Hannibal Rising

Having finished the book last weekend and seen the film yesterday, this will be a combination on my thoughts on both of them.

"Hannibal Rising", as the title suggests, covers Hannibal's early years. One of the elements missing from "Hannibal" (the 2001 film) that was covered in its 'sister' novel was hints at events in Hannibal's childhood; "Hannibal Rising" fills in any gaps that the earlier novel may have had. (The latest film's/novel's 'shock' revelation will come as no surprise to anyone who has read "Hannibal".)

The story is ostensibly a revenge story; without giving too much away, a young adult Lecter hunts down and kills off those people who wronged him during his childhood. The book and film are almost exactly the same (save a storyline about stolen artworks which appears in the book), which isn't a surprise as they were both written by Thomas Harris (the author of the other three Lecter novels).

If I have a problem with "Hannibal Rising" - the film is watchable and the book flies by at quite a pace - it is that it demystifies and attempts to humanise Hannibal Lecter, I'd rather his past had been kept a mystery. In "Red Dragon" (my favourite of the novels, which spawned my favourite of the films - Michael Mann's "Manhunter") 'Hannibal the Cannibal' is dangerous and manipulative; although you learn very little about him and he isn't the story's main character, he certainly makes the biggest impression. The later Lecter stories (especially the films) paint Hannibal as more of an anti-hero. Now we learn that Hannibal became a monster because of the bad things that happened to him in his childhood. Here he is portrayed as a vigilante; in the orphanage where he grows up he only picks fights with bullies and later he hunts down and metes justice on war criminals. As a fan of the earlier Lecter stories, this seems like one story too many, an unnecessary 'prologue' to the series...