Hello. I noticed there already is a thread about these books, but it's been inactive for four years, so I decided to create a new one. I am currently reading the first book of the series and I must admit I'm dissapointed. Not story-wise, but regarding writing and writing techniques. Maybe I was anticipating too much, I expected the writing to be as good as Hannibal's manipulation skills. I would like to hear other opinions on Hannibal series, what do you think of them?
by "first" do you mean Hannibal Rising, which is the first about Hannibal chronologically, or Red Dragon, which is (IIRC) the first published book that he's a character in? I haven't read the other books in the series in a while, but I remember them all being much better than Hannibal Rising, which seemed to me to be somewhat embarrassing Mary Sue fanfic, honestly. I've enjoyed the TV show, and I thought the first season was excellent, but I really feel that it took a downward turn in the second half of the second season. I'll at least start watching the third season and see if it improves, but I don't have my heart set on it.
I mean Red Dragon. I also watch the show, but i don't think it's anything special also. It's ok. I started reading because of the show and because my current WIP covers similar are of expertise (manipulation), so I wanted to see how Harris dealt with it. I'm still on the first half of the book, so there's not much of it. But I don't know, I think the writing could be better....
Thomas Harris was not really a very technical writer - I would say he wasn't a very good writer. He fell onto a good character, inspired by his working life. I don't want to suggest Harris is bad for what he was doing. It is just that literary quality isn't what he was going for. He was aiming at the crime detective genre and was successful. The film adaptations have pretty much saved him from going now entirely unread. So yeah, it would be wrong to read Harris and expect something really better than mediocre.
You summed up my thoughts really nicely. I just wanted some kind of "confirmation" that my literary eye is in fact getting better, that I'm not going into wrong direction.
I read the entire series and I actually liked them. I thought the books were much more gruesome than the movies.
