Frankenstein
Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron's.
"We will each write a story," Byron announced to his next-door neighbors, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover Percy Bysshe Shelley. The friends were summering on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, Shelley still unknown as a poet and Byron writing the third canto of Childe Harold. When continued rains kept them confined indoors, all agreed to Byron's proposal.
The illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories, but Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge. With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror -- one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart."
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Community Reviews
I had no idea the tragedy that befell Frankenstein after he created his monster. Why did he marry when he had been warned? Senseless tragedy. I know it's a classic but it was not to my taste.
This was the first book I've read in a long time that grabbed a hold of me and made me want to know what what going to happen next, how this tale was going to end. So much so that I brought this book to work with me and read before my shift started, during my first fifteen minute break, during lunch, and then again at my second/last fifteen minute break. I was only sort of familiar with the tale of Frankenstein and his "monster". I've never read this before nor do I recall ever sitting down and watching any of the many films that have been made based around the story. So I wasn't entirely sure what kind of story would be contained within the pages. I wasn't disappointed and it wasn't what I was expecting.
There is no clear hero to this story. There is no clear villain. There is only arrogance, bad choices, and my not knowing whose side I'm cheering for because, honestly, both sides are epic in their wrongness.
In short, such a good story.
The only reason I didn't give this five stars is because I wish it had ended differently. I was waiting for some sort of payoff at the end that simply didn't arrive. Which is cool because there is a high degree of realism to the way the story ended, but the part of me that wanted and was expecting something different forced me to give it four stars which isn't too shabby!
Recommended for those that love under-stated horror and those that have seen all of those Frankenstein renditions on film. Be a completist. Read the book!
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