Like the other books in the series, Hannibal is a pretty breezy read. Chapters are short, there's plenty of action and suspense to keep the pages turning. Dialogue is mostly interesting, and the characters have enough charm to maintain interest. The prose is easily digestible, and the story's not too hard to follow at all.
That being said, it is a rather odd story. It's not even much of a mystery novel; it's more of a revenge thriller with multiple plots and conspiracies laid over each other, all of which are tied together and contribute to a pretty weird climax. It starts off compellingly, as the book chronicles how Clarice Starling falls out of favor of the FBI (I felt she got a bad rap). Then it goes way off course to Italy, following a totally random investigator, whose actions contribute somewhat to the later investigation (although I felt these scenes were thrown in just because Italy is cool and exotic). Then the plot kinda wanders around a lot, and then the inevitable conclusion occurs. Even though I understand why the ending is the way it is (and it actually does underscore the motivations of Hannibal's character throughout Silence of the Lambs a lot better), I think it diminishes Clarice as a character, and it could have all been a little more coherent. It is a bit of a rushed ending. I always felt that the ending dinner scene was perverse, for better or for worse. On top of that, some of the individual scenes and subplots (especially the one regarding Margot Verger) could have been omitted completely.
All that being said, the book does have its merits. Characters are pretty strong; it is still intriguing to read about Hannibal and Clarice, and Mason Verger is a well-developed adversary. The book is especially bold in flipping everything around so that Hannibal is the intended protagonist, characters in power are antagonists, and they create a dynamic push and pull that makes the plot twisty. Parts of the book are pretty well-researched (especially the scenes in Italy).
As far as the prose goes, it's most of the way decent, although there were parts where I felt wording was awkward. There were a few parts where the tenses were all mixed up: it tended to flip-flop between past and present tense for some odd reason. I think this correlated to an odd habit I noticed where the book tried to become first-person by using "we" a lot, as it randomly stated "we notice this" or "we behold that," and the final words of the book are "we can only learn so much and live." What is this "we" garbage? I suspect that there's a bit of pretentiousness there, that the book wanted to deliver a greater truth behind the story, but never really articulated it. No matter what level of elegance it aimed for, the book remained pretty straightforward and low-key, especially in the occasional indulgence in gnarly details and harsh language. As such, I think the book would have benefited from more editing and refinement. Other than those issues, the book is perfectly readable.
Hannibal has its moments, but I feel it's a weird turn of events, which is marred a bit by a slightly weird prose. This may even be one rare case where I found the movie more appealing than the book. It's still a fun enough read though, and should be worthwhile for fans of the series.
3/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Marginal | Book: Average)
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