Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Painted in grey, more polite, polished, and sophisticated than any other character contained in the book. Everything about him, from his intelligence to his insanity to his manners to his taste in wine, is inhuman. A madman, yes, but a madman with one weakness, by the name of Clarice Starling.

Mason Verger: Arguably more insane than Dr. Lecter, undoubtedly ruder, with the money of the family meat-packing fortune to sustain him. It's a good thing, too, since his encounter with Hannibal years ago has left him a paralyzed shell of a man, the grotesque, mechanized remains of his face matched nicely to his grotesque mind. He is determined to have his revenge, in the most twisted way possible.

Rinaldo Pazzi: Italian detective. Not much to this guy, except a long, winding exposition on his character, and the fact that he is one of the few you actually feel sorry for.

Paul Krendler: Complete jerk who gets exactly what he deserves.

Barney: Former guard and nurse to Hannibal Lecter. A genuinely sweet guy who means very well. Self-educated, strong, and seemingly impervious to fear. Gets exactly what he deserves, too.


Favorite Character:
Hannibal Lecter. Having a weakness as I do for villains, and coupling that with the inescapable image of Anthony Hopkins' brilliant film portrayal, I was left with an altogether creepy, though not at all repulsive, idea of the character. Then again, Harris' writing keys into the reader's expected aversion to an insane man-eating serial killer, and builds a shell of downright decency around the idea of Lecter. It's a breathtaking development to behold, as each successive character proves him or herself more vile than the eponymous antagonist himself. And along the way, he remains in the cool of the innocent...his dialogue crisp and sincere, his obsession with Clarice Starling surprisingly bittersweet, and his own nightmares adding a human element to a seemingly other-worldly specimen. In times when he is in peril, I found myself rooting for his escape. Odd, but completely understandable in the context of the book.

Least Favorite Character:
Jeez, no one can help but want to slap Paul Krendler. He insults Starling, masterminds her downfall, and conspires with the disgusting Mason Verger, all the while remaining a boarish moron. Without giving anything away, his is the most satisfyingly twisted deaths ever written.

Favorite Quote:
From the end -- "Someday perhaps a cup will come together. Or somewhere Starling may hear a crossbow string and come to some unwilled awakening, if indeed she even sleeps."

Comments:
It's warmly refreshing to see things go your way in a book, but when you realize how twisted your ideal perception of resolution is...you begin to get creeped out. Thomas Harris' Hannibal works on this principle from the first page until the last. You enter it with only the knowledge of what happened in its illustrious predecessor, The Silence of the Lambs, but throughout you are guided with an invisible iron hand to a way of thinking you never perceived. You may want to deny it, you may want to do a repaint, supplying your own end to the story, but you cannot because you have been conditioned. Thomas Harris is a manipulative, evocative, amazing writer, and I feel honored to have read this book.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.