Happy Halloween
October 31st, 2008
So seeing as how today is Halloween, I thought some comments on the current book I am reading, Frankenstein would be appropriate. Once it is finished there will be a full review written of course.
First, if you have not read the book, I strongly suggest that you do. It is nothing like the movies. They basically share a title, and that is about it.
This book is not all that long, but is taking me longer than usual to complete. It is written in such beautiful language. The text is so well constructed, that it is a bit more challenging to take in. It was of course written nearly two hundred years ago, so the conversations in the book are more formal and proper than what you would usually find in more modern texts.
The story is enthralling. This is undoubtedly a horror novel, but the horror is more mental than anything so far. The book conveys anguish in a way that I have never seen it before. My empathy towards the characters is very high, and I find myself empathizing with a creature that committed horrific crimes. That, to me, is a feat of good story-telling. When you find yourself hoping the ‘bad guy’ wins, you know someone is spinning quite a yarn. This is a special case however, as I am not sure that the creation of Frankenstein is in fact the bad guy.
After completing two volumes of the three Shelley broke the book into, in the 1831 edition, I am eagerly awaiting the third.
Wow! You made me want to read the book right now! I will add that although this is considered halloween, we don’t really celebrate it.