Hannibal (1999), a Psychological Thriller Novel by Thomas Harris: Summary

Today, Mr. Harris is one of the most privileged writers in the world and one of the best rewarded. Of course, Mr. Harris is always good in any level; plot, set, writing, and character. Hannibal draws the reader to wildly imagination in any set; Lithuania in Nazy time, learning Dante’s first sonnet at Palazzo Capponi in Florence, ran away a hunt man from Brazil to Canada and come back to Maryland. Although I have watched the adapted movie but this book has larger meaning and I read this book meticulously, some of them three times. This is my second read and a wonderful memory remains with this novel when experiencing winter in Osaka city some years ago. The book consists of 544 pages and is printed by Bantam Dell, New York in 2005 meanwhile its original edition was printed in 1999.

Hannibal (1999), a Psychological Thriller Novel by Thomas Harris: Summary

FBI, DEA, SWAT, and DC. Police officers hunt drug dealer, Evalda Drumgo, a former model. FBI Special agent Clarice Starling, thirty two, shot Evalda while held her infant. She shot Evalda but she saved the infant. Evalda was widow of drug dealer. She had caught twice, when she was in D.C detention, she killed an inmate. She is dangerous and will fight. She had a balisong knife in her bra. News called Clarice Starling as “The FBI Killing Machine.” Media and her friends predicted that it was end of her career.

Clarice Starling, FBI Special Agent’s colorful career began soon after she arrived at the FBI Academy as a trainee. An honors graduate of University of Virginia in psychology and criminology, she was assigned to interview the lethal madman Dr. Lecter Hannibal, dubbed by newspaper; Hannibal the Cannibal and received information from him that was important in the search and rescue daughter of former US Senator.

Behavioral Science is the FBI section that deals with serial murder. Jack Crawford, the section director, assigned Starling on Dr. Lecter case since she got a letter from the monster. Her first task was to interview Mason Verger, an early victim of Dr. Lecter. Verger was still alive on a respirator in Maryland.

There is a witchy beauty about Muskrat Farm, the Verger family’s mansion near the river in northern Maryland. The Verger meatpacking dynasty bought it in the 1930. Today the Vergers slaughter 86,000 cattle a day, approximately 36,000 pigs. Mason Verger’s long-paralyzed body tapered away to nothing on the elevated hospital bed. Mason, noseless, lipless, with no soft tissue on his face, was all teeth, like a creature of the deep, deep ocean.

The court assigned Lecter as his therapist but he attacked Mason. Verger family posted the reward after Dr. Lecter escaped from custody in Memphis. Clarice visited the criminally insane hospital where Dr. Lecter had lived for eight years. Clarice investigated Barney, the former nurse of Lecter.

Starling never expected to go straight to elite Behavioral Science section when she graduated from FBI academy. She knew she would spend several years in the field offices first. She would never go to Behavioral Science, despite the wishes of its chief, Jack Crawford.

Mason’s father was a pioneer in many areas of live stock production, particularly in the area of economy. His early experiments with cheap feed rank fifty years before. He first took away the pigs’ fresh drinking water and had them drink ditch liquor, made of fermented animal waste, to hasten weight gain. Molson Verger’s leadership in the meatpacking industry did not stop there. Verger bought breeding stock worldwide and sponsored a number of foreign breeding programs.

It was Mason’s idea to have the U.S government and the United Nations to slaughter all native pigs in Haiti, citing the danger from them of African swine flu. He was then able to sell the government great white American pigs to replace the native swine. For his new purpose, he bought together the best of all that he had seen. Mason began his breeding program facility the Vergers owned in Sardinia. Any pig will eat a dead people, but to get him to eat a live one some education is required.

Chief investigator Rinaldo Pazzi of the Questura was a corrupted police. It was the hunt for another serial killer, II Mostro, that made Pazzi famous and then left crows peck at his heart. He called on the American FBI’s Behavioral Science section for help in profiling the killer and read anything he could find on FBI profiling methods. He had found Hanibal Lecter living in Florence.

Pazzi’s business today was: The long time curator of the Palazzo Capponi was missing. The missing curator was a bachelor, a well-respected quite scholar with an orderly life. He had saving and nothing much. All he had was his job and with it the privilege of living in attic of Palazzo Capponi. Dr. Fell was a new curator of Palazzo Capponi. The memberships affirmed Dr. Fell as master of Palazzo Capponi. Pazzi studied Dr. Fell was the most hunt man, Dr. Lecter. It is true Dr. Lecter created the vacancy at Palazzo Capponi by removing the former curator. The monster had found a peace here that he would preserve- he has killed hardly anybody, except his predecessor, during his residence in Florence.

Pazzi hired an inmate gypsy woman. In all her attempts to pick a pocket, no one had ever offered violence to a woman holding baby. When the gypsy saw Lecter’s face she said Lecter was Shaitan, Son of the Morning. She asked another gypsy to do it for her. Gnocco got Lecter’s bracelet but he got killed. The technician of Police’ Department Identification Section worked during the day, but Mason was paying a very high and private fee in cash. It matched with Dr. Lecter’s FBI finger print card. Mason was not interested in court and he chose to catch the guy that made dog food out of his face.

Six men, four Sardinians and two Romans, worked for Mason. The pornographer, Oreste Pini, Mason Sardinian foreman, a professional kidnapper named Carlo Deogracias disliked each other from the beginning. Before Pazzi tried to kill Lecter, the monster caught him. The orange rubber cover of the wire noose cold around his neck. Pazzi’s neck broke and his bowels fell out. A short, much-edited piece of tourist’s videotape showing the death of Rinaldo Pazzi was on the television evening news, before Dr. Lecter was identified as the killer. Carlo’s brother also killed by Hannibal. Lecter had sent a mockery letter to Mason since he learned the Italians hunt him for the bounty.

Mason tormented children for fun. He was a child abuser. He gathered trouble children under his roof and made them a playroom. He acted cruelty on those kids and watched them in video all the time. He hired Cordell to keep them all. The same helicopter that brought the foreign newspaper daily to Mason Verger also brought Deputy Assistant Inspector General Paul Krendler to Muskrat Farm. Kendler studied the video of Pazzi’s death again and again. He also informed Lecter had some rich old people in his psychiatric practice and he got them to sign over a lot of money and stocks to him and he hid it good.

Margot Verger was the only sister of Mason. She had a good liberal arts education as well as computer science. Margot had lived with her lover Judy for five years. She asked Mason for harvesting viable sperm on Judy, but Mason preferred her sister to buy a Chinese baby.

Kendler brought Dr. Doemling, head of the psychology department at Baylor University. He explained what kind of bond there might be between Dr. Lecter and FBI agent Starling. Hannibal was born in Lithuania. His father was a count, title dating from tenth century, his mother high-born Italian, a Visconti.

Nazi panzers shelled their estate and killed both parents and most of the servants. Hannibal and his sister, Mischa disappeared after that. The point was, Lecter was an orphan, like Clarice Starling. What a common experience being an orphan gave Dr. Lecter was simply better ability to understand her, and ultimately control her. Starling, a woman, spent her childhood in institutions, and she did not evidence any stable personal relationship with a man. She lived with a former classmate, a young African-American woman, Ardelia Mapp.

Mason hired Barney, a licensed practical nurse. He was in charge of the violent ward at the State Hospital for Criminally Insane for six years when Lecter was there. Lecter would open his eyes long enough to insult some academic who was trying to pick his brain. He made a professor cry. He was interested in Starling. They exchanged information. Dr. Lecter gave her insight on the serial killer she was hunting, and she paid for it with personal information. In the letters he called her warrior and gave her warmth affection to Clarice. Barney reminded Dr. Doemling that the review made him cry.

Lecter had Brazilian passport and ran away from Florence to Canada as a tourist and entered to US. He had chosen Maryland, about an hour’s drive south from Mason Verger’s Farm. A sheriff called Jack Crawford for a murdered case but the old Crawford was stuck in court. The individual with the arrow through his head man was Donnie Leo Barber, thirty two, a deer hunter, resided in a trailer. Clarice studied that Hannibal was in Maryland.

Mason Verger’s majordomo, Cordell, was a large man with exaggerated features who might have been handsome with more animation in his face. He was thirty seven years old. Mason paid him a large salary to be in charge on his wing, with responsibility for his care and feeding. Cordell had witnessed acts of cruelty on video as Mason interviewed little children that would have moved anyone else to rage or tears. Today Cordell was a little concerned about the only matter holy to him, money.

Mason was right in giving the Italians the prime date for catching Dr. Lecter. Despite their failure in Florence, they were by far the most capable at physical man-catching and the most likely to take Lecter alive. Mason allowed only one gun on the mission other than the tranquilizer rifle-that of the driver, Deputy Johnny Mogli, an off-duty officer and long a creature of the Vergers. Mogli grew up speaking Italian at home. He was a person who agreed with everything his victim said before he killed him.

Carlo and the brothers Piero, and Tommaso were in a van in chasing Clarice Starling in a grocery. Dr Lecter followed her too. He unlocked the door of Starling’s car. He started to get in but the dart flashed in the sunlight and with a small thock went through Dr. Lecter’s starched collar into his neck. The drug worked big fast, a big dose in critical place. Starling looked in direction to her car, saw a man’s leg disappearing into a van and thought it was a mugging. She began to run, dodging the cars toward the van. She wrote the plate number. Starling called the reactive squad and reported four men kidnapped Hannibal.

Kendler caught the first sequel on the kidnapping. He called Mason. Dr. Lecter Hannibal hung on the wall beneath the horse skull like a terrible altarpiece. Mason’s TV camera peered at Dr. Lecter from its spidery metal tripod. Mason’s face appeared on the TV monitor and mocked Lecter. Starling drove to Muskrat Farm and would go in the back way. Cordell threatened Lecter with a hyperdermic syringe with long needle in front of Dr. Lecter’s face. He asked lecter to transfer his money to him. But Lecter spat into Cordell’s face. Cordell inserted a needle into the back of each of Dr. Lectre’s hands. Mason would be furious if Lecter’s feet were numb.

Cordell removed the doctor’s shoes and shocks. Starling was coming up behind them. All were facing the other way, facing the pigs. Starling warned and shot them. Carlo and Piero were lying facedown. Lecter had leg free. Tommaso’s rifle flew a silver streak under the floodlights, and quivered in the center on Starling’s back. Dr. Lecter carried Starling in his arms and came out from behind the gate.

Mason whining and crying to get back to his room. Margot had killed Cordell in playroom. She forced Mason to put his sperm in a nonspermicidal condom then she put the eel from the aquarium into Mason’s mouth. Blood blew out Mason’s nose hole and he was drowning.

Clarice Starling lies unconscious in a large bed. Between ministrations to starling, he sits in his arm chair with a big pad of butcher calculations. The pages are filled with the symbols both astrophysics and particle physics. The few mathematicians who could follow him might say his equations begin brilliantly and then decline, doomed by whishful thinking: Dr. Lecter wants time to reverse- no longer should increasing entropy mark the direction of time. Behind his fevered calculation is the desperate wish to make a place for Mischa in the world, perhaps the place now occupied by Starling.

Paul Kendler swung between tedium and rising fear in the first day after the murders. He felt reasonably safe from the audit of Mason’s book because the passage of money Mason to his own numbered account had a fairly foolproof cutout in the Cayman Islands. Starling was listed as missing, but the case was not carried as a kidnapping, as no living person saw her abducted.

Ardelia Mapp tried to find her friend and seized Barney. The nurse only guessed Lecter took her or the pigs got her. Margot visited Barney and gave him brutish visage- the mask Dr. Lecter had been forced to wear in hospital. She left lot of money to him. She said it would be use immunity on conspiracy and could also plant the Lecter’s DNA on Barney’s still form anytime she needed to.

Lecter kidnapped Paul Kendler and killed him sadistically. Barney had plenty of money. Three years later, Barney saw Starling and Lecter in Buenos Aires, Argentine.  Dr. Lecter and Staling was handsome couple. For many months now, he has not seen Mischa in his dreams.

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A wonderful memory in Osaka

Sekapur Sirih 

Bila dalam Red Dragon, tokoh Hannibal tidak banyak berperan dalam karya tersebut maka dalam novel ini sesuai judulnya, penulis Harris memberikan lebih luas gambaran tentang Dr. Hannibal Lecter walau cerita tidak hanya berfokus pada dirinya karena peran agen Starling dan kelompok antagonis lainnya cukup dominan juga. Buku  ini dikemas dalam 544 halaman dan diterbitkan Bantam Dell New York, pada tahun 2005, dan terbitan pertamanya pada tahun 1999. Walau sudah pernah menikmati filmnya yang dibintangi oleh Anthony Hopkins dan Jodie Foster, bacaan memang selalu akan menerbangkan kita pada ruang imaginasi lebih liar.

Tentu saja, tanpa mengesampingkan bantuan visual seperti dalam film-nya karena memang film bagus juga. Tidaklah sia-sia buku dibawa-bawa menyeberang antar negara, dan novel ini menyimpan kenangan indah saat menikmati dinginnya musim salju ketika berlibur di kota metropolitan Osaka. Thriller berkualitas yang dituliskan dengan bahasa indah pula. Pastinya para peminat psikologi thriller, Hannibal sudah seperti buku wajibnya. Tidak diragukan lagi, Thomas Harris adalah salah satu penulis thriller yang tak bercacat baik plot, setting, dan gaya penulisan yang sempurna. Bagi para pembelajar novel berbahasa Inggris, buku ini sangat bagus untuk dijadikan bahan kajian. (Kata Indonesia ada disebut dalam novel ini, Babirusa dari Indonesia Timur disebut pada halaman 117).

Terjemahan dalam Bahasa Indonesia: Hannibal karya Thomas Harris 

Kontak senjata  melawan pengedar narkoba terjadi di sebuah pasar ikan. Badan narkotika DEA, FBI, dan polisi lokal tengah mengepung Evalda Drumgo, janda pengedar, yang sedang menggendong bayinya. Walau sudah diperingatkan menyerah, mantan model yang sudah dua kali ditangkap dan membunuh teman sellnya, tetap melepaskan tembakan pada Jhon Brigman kordinator lapangan FBI. Dua petugas FBI tewas, selepas menembak Evalda hingga mati, Clarice dengan sigap menyelamatkan sang bayi dan membasuh bayi dari lumuran darah karena Evalda pengidap HIV positif. Kejadian ini pun menjadi berita hangat di media dan televisi. Clarice Starling pun dijuluki sebagai FBI mesin pembunuh.

Clarice adalah lulusan psikolog dan kriminilogi pada universitas ternama dan karirnya pesat melambung ketika dia berhasil menyelamatkan putri seorang Senator dari tawanan penculik. Informasi dari Dr. Lecter membantunya dalam menemukan korban. Bagi komentator di media dan rekan kerjanya di bagian BAFT, devisi Obat terlarang dan Nikotine menduga karir Starling telah berakhir. Direktur FBI menilainya berbeda dan malah mengusulkan wanita berumur tiga puluh dua tahun itu menjadi bawahan dari Jack Crawford, ketua seksi Behavioral Science (Bidang Kejiwaan).

Bagian yang termasuk elite dan dia sama sekali tidak menyangka akan secepat itu masuk ke sana. Starling baru saja menerima surat berupa ejekan dari Dr. Lecter atas kegagalannya dalam pengejaran Evalda. Rupanya, Crawford mengetahui Clarice mendapat surat itu dan menugaskan dia dalam kasus pelarian Dr. Lecter. Sebelum pembunuh massal itu melarikan diri dari sel malam itu, dia juga membunuh temannya di rumah sakit jiwa para kriminal.

Clarice mendatangi Mason Verger, korban pertama dari Dr. Lecter, yang kini terbaring di tempat tidur. Lecter dulunya adalah psikiater yang ditunjuk oleh pihak pengadilan memberi terapi pada Mason. Namun Lecter berusaha membunuh pria dengan hidung buatan Mason sendiri. Akibat serangan Lecter, lelaki keturunan pengusaha sukses ternak itu pun harus berbaring di tempat tidur.

Wajah hancur tanpa hidung dan rupa yang sangat buruk, dia masih saja menjalankan usahanya termasuk pembuatan film porno dan rencana licik pada rekayasa genetika babi. Dia menceritakan penyerangan itu pada Clarice. Usaha peternakan dan pengepakan daging turun–temurun milik keluarga Verger sudah terkenal lama dan besar. Ayah Mason mengawinkan bibit ternak terbaik dari seluruh penjuru dunia. Sebuah catatan palsu ketika dia mengenalkan babirusa dari Indonesia Timur. Padahal sebenarnya dia hanya ingin membiakkan babi ganas pemakan manusia.

Adalah ide Mason berlaku licik, membebarkan berita flu babi menyerang seluruh babi di Haiti dan semua babi dimusnahkan di negara itu. Babi Verger pun diekspor besar-besaran ke sana. Untuk rencana barunya, Mason membiakkan babi baru di fasilitas pembiakan milik Verger di Sardinia, Italia. Babi rekayasa yang akan memakan mayat manusia. Sebenarnya inti utama rencananya didisain untuk menciptakan babi pemakan wajah Lecter hidup-hidup, sebagai aksi balas dendamnya.

Mason dan saudarinya adalah dua orang aneh walau hidup mereka dalam kelimpahan. Mason seorang sadis dan pedofil. Dia sendiri melecehkan adik perempuannya semasa kecil. Margot Verger, wanita lesbian yang dinyatakan mandul kini tinggal bersama kekasihnya Judy. Dia sangat ingin memiliki keturunan Verger. Namun Mason tidak setuju dengan ide adiknya; donasi sperma, walau Judy siap mengandung anak Mason.

Ketua penyidik Rinaldo Pazzi dari Questura, Italia, tengah terkenal karena mampu menangkap serial killer dijuluki II Mostro, dan dia sangat tergiur dengan perburuan Lecter dengan uang besar yang ditawarkan oleh Mason. Polisi korup itu membawa seorang gypsy menghadap kematian demi untuk menangkap Dr. Lecter yang menyamar sebagai Dr. Fell, seorang kurator pada sebuah museum di Florence. Kurator sebelumnya terbunuh dan dipastikan pembunuhnya adalah Dr. Lecter.

Sekalipun Lecter sadis, namun ia memiliki perasaan spesial dan berbeda pada Clarice Starling. Wajah Clarice mengingatkannya pada adik kecilnya Mischa. Hannibal berasal dari keluarga terpandang dan kaya dari Ukraina. Dia menyaksikan kedua orang tuanya dibunuh pada masa Nazi saat masih kecil. Kedua anak itu bertahan hidup di salju yang semakin tebal.

Sekelompok penjahat menemukan mereka, awalnya mereka masih makan hasil buruan hutan. Salju semakin adiknya dibawa keluar dan tidak pernah bertemu lagi. Tanpa sepengetahuannya penjahat itu telah menghidangkan Mischa. Lecter memiliki kesamaan dengan Clarice, wanita itu juga kehilangan ayahnya dan ibunya. Masa kecilnya pun dilewati di panti asuhan. Ibunya seorang pembersih motel dan ayahnya polisi yang sedang bertugas mati ditembak.

Pesuruh Mason di Italia tidak mampu menangkap Hannibal hidup-hidup. Bahkan Pazzi dan orang suruhan Sardinia terbunuh. Dr. Lecter dengan paspor Brazilnya berhasil keluar dari Italia setelah menyiksa Pazzi. Kematian Pazzi menjadi tontonan turis dan bahkan seorang turis telah membuatnya dalam sebuah video amatir.

Mason makin geram dan membayar Paul Kendler seorang anggota FBI berpangkat yang membocorkan semua informasi tentang Lecter kepada Mason. Surat-surat Lecter pada Clarice sekalipun. Kendler juga yang menjebak serangan Clarice di pasar ikan.

Kendler membawa  Dr. Doemling, seorang ketua psikologi dari universitas ternama untuk menganalisa ikatan hubungan antara Lecter dan Clarice. Doktor psikologi itu juga pernah menganalisa Dr. Lecter semasa tinggal di rumah sakit jiwa untuk para kriminal. Dr. Doemling mengindetifikasi keterikatan sebagai sama-sama anak yatim piatu sejak kecil. Menurutnya, biasanya anak yang pernah tinggal di panti asuhan  memiliki perasaan yang sama.

Berbekal paspor palsu berbendera Brazil Dr. Lecter ikut dengan rombongan paket perjalanan wisata murah ke Canada dan dia pun masuk ke Amerika. Maryland dipilihnya, tidak jauh dari Peternakan Muskrat milik Verger. Dia pun mengamati gerak-gerik Clarice dan memantaunya dari kejauhan. Saat Clarice berbelanja di grocery, kelompok Italia dan suruhan Mason lainnya menculik Hannibal yang tengah berusaha masuk ke kendaraan Mustang Clarice.

Walau sempat memergoki empat lelaki memasukkan seseorang ke dalam van dekat mobilnya tapi dia gagal menangkap mereka. Dia sempat mencatat nomor platnya dan melaporkan pada FBI ada upaya penculikan. Gadis berumur tiga puluh dua tahun itu pun mempelajari bahwa yang diculik adalah Hannibal. Mason sangat gembira menyaksikan Hannibal disiksa dan digantung dan disiksa melalui video. Babi pemakan pun tengah disiapkan, untuk membalas Hannibal.

Starling pun berusaha mengendap melalui pintu belakang peternakan untuk menyelamatkan Hannibal. Hari terakhir penyiksaan Hannibal pun tiba. Babi itu telah disiapkan, semua anggota Mason tengah menyaksikan Hannibal dan semua mata mereka tertuju pada babi. Mendadak Starling pun memberi peringatan pada anak buah Mason. Tapi tembak menembak menewaskan mereka. Hanya Tommason yang hidup dan lelaki itu menembak Clarice di punggungnya. Gadis itu luka parah, Hannibal membopong Clarice keluar dari serangan babi dari lari dari tempat itu.

Setelah Margot membunuh Cordell di ruang permainan anak, kini tinggal Mason yang hidup, Margot pun memaksa Mason memberi spermanya. Membunuh kakaknya dengan peliharaan sendiri, ikan ular dari akuarium. Dia juga mengambil sehelai rambut penyiksa anak-anak itu. Clarice pun pulih dalam rawatan Hannibal. Margot memberi topeng, benda yang dipakai Dr. Lecter semasa tinggal di rumah sakit sebagai bahan untuk konspirasi dan mungkin DNA-nya bisa saja berguna suatu saat. Dia pun memberinya uang banyak sebagai imbalan.

Tiga tahun kemudian Barney melihat pasangan Clarice dan Dr. Lecter ketika ia berlibur di Argentina. Dia ketakutan dan menghindari pasangan itu. Clarice Starling dan Dr. Lecter pasangan yang menarik dan menikmati hidup berlibur dan bersenang-senang, mereka sedang dimabuk cinta. Clarice pun mengirimkan benda kenangan dan menyelipkan sebuah catatan pada sahabatnya Ardelia Mapp. Clarice memberitahu gadis berkulit hitam itu kalau dia dalam keadaan baik-baik, tidak perlu dicari, dan diminta membakar pesannya.

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Kenangan indah di Osaka