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Frankenstein

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

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Sep 02, 2014 Chris rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

"I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began."

After reading Dracula by Bram Stoker (and loving it), I wanted to continue in the genre and so I decided to pick up Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; another classic horror story with a monster.

I can admit right awa "I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began."

After reading Dracula by Bram Stoker (and loving it), I wanted to continue in the genre and so I decided to pick up Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; another classic horror story with a monster.

I can admit right away (although you might notice it in my star-rating); this story was a disappointment. After all the adaptations I saw, for example the one with Karloff, I expected a completely different story. The beauty of this book is the immense effect it had: who doesn't know the story of Frankenstein, even now, 200 years later? The downside of this is that it's been adapted a lot and most of the times in a way more dramatic and scary way. Which makes reading the book rather dull and disappointing.

"The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places."

The story wasn't as exciting as I expected and the writing style made it even worse. The book is very slow and there is barely any action. Somewhere in the middle it looks like some action arises but Shelley completely ruins this right away by including several dull flashback chapters (which if it was up to me, she would have included later, cause these chapters also completely eliminated the mystery about the monster).

“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied int he one, I will indulge the other.”

But what I disliked most of all about this book was main character doctor Frankenstein. This man is the true monster of this book. He spends months obsessing over making a creature and while doing it he thinks about how he is the one and only responsible for creating this life. But from the exact moment that he succeeds and his creature becomes alive, he see's only a monster and flees from it. Throughout the entire book he pities himself for being attached to a "daemon"/"monster" like this (the monster does not get a name and so no identity) even though he could have thought about this all before. Shelley supposedly based this idea on The Vindication of the Rights of Women, in which is described how important it is to have a humane and caring education; negligence of parents supposed to be one of the main causes for the bad things happening in the world (source).

“Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!”

In conclusion; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley will definitely not make it to my list of favorite classics (even though in advance I thought it could). I like how it had such an immense effect on our culture and media, but it's never good when some adaptations are better (or at least more exciting) than the original story (for me at least).
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May 13, 2016 Linda rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

This is the first time i've read Frankenstein, or even my first experience with Frankenstein since i've never seen one of the film addaptions either.
I wanted to read a classic gothic novel for a while, so I decided to buy this book, because it was on the Rory Gilmore reading challenge, i've seen a booktube video about it, and it was short so it seemed easy to read.
But even though this book is quite short, it took me more than a week to finish!
I find it a bit hard to rate and review this propar ...more

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Feb 02, 2021 Liesbeth Tatjana Poot rated it liked it · review of another edition

A very interesting read. The thing I loved most about it was the descriptions of the landscapes and what it felt like for the characters to "be alive". When I started reading this I felt like this might turn in to one of my favourite books because of this. However, I kind of missed the suspense I expected from it. I feel like if the dialogue of the monster would have been more primal and less sophisticated I would have given it 5 stars! Overall I am glad to have read this. ...more

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