Category 24: An assigned book you hated (or never finished)
Frankenstein
Published: October 29, 2013 (first published January 1, 1818)
Page count: 258 (run time: 8 hrs, 35 min.)
Genres: horror, scifi
Page count: 258 (run time: 8 hrs, 35 min.)
Genres: horror, scifi
Date read: October 28, 2018
Number of times read: 2
Format: audiobookSource: Audible
Summary
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.
Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever.-- via Goodreads
Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only eighteen. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.
Frankenstein, an instant bestseller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story, but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? How far can we go in tampering with Nature? In our age, filled with news of organ donation genetic engineering, and bio-terrorism, these questions are more relevant than ever.-- via Goodreads
Review
I bought this book for a couple of reasons. The first being my friend Debbie. She is the science librarians at the university I work at and because this year marked the 200th anniversary of the writing of Frankenstein she was going to run a program about the book. We're very supportive of one another at my place of work, we like to attend each other's programs. So I knew that was going to mean revisiting this book. I originally read it for an undergraduate course during my English degree. At the time I disliked it so very much. I was not a fan at all. For that reason, I was hesitant to revisit it now. Last year I discovered that the audiobook version of Dracula was much more engaging than trying to just read the book on its own (it was another horror classic I'd had a hard time with in print) and that inspired me to look at the audiobook editions of this. I discovered the Dan Stevens edition fairly quickly. I like Dan Stevens as an actor, and I also really like him as an audiobook narrator. At the time of purchasing this, I had already read two other audiobooks narrated by Dan Stevens and I really enjoyed both. They were Casino Royale and Murder on the Orient Express. That ended up being all the prompting I needed to purchase the audiobook. And I am glad that I did because this time around I absolutely loved the novel.
Shelley tackled an incredibly progressive premise in her seminal novel. It really is impressive that she created this work at the age of eighteen. It speaks to the nature vs. nurture argument. Clearly, she had latent talent for writing, but it almost certainly helped that at the time of writing Frankenstein she was surrounded by a circle of friends and family who were all talented and well know writers in their own rights, including her mother and husband. In fact, her husband helped edit the book when Shelley finished it. As the summary for the Audible edition notes, the questions that Shelley asks with Frankenstein were not only incredibly astute for the era she was writing, they remain important and even more worth asking in the present. My only complaint on that front is that the book is in fact inextricably tied to the time in which it was set instead of being more ambiguous about whether it was the present or the future. I think it can almost be considered magical realism in that way.
The plot is actually fairly straight-forward, man is introduced, we follow the man as he works on his project, he loses control over his creation, and then he spends the rest of the action trying to regain control. It's a pretty standard structure. It's the story that Shelley wrote around that simple expected structure that makes the book awesome. Victor really is hard to like as a protagonist, especially when you think about things from the monsters view. Now, the monster does definitely do some terribly gory things in his pursuit of revenge but Victor is no innocent victim and no reader should see him as such. Victor and his Monster are indeed both victims of each other. Shelley writes their incredibly complex relationship in such a way that it looks easy. Both the monster and Victor are vulnerable and likeable at times, but not all the time. I applaud Shelley greatly for her use of imperfect characters. That makes them come across as much more real.
I don't really know what else to say except, I am really glad that I revisited this book because I really did enjoy it this time around. I suspect the only reason that I didn't the first go around is because of my hate on for prescribed reading. Also if you can get your hands on the Audible editon do it because Dan Stevens is so good as a narrator, he's got the perfect voice for it.
Do you ever revisit books years after the first time you tried them? Have your opinions changed about them?
Shelley tackled an incredibly progressive premise in her seminal novel. It really is impressive that she created this work at the age of eighteen. It speaks to the nature vs. nurture argument. Clearly, she had latent talent for writing, but it almost certainly helped that at the time of writing Frankenstein she was surrounded by a circle of friends and family who were all talented and well know writers in their own rights, including her mother and husband. In fact, her husband helped edit the book when Shelley finished it. As the summary for the Audible edition notes, the questions that Shelley asks with Frankenstein were not only incredibly astute for the era she was writing, they remain important and even more worth asking in the present. My only complaint on that front is that the book is in fact inextricably tied to the time in which it was set instead of being more ambiguous about whether it was the present or the future. I think it can almost be considered magical realism in that way.
The plot is actually fairly straight-forward, man is introduced, we follow the man as he works on his project, he loses control over his creation, and then he spends the rest of the action trying to regain control. It's a pretty standard structure. It's the story that Shelley wrote around that simple expected structure that makes the book awesome. Victor really is hard to like as a protagonist, especially when you think about things from the monsters view. Now, the monster does definitely do some terribly gory things in his pursuit of revenge but Victor is no innocent victim and no reader should see him as such. Victor and his Monster are indeed both victims of each other. Shelley writes their incredibly complex relationship in such a way that it looks easy. Both the monster and Victor are vulnerable and likeable at times, but not all the time. I applaud Shelley greatly for her use of imperfect characters. That makes them come across as much more real.
I don't really know what else to say except, I am really glad that I revisited this book because I really did enjoy it this time around. I suspect the only reason that I didn't the first go around is because of my hate on for prescribed reading. Also if you can get your hands on the Audible editon do it because Dan Stevens is so good as a narrator, he's got the perfect voice for it.
Do you ever revisit books years after the first time you tried them? Have your opinions changed about them?
Overall Rating
 |
| 4 bolts |
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