final scene with Krendler, for example.”
“This book has a little theme in it of a memory palace that is interesting. Thomas Harris states at the end of the book, "In trying to understand the structure of Dr. Lecter's memory palace, I was added by Frances A. Yates remarkable book "The Art of Memory", as well as Johnathan D. Spence's "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci".”
“According to me the best one of the series, I enjoyed the view into Hannibal Lecters mind. The end is dope! I don't see it's that predictable, I like he cracked her shell...”
“The worst one in the series! I know he wanted to get out of his contract, but why write such a bad book? ”
“Well. They certainly gave the movie a Hollywood ending. ”
“Wow... I SO did not see that ending coming. Awesome.”
“The book has a great ending for such an abnormal mind.”
