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cabinetdemon's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
haylington's review against another edition
4.0
it's a good book but the way Harris is like..."She's a size 12. SHE'S HUUUUUUGE"
ljthompson19's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
isaarusilor's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
frankikaos's review against another edition
5.0
Although I found it less compelling than Red Dragon, it was so interesting to finally read the source material of what is one of the greatest films ever made.
tristansreadingmania's review against another edition
3.0
“I collect church collapses, recreationally. Did you see the recent one in Sicily? Marvelous! The facade fell on sixty-five grandmothers at a special mass. Was that evil? If so, who did it? If he's up there, he just loves it, Officer Starling. Typhoid and swans - it all comes from the same place."
- Hannibal Lecter
There always lies a certain degree of tragedy in reading the source material after having seen (multiple times) its expertly executed film adaptation. Besides the revelation of the plot, the resulting contamination makes it mighty difficult to come up with one's own, unique interpretations of the characters. It slightly spoils the reading experience, since the element of surprise, the freshness is all but gone.
This is especially true for Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, with its now iconic portrayals of Clarice Starling and Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter. As a thriller, it is by definition very much plot driven.
For this reason, reading the book became more of a clinical procedure to me, trying to detect where there is a deviation in dialogue, which scenes were cut/expanded, which characters were more or less fleshed out, etc.. The viscerality which a novel of this type often aims to provoke, wasn't quite there as a result. I see why it's a very well-written thriller, but the emotional response just never quite managed to materialize.
There was however a theme I spotted in this, which I strangely didn't pick up on before. After thinking it through, I found it's really a tale about parentship. More specifically, about which of the primary (almost archetypal) males in Starling's life at that time can claim her (an orphan) as his, which one has influenced, moulded her the most.
First there is Crawford, the respectable, protective mentor figure, who tries to guide her through the pitfalls of her fledgling career in the FBI. Then we have Chilton. A rather sleazy, intellectually inferior asylum ward, who makes thinly veiled sexual advances towards Starling, and doesn't quite respect her in an official capacity. And finally, the fiendish Lecter, who seeks to corrupt (metaphorically devirginize?) her, to impart to her an esoteric knowledge about the inescapable darkness of the world and the human psyche. The dialogues between him and Starling are for that reason alone utterly fantastic.
If this was my first encounter with Harris' world and characters, it most definitely would have been awarded a four or even five star rating. It truly is a great piece of crime thriller writing, and deserves all its praise. Unfortunately, it suffers from my early, intense exposure to the film adaptation, bringing the rating down a notch.
- Hannibal Lecter
There always lies a certain degree of tragedy in reading the source material after having seen (multiple times) its expertly executed film adaptation. Besides the revelation of the plot, the resulting contamination makes it mighty difficult to come up with one's own, unique interpretations of the characters. It slightly spoils the reading experience, since the element of surprise, the freshness is all but gone.
This is especially true for Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, with its now iconic portrayals of Clarice Starling and Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter. As a thriller, it is by definition very much plot driven.
For this reason, reading the book became more of a clinical procedure to me, trying to detect where there is a deviation in dialogue, which scenes were cut/expanded, which characters were more or less fleshed out, etc.. The viscerality which a novel of this type often aims to provoke, wasn't quite there as a result. I see why it's a very well-written thriller, but the emotional response just never quite managed to materialize.
There was however a theme I spotted in this, which I strangely didn't pick up on before. After thinking it through, I found it's really a tale about parentship. More specifically, about which of the primary (almost archetypal) males in Starling's life at that time can claim her (an orphan) as his, which one has influenced, moulded her the most.
First there is Crawford, the respectable, protective mentor figure, who tries to guide her through the pitfalls of her fledgling career in the FBI. Then we have Chilton. A rather sleazy, intellectually inferior asylum ward, who makes thinly veiled sexual advances towards Starling, and doesn't quite respect her in an official capacity. And finally, the fiendish Lecter, who seeks to corrupt (metaphorically devirginize?) her, to impart to her an esoteric knowledge about the inescapable darkness of the world and the human psyche. The dialogues between him and Starling are for that reason alone utterly fantastic.
If this was my first encounter with Harris' world and characters, it most definitely would have been awarded a four or even five star rating. It truly is a great piece of crime thriller writing, and deserves all its praise. Unfortunately, it suffers from my early, intense exposure to the film adaptation, bringing the rating down a notch.
elysehdez19's review against another edition
4.0
Excelente libro!!! Estoy mal emocionalmente si digo que el Dr. Lecter fue mu personaje favorito??
mishka_espey's review against another edition
5.0
Silence of the Lambs? Seriously? Yes, yes, I know. But this is one instance where my own expectations turned out to be so grossly ill-founded that I feel obligated to set the record straight. If you’ve never read this book because you’ve always assume it’s brimming with blood and guts and flesh-eating nightmares, stop right there and hear me out. That’s all I ask.
Now, this is not a frilly book. It’s not literary or eloquent. That’s not to say it isn’t extremely well written. From the opening lines, there’s a calm control about the prose that builds your trust in Harris with each passing chapter. He writes with dignity. That’s the best word for his style, and that’s what I least expected to find between the pages of one of literature’s most infamous horror stories. Yes, there are cannibals and serial killers, but Harris doesn’t revel in supplying our imaginations with all the gory details. In fact, there’s not one scene where we witness Buffalo Bill skinning one of his victims, and there’s not one scene where we witness Hannibal Lecter eating human flesh. Yes, these things happen, but the author never stoops to rubbing our faces in them. We are forced to acknowledge that such monsters exist, but Harris is much more interested in drawing them out as humans than in using them for cheap scares.
That said, the brilliance of The Silence of the Lambs is, I think, best explained by Robert Harris’s remarkable talent for showing, not telling. Every creative writing workshop under the sun hammers into our heads the importance of this principle. As Chekhov famously said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Regardless of the kind of story you aim to write or the type of emotion you hope to evoke, the key to engaging readers lies in allowing them draw their own conclusions instead of forcing yours. Harris never lets us experience firsthand Hannibal or Buffalo Bill’s crimes; he only gives us glimpses of these monsters through the eyes of the protagonist, Clarice Starling, letting them grow as dark and menacing in our minds as we let them. It’s not the writer’s job to tell you what he wants you to know; he must show you. Here’s a brilliant example from the book—completely unrelated to serial killers, as it happens, but incredible in the amount of information Harris stuffs into so few words. FBI cadet Clarice Starling is trying to pressure a guard into giving her access to Hannibal Lecter’s cell. The guard replies:
Now, everyone knows Hannibal Lecter. But while Dr. Lecter is certainly the most infamous character in the story, to me he wasn’t nearly the most frightening. The award for most nightmare-inducing villain I have to give to Buffalo Bill. Lecter is intelligent and humorous and polite, but Jame Gumb, alias Buffalo Bill, doesn’t know what he is. Where Lecter regards his human prey with a keen, calculating perception, Gumb doesn’t even recognize the girls he attacks to be human. Legitimately the most chilling line I have ever read was when he tosses a bottle of lotion down into the well where he’s keeping Catherine Martin captive and says to her:
The contrast between these two killers adds a unique flavor to the story. Even their names couldn’t be more different; where Hannibal is always referred to as Dr. Lecter, Buffalo Bill’s mother misspelled his name on his birth certificate, dropping the “S” in James, and he’s insisted on going by Jame ever since. Again, Harris paints a stark picture by showing, not telling, who these killers are by way of a few carefully-selected details.
Lecter, by the way, is wickedly delightful. You will never meet another character like him, and once you’ve met him, you won’t ever forget him. He is a conundrum: the epitome of well-bred manners, yet at the same time an unapologetically cannibalistic serial killer. As Clarice observes, “It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness.” We don’t ever really see the murderous side of Lecter up close, and so the many allusions to his appetite for human flesh remain coyly humorous, as in his famous quip to Clarice during their first interview:
If you haven’t noticed, the villains are the stars of the show here. It’s not that there’s anything to be found wanting in Clarice—she’s a fun, well-rounded, memorable character and someone we’re eager to believe in. But what makes this story one for the ages is how utterly and uniquely terrifying both Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill are. It’s hard enough to create one memorable villain; somehow, in one book, Thomas Harris has given us two. Even more incredibly, they never steal the spotlight off one another; rather, Jame Gumb and Hannibal Lecter reveal two very different, very dark sides of humanity, playing off each other across the plot with a cold, discomforting sort of elegance.
Most bafflingly of all, Harris succeeds in all of this without filling our minds with excessive blood and gore—on the contrary, he denies us the opportunity to see his monsters at work, almost as if both are too terrible for us to behold. This is the most resounding example of the power of showing vs. telling that I have ever read. It’s fresh, dignified, terrifying, perceptive, and all-around brilliant. That’s right, I said it — The Silence of the Lambs is a class act.
Now, this is not a frilly book. It’s not literary or eloquent. That’s not to say it isn’t extremely well written. From the opening lines, there’s a calm control about the prose that builds your trust in Harris with each passing chapter. He writes with dignity. That’s the best word for his style, and that’s what I least expected to find between the pages of one of literature’s most infamous horror stories. Yes, there are cannibals and serial killers, but Harris doesn’t revel in supplying our imaginations with all the gory details. In fact, there’s not one scene where we witness Buffalo Bill skinning one of his victims, and there’s not one scene where we witness Hannibal Lecter eating human flesh. Yes, these things happen, but the author never stoops to rubbing our faces in them. We are forced to acknowledge that such monsters exist, but Harris is much more interested in drawing them out as humans than in using them for cheap scares.
That said, the brilliance of The Silence of the Lambs is, I think, best explained by Robert Harris’s remarkable talent for showing, not telling. Every creative writing workshop under the sun hammers into our heads the importance of this principle. As Chekhov famously said, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” Regardless of the kind of story you aim to write or the type of emotion you hope to evoke, the key to engaging readers lies in allowing them draw their own conclusions instead of forcing yours. Harris never lets us experience firsthand Hannibal or Buffalo Bill’s crimes; he only gives us glimpses of these monsters through the eyes of the protagonist, Clarice Starling, letting them grow as dark and menacing in our minds as we let them. It’s not the writer’s job to tell you what he wants you to know; he must show you. Here’s a brilliant example from the book—completely unrelated to serial killers, as it happens, but incredible in the amount of information Harris stuffs into so few words. FBI cadet Clarice Starling is trying to pressure a guard into giving her access to Hannibal Lecter’s cell. The guard replies:
“I’m not a turnkey here, Miss Starling. I don’t come running down here at night just to let people in and out. I had a ticket for Holiday on Ice.”
He realized he’d said a ticket. In that instant, Starling saw his life, and he knew it.
Now, everyone knows Hannibal Lecter. But while Dr. Lecter is certainly the most infamous character in the story, to me he wasn’t nearly the most frightening. The award for most nightmare-inducing villain I have to give to Buffalo Bill. Lecter is intelligent and humorous and polite, but Jame Gumb, alias Buffalo Bill, doesn’t know what he is. Where Lecter regards his human prey with a keen, calculating perception, Gumb doesn’t even recognize the girls he attacks to be human. Legitimately the most chilling line I have ever read was when he tosses a bottle of lotion down into the well where he’s keeping Catherine Martin captive and says to her:
“It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told. ”
The contrast between these two killers adds a unique flavor to the story. Even their names couldn’t be more different; where Hannibal is always referred to as Dr. Lecter, Buffalo Bill’s mother misspelled his name on his birth certificate, dropping the “S” in James, and he’s insisted on going by Jame ever since. Again, Harris paints a stark picture by showing, not telling, who these killers are by way of a few carefully-selected details.
Lecter, by the way, is wickedly delightful. You will never meet another character like him, and once you’ve met him, you won’t ever forget him. He is a conundrum: the epitome of well-bred manners, yet at the same time an unapologetically cannibalistic serial killer. As Clarice observes, “It was as though committing murders had purged him of lesser rudeness.” We don’t ever really see the murderous side of Lecter up close, and so the many allusions to his appetite for human flesh remain coyly humorous, as in his famous quip to Clarice during their first interview:
“I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”
If you haven’t noticed, the villains are the stars of the show here. It’s not that there’s anything to be found wanting in Clarice—she’s a fun, well-rounded, memorable character and someone we’re eager to believe in. But what makes this story one for the ages is how utterly and uniquely terrifying both Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill are. It’s hard enough to create one memorable villain; somehow, in one book, Thomas Harris has given us two. Even more incredibly, they never steal the spotlight off one another; rather, Jame Gumb and Hannibal Lecter reveal two very different, very dark sides of humanity, playing off each other across the plot with a cold, discomforting sort of elegance.
Most bafflingly of all, Harris succeeds in all of this without filling our minds with excessive blood and gore—on the contrary, he denies us the opportunity to see his monsters at work, almost as if both are too terrible for us to behold. This is the most resounding example of the power of showing vs. telling that I have ever read. It’s fresh, dignified, terrifying, perceptive, and all-around brilliant. That’s right, I said it — The Silence of the Lambs is a class act.
exorcismemily's review against another edition
3.0
"Problem-solving is hunting; it is savage pleasure and we are born to it."
I finished Red Dragon a few days ago, and jumped into The Silence of the Lambs as soon as I could. Unfortunately, I didn't have as good of a time with this one as I had hoped. I can appreciate that this book inspired so many other books, and that's why it's a classic. However, if you read the classic after already having read a lot of what inspired it, it sometimes feels tired and outdated.
I've been burned out on procedurals for a bit, but I wanted to give this series a shot. Red Dragon was felt like it had a lot more going on than just the procedural aspect, and this one didn't. The pacing felt off, and so much of this book is Clarice traveling.
This story doesn't really work well in 2019. It villainizes body dysmorphia and cross-dressing, and it's misogynistic as well. It was exhausting to read. I'll finish the series at some point, but it will probably be a bit before I pick up Hannibal.
I finished Red Dragon a few days ago, and jumped into The Silence of the Lambs as soon as I could. Unfortunately, I didn't have as good of a time with this one as I had hoped. I can appreciate that this book inspired so many other books, and that's why it's a classic. However, if you read the classic after already having read a lot of what inspired it, it sometimes feels tired and outdated.
I've been burned out on procedurals for a bit, but I wanted to give this series a shot. Red Dragon was felt like it had a lot more going on than just the procedural aspect, and this one didn't. The pacing felt off, and so much of this book is Clarice traveling.
This story doesn't really work well in 2019. It villainizes body dysmorphia and cross-dressing, and it's misogynistic as well. It was exhausting to read. I'll finish the series at some point, but it will probably be a bit before I pick up Hannibal.
superraven666's review against another edition
4.0
" Lecter avait refusé de répondre et s'était contenté de leur fabriquer une cocotte en papier qui picorait quand on manoeuvrait la queue "