The Monk (Oxford World's Classics) (original 1796; edition 2002)

Gothic novels aren't typically my genre, but maybe I should start reading them more often... I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Lewis' "The Monk."

Sure, it's book filled with depravity-- apparently the first book ever written with a priest as its villain. The book is heaped with every horror imaginable-- yet still manages to provide an entertaining story with plenty of twists and turns.

(For anyone reading this edition, do not read the book jacket... it inexplicably gives away the final horrors that Lewis spent so much time building up to. Odd decision... this was the 2002 edition by Oxford University Press.) ( )

A titillating portrayal of depravity. ( )

I can't decide if this is mock-goth or just really over-the-top-goth. I know Gothic is extreme by definition, but this one includes every cliché of the genre you can think of, plus a few elements that read really modern and self-aware. Kind of like late noir films, except with nuns, ghosts and dungeons (so, way better than late noir films).

The thesis, inasmuch as there is one, is rather revolutionary for its time: ignorance isn't virtue, it's just ignorance. So basically, integrists who go around judging others are just scared, repressed people who should get over themselves and join the rest of us in, you know, life. And I thought I had patented that idea. ( )

Finally, some fun in the Enlightenment. The Monk is a blast, a page-turner, chock full of insane plot twists and sinning.

It can't be accused of being terribly well-written, so you know that old debate between eloquence and plot? If you tip heavily toward eloquence, you might not like this as much.

But for me, clawing my way out of a pit of Oh-So-Literary books starved for plot...it's just what I needed. The only 18th-century book that I had more fun with was Voltaire's Candide.

This is also the only 18th-century book I've read that includes magic. All the others have been resolutely set in the real world; it was surprising to me to realize that we were actually going to be horsing around with ghosts and demons here. Weird, huh? It could certainly be that I've just missed all the magic - I'm sure this can't be the only book to include it - but in general the 1700s seemed to completely eschew the supernatural. And it's not like they had no example: Shakespeare used magic in several of his plays, and The Monk is an exploration of the Faust legend that he probably heard about from Marlowe. (Some specific similarities in a couple of key scenes point to Marlowe.) I'm not a huge fan of magic-y stuff anyway, so I doubt this is what made me dislike Enlightenment literature so much; just thought it was interesting.

ETA: Oh, it's Gothic. Stemming from Horace Walpole's 1767 "Castle of Otrando." Okay. ( )

What an entertaining book, overloaded and packed with the conventions of gothic horror. Admittedly, I laughed my way through some stuff, especially the long narrations by some characters, the way events seemed to go from silly to absurd, BUT, it did justice to its genre while managing to have a good poke at hypocrisy and blind faith. The ending was awesome. I could have done without the lengthy poems, but otherwise I'm so glad I read this. ( )