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Overview
HE IS ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING CHARACTERS IN ALL OF LITERATURE.AT LAST THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EVIL IS REVEALED.
Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck.
He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him.
Hannibal's uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle's beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki.
Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France.
But Hannibal's demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn.
He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death's prodigy.
Synopsis
HE IS ONE OF THE MOST HAUNTING CHARACTERS OF ALL OF LITERATURE.
AT LAST THE EVOLUTION OF HIS EVIL IS REVEALED.
Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck.
He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him.
Hannibal s uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle s beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki.
Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal. With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France.
But Hannibal s demons visit him and torment him. When he is old enough, he visits them in turn.
He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death s prodigy.
The Washington Post - Douglas E. Winter
Harris's writing is assured, with elegant shifts of tense and point of view; perhaps it is the focused plot or the insistently visual style that acknowledges the inevitable movie adaptation, but simply in terms of craft, Hannibal Rising is arguably the best of his novels.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewTwenty-five years after Thomas Harris introduced the world to one of the most memorable literary villains of all time (in 1981's Red Dragon), he revisits his signature character with a chilling prequel that chronicles the horrific childhood of Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter.
As a child growing up in Lithuania, life is blissful for young Hannibal and his little sister, Mischa, living in the majestic Castle Lecter with their loving parents. Hannibal's carefree existence, however, is turned into a living nightmare when Hitler's armies invade the Soviet Union and his family is forced to flee. After more than three years surviving in the wilderness during Hitler's bloody eastern campaign, the horror of war finally finds Hannibal, and he is forced to endure a never-ending barrage of brutality: the destruction of his home, the death of his parents, the gruesome murder of his sister at the hands of starving thugs, etc. But Hannibal's life is spared when his uncle finds him and relocates him to France. Even as he matures into an educated young man, though, the haunting images of his youth compel him to seek some kind of vengeance…
With all the hype surrounding the publication of this book, there's a significant chance that the result will fall short of readers' expectations; but Harris pulls it off with a brilliantly restrained -- and powerfully moving -- story about the transformation of a sensitive, loving, intelligent boy into a cold-blooded monster. Hard-core fans of Harris's Hannibal quartet (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal) will undoubtedly enjoy this read with some fava beans and a nice Chianti… Paul Goat Allen
Douglas E. Winter
Harris's writing is assured, with elegant shifts of tense and point of view; perhaps it is the focused plot or the insistently visual style that acknowledges the inevitable movie adaptation, but simply in terms of craft, Hannibal Rising is arguably the best of his novels.— The Washington Post