Boekverslag Thomas Harris

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Datum ingestuurd:	9 oktober 2003
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Titel:	The silence of the lambs
	De schreeuw van het lam
Auteur:	Harris, Thomas
Jaar van uitgave:	1988
Aantal pagina's:	379
Verfilmd als:	Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Auteur:	Harris, Thomas
Geslacht:	man
Nationaliteit:	Engels
Populaire titels:	1988The silence of the lambs / De schreeuw van het lam (14) 1999Hannibal (5) 1981Red dragon (1)

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Subject: Thriller, Horror, Mysterie

0.1 Bibliography
Title: Silence of the lambs
Author: Thomas Harris
Publisher: Peerage Books
Year of publication: 1993
Number of pages: 256 pages
Consulted source:
http://huiswerk.scholieren.com/uittreksels/verslag.php?verslagid=11858
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/thomasharris/meet.html

0.2 Summary (full)
Clarice Starling is trainee agent at the FBI. One day, Jack Crawford, chef of Behavioural Science, ask her to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The FBI is busy with Buffalo Bill, a new serial killer. He is a ex-patient of Lecter, who is America’s most famous serial killer. He ate his victims. Clarice admit and she visit Hannibal in the institution he is in. She goes in on her own, because Lecter doesn’t trust the guards. Hannibal is very friendly to her. He ask if she is from Crawford and some more things. Then she ask about the question list, but she is a bit clumsy. He respond immediately and start to offend her. The conversation ended in a fight. At last Lecter decided to help her, but he wants to know more about herself. Starling agrees and she tells him about her youth and the lambs, who were slaughtered. She still have dreams about these memories from the past. As compensation she gets the information she wants about Buffalo Bill.
The daughter of the senator is also kidnapped. The senator wants to do everything to get her back.
In the meanwhile the police did an autopsy and Starling find a cocoon of the death’s head moth in her mouth.
The senator promises Lecter a better place to live, in exchange for the name and description of the murderer. He agrees, but he escapes in his overnight stay hotel. He order some dinner and he murders the agents who bring his food. He use the skin of one of them to escape. He seemed to be disappeared.
In the meanwhile, the FBI has the address of Buffalo Bill, his real name is Jame Gumb. Starling goes to another place, where a customer of one of the victims lives. But the FBI is wrong and Starling is at the house of the murderer alone. She finds that out, when she sees the death’s head moth in a bottle. Gumb tries to escape to the basement and Clarice follows him. She find the daughter of the senator and she is totally healthy. She goes further and find Gumb. She shoot him, just before he shoot her. He is dead and Starling succeed at the FBI.
Then she get a letter of Lecter, who isn’t gone. He writes he would never hurt her and he ask if the lambs have stopped screaming…….

Source:
http://huiswerk.scholieren.com/uittreksels/verslag.php?verslagid=11858

1.1 Summary (50-100 words)
FBI-agent Clarice Starling is asked to interrogate Dr. Hannibal Lecter about a serial murderer. Clarice starts a search for the murderer. An important part of the story is the first meeting between Clarice Starling and Dr. Lecter. This happens in the 3rd chapter. Here the story really starts; Lecter helps her with the case of Buffalo Bill and agent Starling gives him a look in her childhood. Also important for the story is the escape of Dr. Lecter. This is a very thrilling part of the story. The pursuit of Clarice by the murderer Buffalo Bill is really thrilling.

1.2 Motivation of choice
I have chosen this book because I had already seen the movie and I really liked it. The first time I saw the movie I was really scared. I was not so old at that time. But because I liked the movie I wanted to read the book, and now I’ve read it for my Reading Portfolio.

1.3 a. Author
I’d never heard about Thomas Harris before, but I really liked this book, so maybe I’m gonna read more books of him.

1.3 b. Subject
I have never read a book before that was about cannibalism. I did read books about serial murderers and stuff like that.

1.3 Author
A native of Mississippi, Thomas Harris began his writing career covering crime in the United States and Mexico, and was a reporter and editor for the Associated Press in New York City. His first novel, BLACK SUNDAY, was published in 1975, followed by Red dragon in 1981, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in 1988 and Hannibal in 1999.

Analysis

Title
The title doesn´t make anything clear about the contents of the book. It could also have been a story about a farm or something like that where the lambs are always screaming.

Genre
This story is a detective and a psychological novel because the FBI is searching for a murderer (is detective) and you can see how Clarice ´grows psychological´ in the story with the help of Dr. Lecter and his cryptically descriptions and analyses of her.

Theme
The theme is a crime. In this book it´s about Buffalo Bill who killed some people and now the FBI is trying to catch him.

Characters
Clarice M. Starling: Clarice is a young woman and she is a FBI-officer in training. She´s intelligent. She has brown eyes, half long brown hair and is strong. In the beginning she is just a good student but later she is almost a whole FBI-officer.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter: Lecters age is in the fifties. He was but still is a brilliant psychiatrist but he is in jail now. He is intelligent, genius, sophisticated and inaccessible. He has six fingers on his left hand, he is small, sleek wiry strength of his arms. In the beginning he doesn´t want to tell anything about the FBI-case but later he will give Clarice important information.

Time aspects
The story takes place in modern time, because the FBI is using modern technology. And Clarice is a woman working for the FBI, and that´s something of the last 15 years.

Point of view
I believe it´s an auctorial story, because the writer tells the story, but he doesn´t play a role in this book.

Setting
The story takes place in the United States of America. For example in Quantico, Tennessee and Baltimore. I think this story could take place anywhere, so the places Quantico, Tennessee and Baltimore aren´t very important for the story.

Personal Response
I really liked to read this book, I´d already seen the movie, so I knew where the story was going about. It´s a very thrilling story, and I like that. The story is a little bit emotional. For example when Clarice tells about her own feelings when she is busy doing with the case of Buffalo Bill and has almost no social life then. The story is also easy to understand, and for me that´s important. I really liked reading this book.

Assignment nr 1
Some differences between the film and the book.

In the book:
1: The cell of Dr. lecter is made of a wall of bars and a stout nylon net from wall to wall.
2: The cell is at the left side.
3: Dr. Lecter has six fingers on his left hand.
4: Dr. Lecter puts the officer, who he had killed during his escape, at the table with the handcuffs on.
5: At the end, Dr. Lecter writes a letter to Clarice to ask if the lambs have stopped screaming.

In the film:
1: The cell of Dr. lecter is made of glass.
2: The cell is at the right side.
3: Dr. Lecter has five fingers on his left hand.
4: Dr. Lecter crucified the officer, who he had killed, on his temporarily cell.
5: At the end, Dr. Lecter calls Clarice to ask if the lambs have stopped screaming.

A passage of the film

I chose the passage of the escape of Dr. Lecter because that is a very impressive one. In the book it is less impressive than in the film. That is because the bodies of the officers are in the film more knocked about than in the book has been described. For example the officer which is crucified on the cell of Dr. Lecter. That is a really awful view. The director of the film has done that to make it more attractive and horrible, I think. Also the face of Dr. Lecter (as Pembry the officer) is very horrible to see. And the escape of the ambulance is very impressive, how he knows how to escape is really remarkable. And the director of the film has rendered that very well with some good shots.