Country
Genre: Psychological Thriller/Police Procedural
Pages: 338
Order THE SILENCES OF THE LAMBS Here
Other Thomas Harris Books Reviewed:
Red Dragon (1981)
When the Fox hears the Rabbit scream he comes a-runnin', but not to help.
I have all sorts of special memories tied to my first viewing of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. I was maybe eleven, twelve years old and it was THE big, bad movie that gave nightmares to kids my age. I went through great pains to rent it behind my parents' back (it was "16 and older" in Canada) and watched it with a certain sense of pride. Since then I have fallen in and out of love with it about ten times over the last decade. Serial killer stories have become tired and cliché, but it's not Hannibal Lecter's fault. The murderous psychiatrist still stands today as one of the most complex and layered characters in suspense fiction. Often imitated, never equaled, you could say in a sales pitch. I decided to give THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS an immediate try after being blown away by my reading of RED DRAGON. Not only Thomas Harris created a great character and a grim universe, but he also happens to be quite apt at that storytelling thing.
We all know the story, but I think it's worth repeating, just to see how it ties up with RED DRAGON. A few years after Jack Crawford and Will Graham caught the Tooth Fairy killer, there's another one on the loose. "Buffalo Bill" kills women and skins their body parts. The FBI's star profiler happens to be Hannibal Lecter, who's imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital, for being a serial killer himself who also got caught by the Crawford/Graham duo. Lecter doesn't feel like helping them anymore since he lead Will Graham to a grisly, life-altering confrontation with the Tooth Fairy, so Crawford sends trainee Clarice Starling to speak with him. He knows Lecter has a weak spot for innocence, so he figures the strong-headed country girl type will work a number on him. Turns out he was right and Starling and Lecter establish a bond that goes way beyond what he's expected. Once again, Jack Crawford gambled on Hannibal Lecter and had to sacrifice something.
The beauty of Thomas Harris' writing lies in his deep understanding of his character's psyches. He understands who they are and what they want from each other, so therefore nothing is made explicit to his reader. The relationship between Lecter and Starling slowly sinks its hooks into you and will leave you thinking long after you're done reading. As it's usually the case for memorable encounters, it leaves you feeling that the stars aligned for this strong, unflinching, yet candid and trusting woman to have met this incredible, but sadistic mind, desperately seeking for something unique. When recalling his past experiences as a psychiatrist, Lecter keeps saying: "Tedious, so tedious" as the emotional pain bores him to death. The conflicts within Clarice first amuse him, but he gets caught up in his own game as the novel progresses and we find him expecting her visit and even organizing his agenda around it. The surge of spontaneous feelings in a character who thinks he has seen everything is fascinating.
"And then Raspail himself... died. Why?"
"Frankly, I got sick and tired of his whining. Best thing for him, really. Therapy wasn't going anywhere. I expect most psychiatrists have a patient or two they'd like to refer to me."
Hannibal Lecter occupies a central place in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which he didn't in RED DRAGON and this has its bearing on the story. Lecter knows exactly what's going on and yet decides to give information drops by drops, in order to satisfy his sadistic intent and see people outside his prison's walls dependent to him. In this regard, he's almost like an author double, who plays "evil god" towards the other characters. It's something that gets gradually more evident as you get to know the story more intimately. After several movie viewing and one novel read, it's evident that he knows the specifics and the drama is mainly engineered by him, for his own entertainment. It gives you some perspective on Thomas Harris' storytelling skills. There is one focal point around which a whole universe revolves.
If you've seen Jonathan Demme's movie adaptation of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, you will get most of what I'm talking about here. His film is one of the most celebrated adaptations and with good reasons. It leaves very little aside. So you will feel in familiar territory reading the novel and maybe like me, you'll skip a few pages where you know exactly what will happen. There are a few extras that were left out, like a fascinating subplot around Jack Crawford's wife, but the movie tackled 95% of the novel's content with an absurd level of precision. Therefore, reading THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS may feel a little underwhelming compared to RED DRAGON. At least, it was the case for me, but the character development for Hannibal Lecter and the deep, complicated bond he establishes with Clarice Starling was enough to keep me on the page for long sitting, sometimes over a hundred pages at the time.
FOUR STARS
Book with psychopath protagonist