Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

It seems like ever since I started keeping my laptop next to my bed (it's been over a year now) I've grown terribly lazy (and cheap) in my reading habits, reading (and often re-reading and even re-re-reading) fanfics online instead of actual books by even favorite authors.

I even read the latest Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan-verse novel Captain Vorpatril's Alliance in a free electronic copy last September, thanks to missmurchison . . . and lost a lot of sleep, being unable to put down the laptop until morning's light, when I was just ten pages short of the ending and couldn't keep my eyes open a second longer!

But yesterday I became reacquainted with "my old self", in a sense, by spending all day and all night reading two novels by new-to-me (but probably not to anybody else!) author Thomas Harris, The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal . . . in super-cheap, used, library-surplus editions shipped to me from England, courtesy of Amazon, of course. :)

On the other hand, I probably never would've been so keen to read those books if I hadn't recently gone on a binge of reading Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal fanfic, some of which had hinted at some pretty big differences between the books and the movies based on them (which I'd only seen on TV and hadn't particularly loved, though I was intrigued enough and frustrated enough by the ending of the movie "Hannibal" to go looking for alternate ending fanfic).

[Note: selected fanfic recommendations follow below.]

While there was, for me, only one really significant difference among the many smaller changes made in the film version of "Silence" as compared to the book (Clarice having succeeded in saving the life of the blind horse she ran off with in the book, vs. being unsuccessful in saving one lamb from the slaughter in the movie), it was enough to make me glad to have read the novel and to prefer it over the movie, in spite of the undeniable strength of Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Dr. Lecter.

However, the differences between at least the latter half of the movie "Hannibal" (which is all I happened to catch and re-watch on AMC last Friday, and I don't remember much about the first half at all, if indeed I've ever even seen the movie from the very beginning) and the 500+ pages of the novel which deprived me of sleep last night and this morning were QUITE significant and startling!

Some of the fanfic I'd read had said that it dealt with book rather than movie canon, of course, but never having read the book I had no idea of how much of the fic's divergence from the film was taken directly from the Harris novel and how much was the author's own invention or AU spin on the characters and story developments.

Now that I know the book, I must say that I found it far more satisfying and pleasingly unsettling (if that makes sense at all?) than the film "Hannibal" . . . in spite of the fact that the performances by Julianne Moore and Anthony Hopkins really hooked me in and made me far more interested in possible alternate endings or better futures for Starling and Lecter than the earlier film had done.

I haven't decided whether to go back and read the first Lecter novel, Red Dragon, yet (it was included in one volume with Silence of the Lambs in the old hardcover library edition I bought, and I read the first 60+ pages of Dragon before deciding that I'd prefer to dive right into Silence with the less damaged Clarice Starling as the protagonist, instead of Will Graham). And from some things I've heard/read in the fanfic, it sounds as though Hannibal Rising might be too much of a credibility stretch (plus, no Starling, of course, so . . . ).

Anyone out there have an opinion to offer? Am I missing out on some essential "Lecter-ness" if I never get around to reading the other novels?

********************************

As promised above, here are some of the Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal fanfics (of the Starling/Lecter persuasion, in some sense) that I've recently read and enjoyed on ff.net. There are scads more I've not yet looked at, of course, and I haven't even begun to explore AO3 yet for fics in this 'verse, so if anyone knows of any good ones I should check out, please let me know!

These fics may take off from a foundation of movie-canon, book-canon, or some combination of the two, but they all spoke to me in some way and had few enough proof-reading problems that I could read them in relative comfort. Be warned that none are especially kind to the character of Jack Crawford, as far as I can recall:

-- Breaking Free by BookishGal (first story in a well-written, psychologically satisfying, complete trilogy which goes AU during Silence, with the failure of Hannibal's escape attempt in Memphis. The other two stories in the trilogy are Playing House and Finding Peace, which just get better and better.)

-- Taking Liberties and "Skin Game" by Green Jewels ("Taking Liberties" is a prequel one-shot that expands upon Dr. Lecter's activities in St. Louis immediately following his escape in Silence, and then "Skin Game" goes AU at the end of that novel, with Lecter choosing to stick close and work on helping Clarice to find her true self much, much sooner. Technically unfinished at 56 chapters since April of 2011, and removed by the author from FFN in early 2013, "Skin Game" still resolves much and leaves the characters in a pretty good place. I have saved the entire text of "Skin Game" and some of the more interesting reviews from FFN in document form, and am happy to share. This author's work is my favorite Lecter-fic, so far.)

-- No More a Savage Life: Chapter One by lovinghannibal (picks up right at the end of the movie "Hannibal". In spite of the title, this story is 13 chapters long, but it is the first installment in a very long and not yet entirely completed trilogy. Chapter Two is complete at 144 chapters long, but I took a break at the end of chapter 32, when one major story-line had been completed and it seemed like a new episode in our heroes' lives was about to begin.)

-- Tell Me a Secret by kalabangsilver (picks up with Hannibal and Clarice in Buenos Aires, about 3 months after leaving the U.S. together near the end of the novel Hannibal, enjoying some unusual-but-so-very-them pillow talk. Ten secrets shared in ten meaty, sexy, quirky chapters.)

-- Paper Trails by kalabangsilver (picks up just after the end of the book Hannibal, but then goes more than a little AU, with Ardelia Mapp firmly convinced that Lecter had kidnapped Starling and that Clarice needs rescuing. 70 chapters long, with mucho angst along the way, as Clarice moves heaven and earth to save Hannibal's life and liberty, but the sub-plots and supporting characters do all work together in the end.)

-- Redemption by duffie83 and MajorBachman (desperately in need of proof-reading, at some points, but addictive and engaging enough to allow me to overlook that fact. Ten years after not leaving with Dr. Lecter at the end of Hannibal and having made her own way as a P.I. after quitting the FBI, 43-year-old Clarice is hired to hunt down a new serial killer in Italy, which leads to an unexpectedly happy reunion with Hannibal. The sequel Transcendence is now posted and complete, as well.)

-- Silent Reception by SLovingLecter (often funny one-shot which picks up one year after the end of the movie "Hannibal".)