Frankenstein

When I started this journey into books that will someday, well into retirement (which I keep hoping will happen sooner rather than later with a large lottery winning), end, there were a couple books that I'd already read. Okay, a couple more than a couple. But in the grand scheme of 1001 books, 21 or whatevermynumberis, is not all that impressive. Some of the books that I've previously read were good. Some were bad. This is a review of one particular bad one.

It's Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Now, please understand that I did not hate everythinig about this book. There are many goood parts. Well, I'm sure that there is at least one good part...I can't think of one, but I'm sure there is one in there somewhere. It's long enough that she should have been able to make part of it readable.

We all know the basic story, whether or not we know the details. A guy creates a monster. The monster runs amok. Blah, blah, blah. Now, the better story is to create some creepy mad scientist with a hump backed, one small eye, one large eyed assistant that limps and speaks with a lisp brings brains to the crazy scientist at which point the monster, who is green with bolts in his neck and named Frankenstein, comes to life and kills everyone in classic horror monster fashion. You know the way, walking slowly, arms outstretched in front, while the victim runs helplessly away tripping over their own feet. The speed at which the monster catchs the victim is directly proportionate to how many growls the monster lets out and how fast the victim is running. The faster they appear to be running, the slower the monster is walking, however, the power of the growls is often underestimated...it some how speeds the monster up while slowly the victim. This often leads to a pile of mangled bodies, which the hump backed, one small eye, one large eyed assistant that limps and speaks with a lisp brings to his crazy scientist master in order for him to make, oh, I don't know, a pale woman with hair like Marge Simpson except black with white stripes in it, and in traditional mysogistic fashion, she's simply named "The Bride of Frankenstein".

Well, this book was none of that. There was a scientist (Frankenstein) and there was a monster (Frankenstein's Monster, bolts not included). There were also desires from the Monster to create a Bride. It was a little difficult to understand this as the Monster, despite his incredible ability to learn language at an expediated rate, just seemed to complain a lot. Once the monster was created, the story flips between him and Frankenstein. So we have one chapter of the monster, who has an immense vocabulary and understanding of language, despite his hiding in a barn and learning language from some country folk in Switzerland, spends his entire vocabulary complaining. Pair this up with every other chapter about Frankenstein complaining for having ever created the monster and refusing to make the monster's bride. This goes on for, oh, I don't know, a couple of hundred pages or so, until finally they end up in some remote location (which is actually how the book starts, it's all flashback) with the monster chasing Frankenstein around the world.

While the book does hold it's place in literary history as, essentially, the first gothic novel, in my honest opinion it isn't able to keep the reader interested. At least it wasn't able to keep this reader interested. I don't particularly like hearing people complain about how horrible their lives are. I feel like the story would have been better with the Hollywood spin on it. It would at least have some action rather than Frankenstein running away and the monster trundling along behind him (not even grunting, because he could actually talk [see comment on country folk]). Maybe it was the time that it was written where we, as people, didn't regularly see people with knives attached to their hands, entering people's dreams in a red and green sweater and a scruffy brown hat.

Morale of the Story: Don't create a monster unless you want to kill yourself already, because the monster's complaining alone will only lead you to want to kill yourself.