And holy shit is that book fucked. It’s great. I loved it. But it’s fucked.
How did a book that apparently kickstarted the horror genre not be a horror book but one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve ever read.
It is a tradegy on all sides. The two main characters have reasons of acting the way they did.
I’m trying not to spoil too much (even though the book is over 200 years old)
For anyone who want a short read (my copy was 143 pages but was a wider print. Good reads has it at like 215). I highly suggest this book.
It’s not scary but it is fucked 5/5
Next book: the trial by Franz Kafka
by thebeautifullynormal
17 Comments
The Trial by Kafka is an absolutely fantastic story
I’ve had a couple of English classes in the past that made me read classics, Frankenstein is the only book that held up for me in terms of narrative style to anything coming out today. I’ve gone back and read it on my own years later, and it’s still a great read.
Most amusing book review ever.
Frankenstein is more like the first modern Sci-Fi story.
I do like Frankenstein a lot, but it has one big issue: It keeps saying that characters tell a story over 3 days or whatever, but we the readers have read their testimony verbatim in 40 minutes.
(Not actually an issue, just something I find funny about it)
Should I get the “uncensored “ version of Frankenstein?
I finished Frankenstein earlier this year and I’m just mad that the media has made the monster seem so evil and mean in movies and other forms because homie was the victim. Frankenstein was the real monster, in my opinion. I was surprised at the end.
Just finished it for the first time last week as well. It is fantastic in its prose, characterization, and it is just dripping with symbolism. And the fact that Mary Shelley was only EIGHTEEN years-old when she wrote it is nothing short of incredible!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I feel like it kick started science fiction as much or more than it did horror per se
One of my favourite books! It’s in a league of its own.
Great book with a great backstory, the whole story contest between the Shelleys and whoever it was, I don’t recall, in Geneva. (Fully living up to my name, I see.)
The next plot on that curve would be possibly Vonnegut.
If you get a chance to see the filmed stage production with Benedict cumberbatch … it is life changing
You might enjoy this, too:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1795369/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
I love how “I WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT PARENTHOOD AND GOD” the book is. Mary Shelley having a normal one, doing totally fine, obviously fine after her miscarriage.
My only compliant is that it is a little much to have a frame story within a frame story within a frame story. You have the conceit of the sailor writing letters to his sister, who then starts recounting Frankenstein’s story to her, who then starts recounting the story that the monster told to him about hiding out next to that family’s house, who then starts repeating the story he overheard being told by the family’s son’s wife. It gets pretty ridiculous, but at least it all resolves well.
I finished it 2 weeks ago and cant stop thinking about it. The non-stop”woe is me” from Victor was annoying. Here is this brilliant scientist who is stitching together this “fiend” and then is shocked at how hideous he is upon animation? And then he runs away like a coward when it comes to him confused about being alive? Wth… seems like a huge plot hole that someone so smart lacked any reasonable foresight/planning in their machinations.
I wished the book had more from the creature’s perspective. Victor was the villain.
That being said… Im forever grateful for the birth of my gavorite genre.
Frankenstein is more a gothic horror novel than a horror novel. The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, Rebecca (maybe) are also gothic horror novels, which are ‘not scary but it is fucked’ style novels.
As others have said, Frankenstein is more a precursor to science fiction, than modern day horror.