I’ll admit upfront that I’m cheating here, using a memory to launch a theory, but so it goes. I first met Hannibal Lecter in the Michael Mann version of RED DRAGON, renamed MANHUNTER. Somewhere in the Internet ether, there’s an essay I wrote for Tart City about how I prefer Brian Cox’s Lecter to Anthony Hopkins’s, an opinion that no one seems inclined to share with me. So be it. At any rate, the Mann film launched me into Harris’s work. I loved the first two books, but decided not to continue with HANNIBAL because Lecter is Harris’s least interesting character to me. Heck, I’d be more inclined to read a novel about Freddy Lowndes. Of course it, like HANNIBAL RISING, would need to be a prequel.
But as the reviews of HANNIBAL RISING come in, I’d like to venture this question: Has Hopkins hijacked Harris’s character? Has his portrayal — which is good and vivid and memorable, just not my favorite — changed the way that Harris thinks/writes about his own creation? Or is it just the public appetite for Lecter (sorry) that has led Harris to put this character at the center of two novels, when so many agree that he worked better as a secondary character?
I recently had lunch with another crime writer (not named here because all meals are assumed off-the-record) who believes that Harris’s recent choices are meant to underscore the fact that the character belongs to the writer. Perhaps. But could it also show that the character doesn’t belong to the writer, that an actor’s singular performance or the public’s imagination can transform the character? Who owns a character?
These are not moot questions for me. Today I sat down and, as I have for every Jan. 2nd over the past decade, started a new novel. This one’s a Tess and while my audience is a mere fraction of Harris’s, I am keenly aware that quite a few readers will come to this book with a longterm relationship with Tess. How to introduce her, again? How to start, again?
I’ll tell you this much: She comes into the book backward, going very fast, with the inevitable consequences. Today’s writing tally: 1,066 words, a little puny, but it’s the entire opening chapter and meets the 1,000-word minimum. 89,000 to go, give or take, and more revisions than I want to think about just now.
(P.S. I’ve only read summaries of HANNIBAL RISING in various reviews, but am I the only one to notice a slight similarity to THE PAINTED BIRD? Wartime atrocities lead to mute boy? No? There I go again.)
I read Hannibal, but I won’t go near Hannibal Rising. Enough is enough. Harris seems to have gone all the way over to horror, and I tend to stay away from horror novels. I wouldn’t blame him for being annoyed that Anthony Hopkins now owns the character in the movie-going public’s minds, but I don’t have to take part in his efforts to reclaim his literary creation.
It’s a weird sensation to send one’s characters out into the world to become part of the imaginations and emotional lives of strangers. Difficult as it may be, I think you have to hold onto your vision of the character and not allow it to be altered by the perceptions of others. (To me, Laura, Tess has been consistent — she’s grown a lot and changed somewhat, but she’s still Tess, and you know her better than your readers ever will.)
“Congrats to Dusty, with whom I share the X-Men love, because I know I saw you on a noteworthy best-of 2006 list.”
Oooh! Thanks…which one? Gerald’s?
“(What did you think of the third one? A little bombastic, but I liked it more than I thought I would.)”
It did go over the top at times (like the bit with the bridge) but on the whole, I liked it a lot. The second one’s still my favorite, though.
I’ve never read Hannibal, but I’m a huge fan of Manhunter. I’ve often wondered if when film and TV get their hands on a character, series or otherwise, whether the author should even see the end result, because it could sway the author when writing. What’s on the screen, big or small, is the director’s, not the author’s, perception of the character(s). And maybe I’m a purist, but sometimes I just don’t want to see someone else’s idea of something I’ve read and enjoyed. Little Children is the one that comes to mind at the moment; loved the book but have stayed away from the movie just because of that.
A friend of mine was working at South Seas Plantation, a resort in Captiva, Fla., when the “Manhunter” crew parachuted in for the Graham-at-home scenes. She said Michael Mann insisted that authentic Tab (in cans) be shipped in special for him. For the life of me, I will never understand this brand of prima donna-ness. We all have our preferences in food and drink, but shit, dude, a little Diet Coke never killed anyone. Or water, for that matter.
Also, Don Johnson came over from the “Miami Vice” set for a visit, and went running in the morning. She saw him in her rearview mirror coming to work one day. “How’d he look?” I asked, this being when Johnson was considered the ne plus ultra of hottitude. “Sweaty,” she said.
Also, one good book in Thomas Harris? Please. Not only were the first two Hannibal books quite good, he wrote “Black Sunday,” too. It was much better than the movie but contained a strange line I still remember, something about the crazy disturbed blimp pilot going down on his beautiful Palestinian keeper, and she tasted like “bananas and salt.” Hmm. Bananas. Hmm.
(In “Red Dragon,” Freddie Lounds decides to go tabloid after he sees a man on the copy desk of the respectable newspaper he works for get up and whisper to some matron, who slips him a sanitary napkin to stuff down the back of his pants. I always wonder if that scene was based on something Harris saw when he worked for the AP.)
Finally, Laura, did you ever read Martin Amis’ evisceration of “Hannibal”? Originally published in the late Talk magazine, it’s in his nonfic collection (the War on Clich�? Death to Clich�s? somethin’ like that). It’s the sort of cheery takedown that makes a writer hope Amis never, ever reads a word you wrote.
I do remember the Amis takedown. I’m a huge admirer of the man, but he deserved his own takedown for NIGHT TRAIN. Although not the one Updike wrote in the New Yorker, which began by ridiculing Amis for the opening: “I am a police.” Updike said it proved that Amis had no ear for American speech. Actually, it proved that Amis had read HOMICIDE: A YEAR ON THE KILLING STREETS and it is, exactly, what Baltimore detectives say. I am a police, I am a murder police.
Years ago, on the late, lamented, AOL Hardboiled Board, someone asked what was the most disappointing book we had ever read, relative to our expectations. I think I got there first, or close, and I said that Hannibal was not only that book for me, but that it had retired the award. There will never be another book I look forward to so much that disappoints me so much, because after Hannibal I will never look forward to a book with such golden hopes.
To me, Hannibal (and, by the sound of it, Hannibal Rising, which I would not read if you put a gun to my head)was a complete betrayal of character, setting, and the writer’s talent. For all I know, Harris spent all eleven years struggling with it, but it read like something written in six weeks, a device with which to extract cash from reader’s pockets, money better spent on Lawrence Block, Lee Child, SJ Rozan, Keith Snyder, and every writer who posts on this blog.
Not to mention Laura Lippman!
Anthony Lane takes a whack at H.R. (whose failure he calls “absolute”) in a recent New Yorker. He says it’s the sort of book that makes you wonder if the early ones are actually as good as you thought. I can’t think of another writer who’s done more to ruin his reputation than Thomas Harris.
By the way, count me in with the group that loves Manhunter (and would have loved it even more if Mann had included the original ending), who prefers Brian Cox to Anthony Hopkins, who thinks that Joan Allen gave one of the best performances of her career in it, and who thinks that the incomparable Red Dragon is by far the best book in Harris’s career.
Whoa. Opinions, much?
Although it has nothing to do with Thomas Harris, I also give “Manhunter” props for its use of “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida,” perhaps the perfect song for that scene, and maybe the only scene where “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” would have worked.
Hey, don’t forget The Simpsons, in which Bart substitutes In-a-Gadda-da-Vida sheet music at church and the elderly organist almost passes out . . .
Meanwhile, I feel as if I’ve started a MANHUNTER self-help group.
I have so many memories tied to Hannibal. LAMBS was being filmed on the Marine base in Quantico where my husband and I were based. Every day my husband would come home and say “Hey Babe, guess who I saw today?” I would say, “Jodie Foster.” And then he would say OOH-RAH!!!” I’m glad that didn’t work out for me.
I also can remember reading HANNIBAL and late late at night I came to the end, and I read the Clarice/Hannibal freak-ness and I seriously thought “Oh you read that wrong — Clarice would never do that.” So I re-read it several times … and I was so upset. I just felt so bothered by what he did with Clarice.
>>>I just felt so bothered by what he did with Clarice.<<<
Not to mention tossing off Will Graham in SILENCE with a single line about his being a “drunk with a ruined face” or some such.
I was absolutely sure that Clarice and Graham were going to team up in the sequel to SILENCE to recapture or kill Lecter–it would be the chance for Will to redeem himself. But no….
I never dreamed that Harris would have such contempt for his characters and the genre as a whole.
grrr….when’s the next meeting for the self-help group???
I actually saw Manhunter not long ago, and I had forgotten how good Cox was as Lecter, but then Brian Cox always gives good villain. See, e.g., The Bourne Supremacy, X-Men 2, etc. etc. Maybe Hopkins’ portrayal stood out because we’re not so used to thinking of him as the bad guy.
As for your questions: I’m convinced that the popularity of Hopkins’ Lecter is what’s driving Harris commercially now. I couldn’t get into Hannibal at all because it did seem as if he was trying too hard to re-create Hopkins’ scariness. I haven’t even bothered with Hannibal Rising.
PS congratulations on a good writing day.
You’re not the only one who liked Cox’s performance. I was really disappointed that he didn’t get to continue with the role, but in Hollywood (and in Harris’s part of the literary world)commerce rules.
I thought HANNIBAL RISING had the ick factor that Harris was striving for (unsuccessfully) in HANNIBAL, but neither was as good as either RED DRAGON or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. I’m just a reader though, and not a writer. But I agree that Hannibal was the least interesting character. I was very angry with Harris for making Clarice an appendage in HANNIBAL and did not buy HANNIBAL RISING but borrowed it (my revenge).
And don’t you writers call it homage when you borrow from other writers you admire?
Since I’ve outed myself as a (mere) reader, can I just say that I love writers who reward their readers by assuming that we’ve read previous books? Writers who do this get me hooked…I’ve got to go back and read everything that lead up to whatever book I came into the series with (not that I’m OC or anything).
“…Who owns a character?”
The person imagining him/her at any particular moment. You (the writer) may have something different in mind when you pen “the tall, dark, handsome man rode in on a white horse” than I (the reader) see as I read it. The mind’s eye is colored by where each of us is relative to the adjectives. If I’m a five-foot-one Egyptian woman, my tall and dark is different than a five-foot-eight Scandinavian woman may imagine. For that matter, the horses we imagine are probably different too.
Linda,
No “mere” readers in this writer’s world. Readers are our gods, our bosses. In fact, my next book is dedicated to two “mere” readers and, by extension, all readers.
Oh, and congrats to Dusty, with whom I share the X-Men love, because I know I saw you on a noteworthy best-of 2006 list. (What did you think of the third one? A little bombastic, but I liked it more than I thought I would.)
Finally, let’s not forget Cox in the writer’s movie of all writer’s movies, THE ORCHID THIEF. Love!
MANHUNTER is the best of the Harris-spawned films.
There are more than a few people (including me) who subscribed to the theory that Harris had one great book in him, and has been trying to recapture the lightning ever since.
RED DRAGON introduced an enitre new genre/style to crime writing. Part of the reason it was so great it that we had not seen anything like it before.
Harris needs to step back out on the tightrope.
I prefer MANHUNTER because Michael Mann’s decision to put Lecter in a stark, white prison seemed a better choice than the gothic one in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. (However, SOLT has my favorite line of all time: “Baltimore can be a fascinating city if you have the right guide.” From memory, so not exact. See name of this blog.)
And I know it’s silly to carp about changes from book to film, but I caught the beginning of the RED DRAGON remake, and I thought the changes in the Graham-Lecter confrontation, the one in which Lecter attempts to kill Graham, were all for the worst.
Homer: “Hey Marge, remember when we used to make out to this hymn?”
After I read HANNIBAL I thought Harris had written it as a sort of screw you to his readers. It was his way of saying, These are my characters and I’ll ruin them as I see fit.
And MANHUNTER was great. Love Brian Cox. Michael Mann is a god and his every prima donna wish should come true so that I may experience cinematic Nirvana whenever his movies come out.
But it is interesting that X-Men 3 also came up in the comments for this post on who owns characters. In my opinion, X3 was horrible (Director Brett Ratner was also responsible for the atrocious RED DRAGON remake) – I’d even go beyond giving it a thumbs down and just give it the finger.
One of the reason I say this is because of what they did with many of the characters. Granted, in movies it’s hard to say who “owns” the characters (depending on your view of the “auteur theroy” of filmmaking) because there are so many creative people involved; but in novels, it’s obvious who the creator is. Does that person have the right to do whatever they wish with their creation? Sure, they have the right; but they also have a responsibility to respect his/her audience. Does Harris have the right to turn Clarice into a cannibal living with Lecter at the end of HANNIBAL? Yes. Should he have? No.
As long as we’re revealing grudges, I’ll also never forgive David Fincher for the kiss-off that was ALIEN 3. I mean, we live or die for two and a half hours with the main characters in ALIENS, only to find out three minutes into the sequel that ALIENS’ happy ending was a complete lie?
Way to destroy a franchise, Dave. Go to your room.
Since it’s that time of year, any chance we’ll be getting a “Best of ’06″ book list from you?
So far, I haven’t done a full list, but I did name a favorite book of the year for my January letter, which I just filed yesterday so it hasn’t posted yet. My fave book of 2006 (actually a 2005 title) was A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN.
I’ve mentioned THE NIGHT GARDENER repeatedly. I also was crazy about THE SONG IS YOU, a 2007 release. More titles as they occur to me.
The only comment I have here is this: everyone says my father looks like Anthony Hopkins. And it’s quite true. I’m so glad I never knew the Hannibal character until I was older, or I might have been terrified of my own dad.
Joe, I’m with you on Alien 3, and Steve, I’m with you on X-3. The problem with that one for me was I cut my teeth on the beauty and pathos of the original Dark Phoenix saga, which I read 35 and 40 cents at a time (plus, I think, 75 cents for that double-issue #137 where it all came to an end). The movie version felt like a slap in the face, but then I’m one of those people who thought the Lord of the Rings movies were pleasurable visual spectacle, but obviously Peter Jackson didn’t have the slightest clue what Tolkien was actually saying in the novel.
But that’s off track. I’m pleased that I’m not the only one out here to prefer Cox to Hopkins and MANHUNTER to the subsequent entries. SOTL was a good film, but, yes, the dungeon was overwrought, and there were scenes I often thought felt bigger than they really were due to use of melodramatic music and low camera angles.
As for what Harris has done subsequently, I find myself struggling to care. HANNIBAL was a pint of blood spread over a ballroom floor. Looked dramatic at a glance, but a little Windex and a paper towel and you realize there’s no there there. If someone sent me a copy of HANNIBAL RISING, I’d find a use for it, probably. I have a table with a short leg out in the garage.
Ah, the internet where one is never alone no matter how unpopular the opinion. Yes, “Manhunter” is the best of the Harris movies (despite the dated soundtrack) and Cox is the superior Lector. (The all white sterility is far worse than any dungeon.) When I read Hannibal I was dismayed-Clarice & Hannibal’s destinies were intertwined but not in that way. I’m staying far away from Hannibal Rising and so far my customers are too. They kind of read like “f__ yous” to Hollywood to me as opposed to the readers which seems odd because if anyone has been pretty well served by Hollywood it’s Harris.
Bill–
That’s exactly how I encountered Dark Phoenix, issue by issue, guided by Chris Claremont, the late Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne. I couldn’t bring myself to see X-3 after I read an interview with Brett Ratner where he talked about how he had “improved” the story.
And I lost all faith in Peter Jackson after KING KONG. I think the man better go back to something like the great HEAVENLY CREATURES (or DEAD ALIVE!) pronto.
FYI – If I remember correctly, the outside of the all-white prison in Manhunter was the High Museum in Atlanta. A bit of slightly off-topic trivia.
Nice trivia!
I had a few minutes to kill in my car today, and I read the end of Red Dragon. The ending is really wonderful, on so many levels. Can anyone tell me if the new film used it?