"To him my tale I teach."
Apr. 11th, 2009 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dannysgirlsg1Frankenstein - I haz finished it! XD
I absolutely loved this book. The writing was fantastic, the story was beyond thought provoking and chilling, and in the end I really didn't know who I had more sympathy and pity for. It also made me make connections in fandom that I think are pretty interesting...
I will admit there were things I didn't enjoy. The descriptions and detail put into scenery and landscapes - sometimes for full pages - was tedious. I understand this is a Romantic-era story, so that's a big part of the telling. But still...it got a little boring. I was reading more for the thrill of the unbelieable and the struggles of human nature. Also, the convenient nature of a lot of things in the story. I won't go into specific details, but there were a lot of instances where a character would be like 'oh, but thankfully I had this in my pocket' or some such thing that hadn't been mentioned before hand.
But those were probably the only things that really irked me. I really got into the mental/moral questions brought up by the story and how something written over 100 years ago can still portray such a strong message in today's society. The unquenchable thrist for knowledge and achievement that many people have (myself included). The ignorance to another creature's feelings or point of views. Seeing the bad guy in the enemy only, and not within yourself. The self-loathing people have for themselves when things go wrong. Only seeing the beauty of the outside, and not the inside. There are so many issues brought up in Victor's creation of the "monster." How said "monster" ends up becoming what people perceive by his looks, though he started out so innocent and full of hope for good. Victor's selfishness, the "monster's" need to be accepted and thirst for revenge. It's all a reflection of every human person, and that was probably the best and most horrifying part of it all because there is a Victor and his creation, respectively, in all of us.
Now, that connection to fandom thing. I won't lie and say my mind didn't immediately go to Burn Notice when I saw the name 'Victor' for the first time in the book. I'd forgotten that Frankenstein's first name was Victor. Seeing as I hadn't read the story yet, only knew of it through the movie version that I own (which I watched back in my Senior year of high school), I began to make connections between Shelley's Victor and BN Victor. But as I read the story, it occurred to me that BN Victor was more like the creature and Carla could be considered the 'Frankenstein'. She created a monster by doing something so completely horrible, and once said monster found out the true nature of his creation, he took it upon himself to torment the life of his creator. Of course the details of the two stories are very different and there are comparisons that could never be made between them. But the underlying arc - Creator gives life to something 'wicked' (that once had the possibility of being good), and the wicked turns around to punish the Creator - is eerily similiar. I had fun making connections between Frankenstein/the monster and Carla/Victor.
So all around, an EXCELLENT read that I would definitely recommend to anyone.
Frankenstein: A+
Now I will go off and watch the movie version, while the story is still fresh in my mind.
~Pip
I absolutely loved this book. The writing was fantastic, the story was beyond thought provoking and chilling, and in the end I really didn't know who I had more sympathy and pity for. It also made me make connections in fandom that I think are pretty interesting...
I will admit there were things I didn't enjoy. The descriptions and detail put into scenery and landscapes - sometimes for full pages - was tedious. I understand this is a Romantic-era story, so that's a big part of the telling. But still...it got a little boring. I was reading more for the thrill of the unbelieable and the struggles of human nature. Also, the convenient nature of a lot of things in the story. I won't go into specific details, but there were a lot of instances where a character would be like 'oh, but thankfully I had this in my pocket' or some such thing that hadn't been mentioned before hand.
But those were probably the only things that really irked me. I really got into the mental/moral questions brought up by the story and how something written over 100 years ago can still portray such a strong message in today's society. The unquenchable thrist for knowledge and achievement that many people have (myself included). The ignorance to another creature's feelings or point of views. Seeing the bad guy in the enemy only, and not within yourself. The self-loathing people have for themselves when things go wrong. Only seeing the beauty of the outside, and not the inside. There are so many issues brought up in Victor's creation of the "monster." How said "monster" ends up becoming what people perceive by his looks, though he started out so innocent and full of hope for good. Victor's selfishness, the "monster's" need to be accepted and thirst for revenge. It's all a reflection of every human person, and that was probably the best and most horrifying part of it all because there is a Victor and his creation, respectively, in all of us.
Now, that connection to fandom thing. I won't lie and say my mind didn't immediately go to Burn Notice when I saw the name 'Victor' for the first time in the book. I'd forgotten that Frankenstein's first name was Victor. Seeing as I hadn't read the story yet, only knew of it through the movie version that I own (which I watched back in my Senior year of high school), I began to make connections between Shelley's Victor and BN Victor. But as I read the story, it occurred to me that BN Victor was more like the creature and Carla could be considered the 'Frankenstein'. She created a monster by doing something so completely horrible, and once said monster found out the true nature of his creation, he took it upon himself to torment the life of his creator. Of course the details of the two stories are very different and there are comparisons that could never be made between them. But the underlying arc - Creator gives life to something 'wicked' (that once had the possibility of being good), and the wicked turns around to punish the Creator - is eerily similiar. I had fun making connections between Frankenstein/the monster and Carla/Victor.
So all around, an EXCELLENT read that I would definitely recommend to anyone.
Frankenstein: A+
Now I will go off and watch the movie version, while the story is still fresh in my mind.
~Pip
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-11 10:32 pm (UTC)Which film version are you planning on watching? If it's the one with Kenneth Branaugh, I give you fair warning that it is not at all like the book. It was almost unrecognizable...and not in a good way.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-04-12 12:32 am (UTC)That is the one I have. I knew it wasn't true to the book because I'd seen it before reading the story. So as I read the book, I was like 'oh yeah, the movie isn't like this'. I ended up only watching like the first 20 mins, and then switched to the Power Rangers movie (yeah, bit of a strange jump! XP)