Frankenstein (1818)

There are so many things I didn't like about this book.
Don't ask, I don't want to talk about it.

(Note: I am more than tempted to give this book one star, but have awarded it an extra pity star because of its contributions to the sci-fi and horror genres, as well as its literary value. I mean, it does address important themes, albeit in an irritatingly long-winded way.) ( )

Reading this whole book i never felt anytime boring.It is a great and must read book i think. ( )

Reading this whole book i never felt anytime boring.It is a great and must read book i think. ( )

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is the story of not one, but two monsters.

Frankenstein craves to surpass the petty academics of Ingolstadt by resorting to the most abject of human deeds. He goes ransacking graves for fresh corpses to use in his ultimate experiment—turn dead flesh into a living creature.

Frankenstein is a monster because he thinks he can succeed, but his abjection rises one step higher. When life is injected in his creature, instead of rejoicing and making a man of the stitched lumps and show it to the world, his courage falters and he runs.

It is in this regrettable act that Frankenstein trespasses the threshold between human and evil and becomes forever a monster himself.

The story is just the horrible escalation of the feats of these two monsters, Frankenstein and his creature, in an hopeless game of death.

The creature kills young William in revenge for Frankenstein’s abandonment, but Frankenstein is no less evil—instead of reporting his creature to the authorities, he is afraid and keeps quiet while Justine pay for their sins. By this act of cowardice he becomes an accomplice with his creature.
Frankenstein grows into a selfish monster by letting his creature kill in a pointless bloodshed both his newly wed wife, Elizabeth, then his father, then his friend Clerval.

It is in Frankenstein’s determination in keeping that secret that he rises to unprecedented levels of turpitude. His silence and his behavior makes him jointly responsible of his creature’s murders.
He is guilty because it’s him who gave life to his creature.

The two characters enter a new, mythical dimension that transcends the human condition and borders with the godly world. The whole Earth becomes the background of an insane murdering race which climaxes with the death of one and, possibly soon, of the other.

But the original sin lies withing the creator, Frankenstein. His creature is, after all, a modern Prometheus(*) in a world of Gods.

(*) Some believe it's Frankenstein the modern Prometheus, I say it's his monster. ( )

Written with just as much melodrama as you'll see in every film adaptation, Shelly's novel is nonetheless still quite powerful. Frankenstein still allows parallels to be drawn with our times despite being originally published nearly 200 years ago. For all its symbolism it remains a very human story. ( )