#which order

The answer is......

Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon, John, Kayo

With the Hannibal Lecter series in particular, I made sure to read ALL the books, in chronological order, before watching any of the movies or the TV show. After watching Hannibal Rising and Red Dragon, I finally got around to watching The Silence of the Lambs and I was disappointed to say the least. I can’t say exactly what the problem was, but I didn’t think it really lived up to all the hype. Of course, I can’t deny that Anthony Hopkins is a phenomenal actor--especially by the standards he set with this performance--but I can’t go around recommending this movie. If I’m being honest, however, the whole horror genre (or whatever Hannibal is) doesn’t appeal to me in general so maybe it was a stretch to expect I would love it, but the criminal and psychological aspect is SO me. Even when reading The Silence of the Lambs, I didn’t find it nearly as interesting or horrifying as Red Dragon. Suffice to say, I couldn’t wait for the movie to end, mostly because I already knew how it ended and had nothing to look forward to in watching it. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me--when I tried watching Veronika Decides to Die after reading the book, I couldn’t get into it. So now I am rethinking everything I’ve ever known.

In some ways, it makes sense that these book-movies with suspenseful or surprising endings don’t go over as well the second time around, but shouldn’t I--as a visual person--still enjoy watching the theatrical representations? I’ve always read the books first because I believed in the power of my imagination and the power of the author’s words so I didn’t want to miss anything that the author may have chose to include, but maybe there’s an exception: if a movie adaptation is widely recognized as being excellent, then perhaps it is okay to forego the book. 

The other possibility is that I have gotten so accustomed to watching shows and having storylines wrapped up, more or less, in 20-45 minutes that I can’t really sit through a whole two hours. However, immediately after The Silence of the Lambs, I went ahead and easily watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (which I have seen before) and I have read and absolutely loved those books--although a long time ago, so I don’t remember everything.