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Be Forewarned that this will probably be a long and rambling post. If you have not read the book and do not want to spoil it you may wish to skip this post.
However I will say this much before hand in case you do want to read the book. Unless you are a person that gets books, good or bad, for a collection...you may want to wait until the Paperback comes out or borrow it from a friend. There is also the trusty local library.
I like to read books. Always have. I can not say that I like reading all of the classics and such, a few here and there but for the most part I read from current authors.
There has been a stretch where none of the newer books have seemed to interest me. Probably more from the standpoint that there are a number of authors I read and I normally do not deviate from them very often.
Those would include, but not limited to, S. King, Dean Koontz, J. Saul, Grisham, Robert McCamon, JK Rowling (yes I like the harry potter books) and others of that general ilk. I am also the type that will read books over and over if I like them or if I get bored enough and do not have a new book that interests me.
But as of late there have not been too many new books out of interest. I recently got Brother Odd by Dean Koontz and thought it was ok. I also did not have a book handy that I felt like reading again. I had already read Shogun a month or so ago. I read Shogun at least once a year as I love the book and think it is just that good.
So when I seen that Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris was coming out I was happy. I liked Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs and although parts of his last one, Hannibal, irked me I also enjoyed that one as well.
However I was told by someone in this forum, sorry I can not remember the name of the person or I would give them credit, that a Movie was already being made about the book. This bothered me in some ways because it would seem that maybe it was just a ploy by the author to cash in on a slow movie market.
So I sort of waited some time before getting the book. Finally I gave in and bought the book just to have something to read.
Ok on to the book.
I would first like to say that it may have been a let down in the making and maybe not fair to read the book with the idea that for those that have read the others it would be hard to reach the peak of those works. This book is a Prequel so with that understanding you go into the book knowing about the characters future and also know that the other books were so good it is hard to live up to their standards as I mentioned. You also know that no matter how harrowing a predicament the main character gets into, that he is not going to die in the book...which in some ways takes away from the suspense.
As I mentioned before, someone noted that they had already made or were making the movie.
I think this, in many ways, plays into the book being a let down as well.
You see this book seems to read more like a screen play than an actual novel.
It also is only just over 300 pages yet it has many chapter breaks and large print. In other words this book was really not too long, it just appears they tried to stretch it out with too many chapter breaks (meaning half pages sometimes), larger font and double or triple spacing or more in areas.
The book basically attempts to give you the story behind Hannibal Lecter.
Where he was born, how he grew up and the reasons behind him becoming on of the most ruthless characters in modern literature. How he became a genius, an elegant or high brow of sorts and also a cannibal/killer.
It starts out during WWII when Hannibal was a young boy.
His family were rich people who owned a castle that had been in their family for years and was full of history. His father was the current Count in his families long history. The family also included staff at the castle. The cook would play a SMALL part in how hannibal became to acquire some tastes and his culinary skill.
The Castle had many art works and his family seemed to be not only monetarily rich but also rich in the sense of family bonding.
Hannibal loved his parents but even more loved his little Sister.
A time came when the Germans were moving into the area and the family decided that they should not stay in the large Castle, as it was sure to attract not only the German army but also looters due to the chaos of war.
So the family, and staff, hid some things away in the castle and took other things with them to a Hunting cabin, which has also been in the family for years, hidden deep within the woods.
This first part of the book is both interesting but at the same time frustrating. There are times when authors take way too much time describing a person, whether that be physical or background history, and other times they do not take enough time.
In this case he does not take enough time describing some of the characters that would play a major role in the story. Which is quite odd because in his last book Hannibal the author went WAY overboard in at least one case. Taking a whole chapter to describe the detailed history of a character that wound up being something that really irked me and destroyed a flow he had going.
In this case, as I said, there were some characters that should have had some more time in describing them. As it was it was at times confusing remembering which guy was which.
It turns out some of the people helping with the move were HIWI...they were natives of the area that were helping the **** army in the role of a sort of scout role. They were giving intel and setting some things in motion to help the *****.
But the Lecters made it to the Hunting Cabin and were hidden away for some time, a few years. During this time the Castle was bombed and looted.
Some of the people that were on the staff knew the family had went to the Hunting cabin so they later went there for more looting.
While there a plane flew over and started shooting, in the chaos of this even most of the people Hannibal knew were killed. His Mother, Father, teacher and other members of the staff.
He felt for his mother and father as he loved both, especially his mother. But he also missed his Teacher the parents had hired for him. His teacher was a man he admired and taught him a great deal.
We learn that Hannibal is a very smart young boy and takes to lessons very quickly, much more so than the average boy. We also learn that the teacher shows Hannibal a method to help keep his thoughts and memories.
He teaches Hannibal to use his brain as a virtual castle. To store certain memories in some rooms and other memories in others. To categorize and store them like a warehouse. In one part of the book it also shows how visual or important this was to Hannibal. It was just a small blurb but helped in describing. He recounts how he put something that he had seen in a certain area of his virtual castle in his brain. Whatever he had seen was a specific color and when he put it in a room that had a tapestry or some other color that was similar it made it hard for him to go back in and recall the specific item. The problem was that the color of the item and the color of the area of the room he stored it in made them blend together and in turn made it hard for him to see the details. I just thought that was interesting in helping describe it and how he associated things.
All that was left was him and his sister who were captured by these looters.
Later we see Hannibal coming out of the woods alone, without his sister,with a chain around his neck and a Russian Army person finding him. They took him and in an odd twist of fate Hannibal wound up in an orphanage that was set up in his very own Castle.
During his stay at the orphanage we find that Hannibal no longer talks. The only times he talks is when he has fitful dreams.
One other thing of note during this time. Hannibal at this age does not like bigger kids picking on smaller kids or himself.
He does not seem to mind smaller kids teasing him, but he does not like bigger bully type kids picking on him or smaller kids.
By this we see that he still has the older brother mentality and misses his sister.
We are not told what happened to his sister, nor does Hannibal remember what happens to his sister.
His dreams consists of his last memories at the hunting cabin and always end just before he finds out what happens to his sister. It seems his mind protects him from something horrid that happened dealing with his sister.
Later we found out that Hannibals Uncle is still alive, was living in a different area. His Uncle comes to collect Hannibal and he is now to live with his uncle, his Aunt and their servant. His Uncle is now the Count and his aunt is a Japanese lady who was the daughter of an ambassador or something along those lines.
He winds up becoming very close to the Aunt and she is the first person he finally speaks to since coming out of the woods. They develop a special bond that continues through the book.
We also see Hannibals first real mean streak when a local Butcher, who also happens to be an ex **** (at this time the war is over) speaks foully to his Aunt. Hannibal asks the man to apologize but when the man will not he attacks the man. Luckily for the man Hannibal is still a smaller boy and the man lives.
Later when his Uncle finds out the uncle goes to confront the man and is killed in the fight.
Hannibal, even at this young age, goes out and finds the man...and has his way with the man. I will not say the details but let us say this seems to be Hannibals first taste of killing.
When this happens a detective suspects it was Hannibal who killed the man but due to some circumstances, including the aunt, he had no proof.
From this point on the Detective in the book is always suspicious of Hannibal...but at the same time he likes the Aunt and in some ways I think he likes hannibal while hating hannibal at the same time.
As the book goes on and hannibal gets older he goes to a local school. In this school we learn again at the intellect of Hannibal. He would purchase a school book, read it once and return it for some money. Once he read it and stored in his manner he had no further uses for it. He would also sit in classes and draw. Once the teachers realized that he already knew the material or had the ability to draw while retaining all the information being said in class they justlet him draw.
His drawings were so good that later it led him to get a scholarship to a medical school in paris. He was believed to be the youngest person to ever get a scholarship to the medical school in France.
He would do anatomy drawings for a professor there and also made money on the side doing drawings. He would also go to the prisons and get criminals that were to be killed for crimes, using the guillotine, to donate their bodies to science. He was the professors aid even being so young. He would prepare the professors cadavers for his classes and do anatomy drawings from the bodies.
Through out the book we get glimpses of Hannibal dreaming but not being able to fully see what happens to his sister.
But in the end we see the final picture. (more on why this was poorly done later)
Hannibal decides to go after the men that killed his sister and held them as captives in the hunting cabin.
How he goes about it is what happens with the rest of the story and I have probably already said enough about that section so I will leave that to those that decide to read the book.
====
Now some things that bothered me about the book.
As I said I think the author did one of a few things here. He either had someone else write the book, did it just for a movie/screenplay but wanted to release the book anyways, wrote the book too fast leaving out some things he should have mentioned...and had some really bad editors.
Here are some examples or reasons I say this.
The story was very disjointed IMO. Just did not flow right like the others did.
There were things that just were left out that did not make sense and should have at least been mentioned....Hannibal, in two of his previous books, was said to have Six fingers on one hand. It was brought up in either Red Dragon or Silence of the lambs but it was also brought up in the last Book Hannibal.
In Hannibal that is how they were trying to track him so he went and cut his finger off.
In this book, a book about him growing up, giving the background of how he became Hannibal the Cannibal....they make no mention of the Sixth finger. It just seems odd or careless that this was not brought up in this book.
Editing - Here is an example of editing, or lack of, that bothered me.
When the Lecters are getting ready to leave the castle to go to the hunting cabin the cook comes out and gives them a lunch. A little bit later the cook comes back out and gives them lunch again. I could be wrong about this, I am pretty sure I did not just go back by accident and read it again. But I am positive that the cook gave the family lunch twice. Just something that should have been caught by an editor.
Something else that bothers me about the book. If you write a book and most of your potential customers/readers buying the book with be in the USA.
You need to make sure and do a good job with translations and such.
This book takes place in russia and france but also has characters that are Russian, French, German and Japanese. Sometimes the author uses words or phrases in foreign languages yet does not translate, except in a few instances, what these words mean. Very frustrating IMO.
There are a few other occasions where something happens but you really don't get a great explanation of how or why. Not a great thing but it could just be done better.
The book also flashes to different characters at times. This is not an uncommon thing in books. However as I mentioned before with the first part of the book, you do not get a good description of some of the characters so now when it flashes to them years later you are a tad lost trying to remember which guy is which.
So here is where I am conflicted.
If I never had read any of the Hannibal books before, If I had never seen the movies. I might not be as harsh on this book. It might be a springboard to read more and find out about the character. However it is also done in a manner that is frustrating in many ways that maybe it could potentially turn off someone from reading more about hannibal...which is a shame.
This book almost has the feel of a different author. Some things left out, does not flow as well, does not seem to expand on some things like his work in the past has.
This might be because he was pressed for time, because he wrote it with a movie in mind so it turned out more like a screen play.
A few other things. At one point in the previous books it makes mention that hannibal as a child was cruel to animals. This book seemed to indicate the exact opposite. In fact it showed at least two areas where he was very nice to animals and liked them. The reason I also bring this up is that from what I have read and seen about serial killers there are some signs of history in most known serial killers. I think I heard it called a triangle or sorts.
From what I recall all known serial killers, or at least the vast majority, have shown at least 2 of these signs in their past.
Off the top of my head they included...Wetting the Bed at a later age, cruelty to and killing animals and studying them at a young age, Family violence which normally includes sexual abuse and of course terrible trauma of other sorts.
Hannibal was not cruel to animals, it made no mention of him wetting the bed, made no mention of being in an abusive nor sexually abusive family...he only had the terrible trauma of losing his mother father and sister.
Like I said I have heard that the vast majority, if not all, of serial killers have shown at least 2 signs in their history...Hannibal only seems to have shown one.
The dream sequences. During the book Hannibal keeps dreaming trying to figure out what happened to his sister but it keeps getting cut off until he finally sees it all.
This is not an original ploy in books. I have seen it many times. But in most of the cases I have seen it, the author is usually good enough that you may have a general idea that it is something bad but they throw you a bit of a curve ball so that it still surprises you. And when you read it you keep wanting to know what happens even if it frustrates you that they keep it a secret till later.
In this one you know from the moment of the first dream what is going to happen and not just in general terms. It would be one thing if you knew because of the previous books. But in this case, even if you never read any of the books and had never heard of Hannibal Lecter, the author does such a poor job giving away too much leading up to it that you already know. So instead of wanting the get to the end of the dream sequence over and over because you want to know, and in doing so will deal with some frustration for the payoff, you already know so it is just frustration with no payoff.
I think the story could be done MUCH better. The base story itself is not bad, but it is just lacking in so many areas and the method in which it was done is also less than what it could have been done IMO.
I will conclude with some things I said in the beginning.
If you want to read this book you may be better off waiting for it to come out in paperback, borrowing it from a friend or going to the library and getting it.
I would not suggest buying the hardcover version of it unless you are a person that collects things and already has the other Hannibal books so you want the full set.
Hope you did not burn your eyes out, get a headache or any other malady from reading this long winded post.
However I will say this much before hand in case you do want to read the book. Unless you are a person that gets books, good or bad, for a collection...you may want to wait until the Paperback comes out or borrow it from a friend. There is also the trusty local library.
I like to read books. Always have. I can not say that I like reading all of the classics and such, a few here and there but for the most part I read from current authors.
There has been a stretch where none of the newer books have seemed to interest me. Probably more from the standpoint that there are a number of authors I read and I normally do not deviate from them very often.
Those would include, but not limited to, S. King, Dean Koontz, J. Saul, Grisham, Robert McCamon, JK Rowling (yes I like the harry potter books) and others of that general ilk. I am also the type that will read books over and over if I like them or if I get bored enough and do not have a new book that interests me.
But as of late there have not been too many new books out of interest. I recently got Brother Odd by Dean Koontz and thought it was ok. I also did not have a book handy that I felt like reading again. I had already read Shogun a month or so ago. I read Shogun at least once a year as I love the book and think it is just that good.
So when I seen that Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris was coming out I was happy. I liked Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs and although parts of his last one, Hannibal, irked me I also enjoyed that one as well.
However I was told by someone in this forum, sorry I can not remember the name of the person or I would give them credit, that a Movie was already being made about the book. This bothered me in some ways because it would seem that maybe it was just a ploy by the author to cash in on a slow movie market.
So I sort of waited some time before getting the book. Finally I gave in and bought the book just to have something to read.
Ok on to the book.
I would first like to say that it may have been a let down in the making and maybe not fair to read the book with the idea that for those that have read the others it would be hard to reach the peak of those works. This book is a Prequel so with that understanding you go into the book knowing about the characters future and also know that the other books were so good it is hard to live up to their standards as I mentioned. You also know that no matter how harrowing a predicament the main character gets into, that he is not going to die in the book...which in some ways takes away from the suspense.
As I mentioned before, someone noted that they had already made or were making the movie.
I think this, in many ways, plays into the book being a let down as well.
You see this book seems to read more like a screen play than an actual novel.
It also is only just over 300 pages yet it has many chapter breaks and large print. In other words this book was really not too long, it just appears they tried to stretch it out with too many chapter breaks (meaning half pages sometimes), larger font and double or triple spacing or more in areas.
The book basically attempts to give you the story behind Hannibal Lecter.
Where he was born, how he grew up and the reasons behind him becoming on of the most ruthless characters in modern literature. How he became a genius, an elegant or high brow of sorts and also a cannibal/killer.
It starts out during WWII when Hannibal was a young boy.
His family were rich people who owned a castle that had been in their family for years and was full of history. His father was the current Count in his families long history. The family also included staff at the castle. The cook would play a SMALL part in how hannibal became to acquire some tastes and his culinary skill.
The Castle had many art works and his family seemed to be not only monetarily rich but also rich in the sense of family bonding.
Hannibal loved his parents but even more loved his little Sister.
A time came when the Germans were moving into the area and the family decided that they should not stay in the large Castle, as it was sure to attract not only the German army but also looters due to the chaos of war.
So the family, and staff, hid some things away in the castle and took other things with them to a Hunting cabin, which has also been in the family for years, hidden deep within the woods.
This first part of the book is both interesting but at the same time frustrating. There are times when authors take way too much time describing a person, whether that be physical or background history, and other times they do not take enough time.
In this case he does not take enough time describing some of the characters that would play a major role in the story. Which is quite odd because in his last book Hannibal the author went WAY overboard in at least one case. Taking a whole chapter to describe the detailed history of a character that wound up being something that really irked me and destroyed a flow he had going.
In this case, as I said, there were some characters that should have had some more time in describing them. As it was it was at times confusing remembering which guy was which.
It turns out some of the people helping with the move were HIWI...they were natives of the area that were helping the **** army in the role of a sort of scout role. They were giving intel and setting some things in motion to help the *****.
But the Lecters made it to the Hunting Cabin and were hidden away for some time, a few years. During this time the Castle was bombed and looted.
Some of the people that were on the staff knew the family had went to the Hunting cabin so they later went there for more looting.
While there a plane flew over and started shooting, in the chaos of this even most of the people Hannibal knew were killed. His Mother, Father, teacher and other members of the staff.
He felt for his mother and father as he loved both, especially his mother. But he also missed his Teacher the parents had hired for him. His teacher was a man he admired and taught him a great deal.
We learn that Hannibal is a very smart young boy and takes to lessons very quickly, much more so than the average boy. We also learn that the teacher shows Hannibal a method to help keep his thoughts and memories.
He teaches Hannibal to use his brain as a virtual castle. To store certain memories in some rooms and other memories in others. To categorize and store them like a warehouse. In one part of the book it also shows how visual or important this was to Hannibal. It was just a small blurb but helped in describing. He recounts how he put something that he had seen in a certain area of his virtual castle in his brain. Whatever he had seen was a specific color and when he put it in a room that had a tapestry or some other color that was similar it made it hard for him to go back in and recall the specific item. The problem was that the color of the item and the color of the area of the room he stored it in made them blend together and in turn made it hard for him to see the details. I just thought that was interesting in helping describe it and how he associated things.
All that was left was him and his sister who were captured by these looters.
Later we see Hannibal coming out of the woods alone, without his sister,with a chain around his neck and a Russian Army person finding him. They took him and in an odd twist of fate Hannibal wound up in an orphanage that was set up in his very own Castle.
During his stay at the orphanage we find that Hannibal no longer talks. The only times he talks is when he has fitful dreams.
One other thing of note during this time. Hannibal at this age does not like bigger kids picking on smaller kids or himself.
He does not seem to mind smaller kids teasing him, but he does not like bigger bully type kids picking on him or smaller kids.
By this we see that he still has the older brother mentality and misses his sister.
We are not told what happened to his sister, nor does Hannibal remember what happens to his sister.
His dreams consists of his last memories at the hunting cabin and always end just before he finds out what happens to his sister. It seems his mind protects him from something horrid that happened dealing with his sister.
Later we found out that Hannibals Uncle is still alive, was living in a different area. His Uncle comes to collect Hannibal and he is now to live with his uncle, his Aunt and their servant. His Uncle is now the Count and his aunt is a Japanese lady who was the daughter of an ambassador or something along those lines.
He winds up becoming very close to the Aunt and she is the first person he finally speaks to since coming out of the woods. They develop a special bond that continues through the book.
We also see Hannibals first real mean streak when a local Butcher, who also happens to be an ex **** (at this time the war is over) speaks foully to his Aunt. Hannibal asks the man to apologize but when the man will not he attacks the man. Luckily for the man Hannibal is still a smaller boy and the man lives.
Later when his Uncle finds out the uncle goes to confront the man and is killed in the fight.
Hannibal, even at this young age, goes out and finds the man...and has his way with the man. I will not say the details but let us say this seems to be Hannibals first taste of killing.
When this happens a detective suspects it was Hannibal who killed the man but due to some circumstances, including the aunt, he had no proof.
From this point on the Detective in the book is always suspicious of Hannibal...but at the same time he likes the Aunt and in some ways I think he likes hannibal while hating hannibal at the same time.
As the book goes on and hannibal gets older he goes to a local school. In this school we learn again at the intellect of Hannibal. He would purchase a school book, read it once and return it for some money. Once he read it and stored in his manner he had no further uses for it. He would also sit in classes and draw. Once the teachers realized that he already knew the material or had the ability to draw while retaining all the information being said in class they justlet him draw.
His drawings were so good that later it led him to get a scholarship to a medical school in paris. He was believed to be the youngest person to ever get a scholarship to the medical school in France.
He would do anatomy drawings for a professor there and also made money on the side doing drawings. He would also go to the prisons and get criminals that were to be killed for crimes, using the guillotine, to donate their bodies to science. He was the professors aid even being so young. He would prepare the professors cadavers for his classes and do anatomy drawings from the bodies.
Through out the book we get glimpses of Hannibal dreaming but not being able to fully see what happens to his sister.
But in the end we see the final picture. (more on why this was poorly done later)
Hannibal decides to go after the men that killed his sister and held them as captives in the hunting cabin.
How he goes about it is what happens with the rest of the story and I have probably already said enough about that section so I will leave that to those that decide to read the book.
====
Now some things that bothered me about the book.
As I said I think the author did one of a few things here. He either had someone else write the book, did it just for a movie/screenplay but wanted to release the book anyways, wrote the book too fast leaving out some things he should have mentioned...and had some really bad editors.
Here are some examples or reasons I say this.
The story was very disjointed IMO. Just did not flow right like the others did.
There were things that just were left out that did not make sense and should have at least been mentioned....Hannibal, in two of his previous books, was said to have Six fingers on one hand. It was brought up in either Red Dragon or Silence of the lambs but it was also brought up in the last Book Hannibal.
In Hannibal that is how they were trying to track him so he went and cut his finger off.
In this book, a book about him growing up, giving the background of how he became Hannibal the Cannibal....they make no mention of the Sixth finger. It just seems odd or careless that this was not brought up in this book.
Editing - Here is an example of editing, or lack of, that bothered me.
When the Lecters are getting ready to leave the castle to go to the hunting cabin the cook comes out and gives them a lunch. A little bit later the cook comes back out and gives them lunch again. I could be wrong about this, I am pretty sure I did not just go back by accident and read it again. But I am positive that the cook gave the family lunch twice. Just something that should have been caught by an editor.
Something else that bothers me about the book. If you write a book and most of your potential customers/readers buying the book with be in the USA.
You need to make sure and do a good job with translations and such.
This book takes place in russia and france but also has characters that are Russian, French, German and Japanese. Sometimes the author uses words or phrases in foreign languages yet does not translate, except in a few instances, what these words mean. Very frustrating IMO.
There are a few other occasions where something happens but you really don't get a great explanation of how or why. Not a great thing but it could just be done better.
The book also flashes to different characters at times. This is not an uncommon thing in books. However as I mentioned before with the first part of the book, you do not get a good description of some of the characters so now when it flashes to them years later you are a tad lost trying to remember which guy is which.
So here is where I am conflicted.
If I never had read any of the Hannibal books before, If I had never seen the movies. I might not be as harsh on this book. It might be a springboard to read more and find out about the character. However it is also done in a manner that is frustrating in many ways that maybe it could potentially turn off someone from reading more about hannibal...which is a shame.
This book almost has the feel of a different author. Some things left out, does not flow as well, does not seem to expand on some things like his work in the past has.
This might be because he was pressed for time, because he wrote it with a movie in mind so it turned out more like a screen play.
A few other things. At one point in the previous books it makes mention that hannibal as a child was cruel to animals. This book seemed to indicate the exact opposite. In fact it showed at least two areas where he was very nice to animals and liked them. The reason I also bring this up is that from what I have read and seen about serial killers there are some signs of history in most known serial killers. I think I heard it called a triangle or sorts.
From what I recall all known serial killers, or at least the vast majority, have shown at least 2 of these signs in their past.
Off the top of my head they included...Wetting the Bed at a later age, cruelty to and killing animals and studying them at a young age, Family violence which normally includes sexual abuse and of course terrible trauma of other sorts.
Hannibal was not cruel to animals, it made no mention of him wetting the bed, made no mention of being in an abusive nor sexually abusive family...he only had the terrible trauma of losing his mother father and sister.
Like I said I have heard that the vast majority, if not all, of serial killers have shown at least 2 signs in their history...Hannibal only seems to have shown one.
The dream sequences. During the book Hannibal keeps dreaming trying to figure out what happened to his sister but it keeps getting cut off until he finally sees it all.
This is not an original ploy in books. I have seen it many times. But in most of the cases I have seen it, the author is usually good enough that you may have a general idea that it is something bad but they throw you a bit of a curve ball so that it still surprises you. And when you read it you keep wanting to know what happens even if it frustrates you that they keep it a secret till later.
In this one you know from the moment of the first dream what is going to happen and not just in general terms. It would be one thing if you knew because of the previous books. But in this case, even if you never read any of the books and had never heard of Hannibal Lecter, the author does such a poor job giving away too much leading up to it that you already know. So instead of wanting the get to the end of the dream sequence over and over because you want to know, and in doing so will deal with some frustration for the payoff, you already know so it is just frustration with no payoff.
I think the story could be done MUCH better. The base story itself is not bad, but it is just lacking in so many areas and the method in which it was done is also less than what it could have been done IMO.
I will conclude with some things I said in the beginning.
If you want to read this book you may be better off waiting for it to come out in paperback, borrowing it from a friend or going to the library and getting it.
I would not suggest buying the hardcover version of it unless you are a person that collects things and already has the other Hannibal books so you want the full set.
Hope you did not burn your eyes out, get a headache or any other malady from reading this long winded post.