Monday, August 18, 2014
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley
In the days of my youth I had a brief interest in horror movies, often watching Creature Features on channel 9. To me, the big three monsters were Dracula, the Frankenstein monster and the Wolfman. (I'm guessing that's because I first saw them all in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but that's not important.) Well, I read the original Dracula a decade ago, but it's taken me until now to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.You probably know the basic tale: a scientist discovers the secret of reanimating the dead, and proves it by giving life to a patchwork creature made up of parts of various cadavers. But then things go terribly wrong. Anyway, the book didn't fascinate me as much as the movies I saw as a kid. The creature was a very interesting character, and Ms. Shelley did a great job of portraying Victor Frankenstein's guilt and angst over what he had done. I think my biggest problem was the plot. Some bits were a bit hard to swallow. And the plot could have been cut short at many points had the characters acted with a bit more 21st Century American common sense. But then, I haven't written a classic novel that's endured for two centuries, so what do I know? If you have yet to check it out, do so. Don't put it off as long as I did.
LibraryThing link
In the days of my youth I had a brief interest in horror movies, often watching Creature Features on channel 9. To me, the big three monsters were Dracula, the Frankenstein monster and the Wolfman. (I'm guessing that's because I first saw them all in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but that's not important.) Well, I read the original Dracula a decade ago, but it's taken me until now to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.You probably know the basic tale: a scientist discovers the secret of reanimating the dead, and proves it by giving life to a patchwork creature made up of parts of various cadavers. But then things go terribly wrong. Anyway, the book didn't fascinate me as much as the movies I saw as a kid. The creature was a very interesting character, and Ms. Shelley did a great job of portraying Victor Frankenstein's guilt and angst over what he had done. I think my biggest problem was the plot. Some bits were a bit hard to swallow. And the plot could have been cut short at many points had the characters acted with a bit more 21st Century American common sense. But then, I haven't written a classic novel that's endured for two centuries, so what do I know? If you have yet to check it out, do so. Don't put it off as long as I did.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut
// posted by John @ 9:58 AM 
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