Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Rising
Author	Thomas Harris
Language	English
Series	Hannibal Lecter
Genre	Thriller
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Publication date	5 December 2006
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	323
ISBN	0-385-33941-0
OCLC	82287375
Preceded by	Hannibal

Hannibal Rising is a novel written by Thomas Harris, published in 2006. It is a prequel to his three previous books featuring his most iconic character, the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The novel was released with an initial printing of at least 1.5 million copies^[1] and met with a mixed critical response. Audiobook versions have also been released, with Harris reading the text. The novel was adapted (by Harris himself) into a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Peter Webber.

Plot summary

Lecter is eight years old at the beginning of the novel (1941), living in Lecter Castle in Lithuania, when Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, turns the Baltic region into a part of the bloodiest front line of World War II. Lecter, his sister Mischa and his parents escape to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries now occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, they destroy a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family's lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until six former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas, storm and loot it. Finding no other food, they kill and cannibalize Mischa, while Lecter watches helplessly. He blacks out and is later found wandering and mute by a Soviet tank crew that takes him back to Lecter Castle, which is now a Soviet orphanage. Lecter is irreparably traumatized by the ordeal, and develops a savage obsession with avenging his sister's death.

Lecter is removed from the orphanage by his uncle, a noted painter, and he goes to live with him in France. The happiness of their lives together is cut short with his uncle's sudden death. Most of the estate is taken for death duties.

Lecter goes to live in reduced circumstances with his Japanese aunt, Lady Murasaki (cf. Lady Murasaki), and they develop a special, quasi-romantic relationship. While in France, Lecter flourishes as a medical student. He commits his first murder as a teenager, killing a local butcher who insulted Murasaki. He is suspected of the butcher's murder by Inspector Popil, a French detective who also lost his family during the war. Thanks in part to Murasaki's intervention, however, Lecter escapes responsibility for the crime.

Lecter divides his time between medical school in France and hunting those who killed and cannibalized his sister. One by one, he crosses paths with Grutas' men, killing them all in the most inventively gruesome ways possible. Eventually, Popil arrests Lecter, but Lecter is freed when popular support for his dispatch of war criminals combines with a lack of hard evidence. The novel ends with Lecter going to America to begin his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Characters in Hannibal Rising

Hannibal Lecter
Lady Murasaki
Inspector Popil
Vladis Grutas - has large letter 'M's carved in his chest and body; is reduced to ash when Lecter rigs his yacht to explode.
Zigmas Milko - drowned in Formalin solution in a cadaver tank
Enrikas Dortlich - his head is ripped off after Lecter ties his neck to a horse; his cheeks are then cut off. Hannibal later confess that he has eaten them.
Petras Kolnas - is stabbed through the head with a tanto dagger
Bronys Grentz - is beheaded by Lecter who then mails the head to a Taxidermist
Kazys Porvik aka Pot Watcher - killed by a bomb, before Lecter begins his mission
Paul Momund - Hannibal's first victim
Robert Lecter
Mischa Lecter

Development

The February 22, 2007 issue of Entertainment Weekly features a quote that suggests that the only reason Thomas Harris wrote the story was out of the fear that a Lecter prequel/origin story would inevitably be written without his involvement. Hannibal Rising film producer Dino De Laurentiis said "I say to Thomas, 'If you don't do [the prequel], I will do it with someone else...I don't want to lose this franchise. And the audience wants it...' He said, 'No. I'm sorry.' And I said, 'I will do it with somebody else.' And then he said, 'Let me think about it. I will come up with an idea.'"^[2]

Connections and contradictions

Hannibal Lecter's documented and actual birthdate and his age when his sister died are not consistent. The novel Hannibal firmly states in a flashback that he was six years old when his sister died; in Hannibal Rising, his age is changed to eight for unknown reasons. The novel attributes this to Lecter falsifying documents to confuse authorities, though the passages in Hannibal setting these events at age six appear in Lecter's own thoughts.
No mention is made of Lecter's bizarre condition on his left hand called mid-ray duplication dactyly, or a fully functional sixth finger (duplicated middle finger).
In Hannibal, Lecter dreams seeing Mischa's baby teeth in a reeking stool pit after the deserters' men kill her. In Rising, he has similar visions, but when he later visits Mischa's remains before giving her a dignified burial, he notes that all her teeth are intact.

References

^ AP (2006-09-19). "New Hannibal Lecter novel due in December". CNN. Retrieved 2006-09-19.
^ "I have no idea what Tom's next book will be. It may not involve the Hannibal character at all. His deal does not require that. He is an important American novelist and writes what he chooses, when he chooses."

External links

[cnn-1] AP (2006-09-19). "New Hannibal Lecter novel due in December". CNN. Retrieved 2006-09-19.

[2] "I have no idea what Tom's next book will be. It may not involve the Hannibal character at all. His deal does not require that. He is an important American novelist and writes what he chooses, when he chooses."

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