Capable, well-crafted thriller rises a half-step above the genre

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	• Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris St. Martin's Press, 1999 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 271 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME!

Thomas Harris is the real deal, and this is the second time I've read Silence of the Lambs. I loved everything about the story, including:

- The well-drawn characters, esp. the heroine: Clarice Starling, the FBI trainee from a poor background. How Harris describes her--her hillbilly idioms, the chip on her shoulder, her perception of sexism from her colleagues--is flat-out brilliant. The other characters are equally well-defined, like her boss Crawford with his dying wife and, of course, Dr. Lecter.

- The original, interesting prose. Harris writes prose that's both unique yet utterly unpretentious (unlike, say, Dennis Lehane with his "silkworm[s] of smiles," etc.). For example, in describing a guy nervous about asking Clarice out on a date, Harris writes, "Pilcher polished his teeth, his tongue moving behind his lips like a cat beneath the covers." Brilliant!

- The excellent dialog. Again, like the prose, unique yet not contrived. There are so many zingers in the novel, and the dialog adds to the character of the person speaking. Roger Ebert commented about this line in the movie--which was, of course, taken from the novel. In looking over a dead body, Clarice notices the body wore glitter polish on her fingers, and she says, "Looks like town to me." Here, not only is the expression interesting, it shows Clarice's poor background growing up.

- Structure. Though Harris doesn't write in super-short prose of, say, James Cain or even Ira Levin, you're never bored in this novel. From beginning to end, you just trust that Harris knows what he's doing--and he does.

So . . . overall, 5 stars out of 5. I would recommend this book along with all his other novels, even Hannibal Rising--which, while not his best effort, is still light-years better than any novel by such atrocious writers like Dennis Lehane and James Patterson.

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Silence of the lambs

I enjoyed this book immensely and got it for a great price in good condition.

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Can You Hear the Lambs Screaming?

It is a cliche to say the book is always better than the movie. It is not. Although rare, one can point to the sluggish novel THE BOURNE IDENTITY or the real life trek across the Australian Outback of RABBIT PROOF FENCE as instances of the movie far outperforming the source material. It is a testament to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS that, despite an excellent and modern-day classic movie, the flick still does not reach the standard of the book. If Thomas Harris' previous book Red Dragon set the standard for the modern serial killer novel, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS picks up the baton and runs with it very well on its own.

The plot is well known. When a killer leaves a trail of skinned women in his wake, the FBI turns once again to the psychopathic Hannibal Lecter for some helpful hints. Upon taking a liking to Clarice Starling, Lecter engages in a tit-for-tat with the young heroine, providing clues to the killer's thinking in exchange for Starling's personal history.

Despite the viciousness of the plot, the true strength of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is its subtlety. Harris refrains from delving into Lecter's inner thoughts or past history and simply presents him, instead, as the embodiment of pure evil (a portrayal that Harris later spoils in the atrocious Hannibal). That he is smarter than anyone else around makes him more interesting still, but also exposes a personal flaw. Like many people who rely too heavily on their own superior intelligence, Lecter fails to notice other defects in his personality that allow others to gain a tactical advantage over him.

Clarice Starling is also excellently drawn. Just enough of the `awe shucks' country girl left in her, combined with that loss of naivety one usually develops the hard way, she provides the perfect foil for Lecter's malevolent sophistication. You know she will hold herself together in the end. But you also know it will take its toll on her.

Harris later tarnished these excellent characters in subsequent books, so badly, in fact, that it is hard not to see them as diminished even retroactively here. But THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS should be judged on its own. And on its own, it will keep a reader turning the pages until the end.

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Even better than the movie. . .

Don't take this wrong, the movie was excellent. But the book has so much more riveting detail that wasn't incorporated into the film. Thomas Harris is in a league of his own, the master of creating suspense. Hannibal Lecter and Jame Gumb are two of the sickest fictional sociopaths ever created. The Silence of the Lambs is one of my all-time favorite books. If you haven't read this book yet, now is the time.

Capable, well-crafted thriller rises a half-step above the genre

The book would never receive the accolades that the movie did, because it doesn't rise head and shoulders above the pack in terms of quality.

While the movie was seen as a genre-topping masterpiece, the book is merely very good.

The book, like the movie, hinges on the powerful character of Hannibal Lecter, a man whose viciousness is almost overshadowed by his preternatural genius. Lecter is what makes the book special, and Harris deserves plenty of credit for coming up with a twist on the "evil genius" that is both fresh and iconic.

I would recommend that you read the Lecter books in sequence, although you might want to forgo the closing entry, "Hannibal."

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

As part of the search for a serial murderer nicknames "Buffalo Bill," FBI trainee Clarice Starling is given an assignment. She must visit a man confined to a high-security facility for the criminally insane and interview him.

That man, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, is a former psychiatrist with unusual tastes and an intense curiosity about the darker corners of the mind. His intimate understanding of the killer and of Clarice herself form the core of The Silence of the Lambs--an unforgettable classic of suspense fiction.

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