Alejandro's Reviews > Frankenstein

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

Well, finally I read the original novel after watching infinite film adaptations, variations of the theme and even odd approaches to the topic.

I was sure that I would enjoy a lot the novel but sadly, compelled to write an honest review, I have to say that barely I was able to give it a 3-star rating, that I think it's the fairest rating that I can give to the book.

The original premise is astonishing, the following impact in popular culture is priceless and certainly the story "behind-of-the-scenes" of the creation of the novel is fascinating.

However, the actual writing of the book is tedious, the narration style is odd and the rhythm of the story is too slow.

THE GOOD

The creation of life has been a subject that captured the imagination of man, along with the chance of beating death and/or getting back from the dead. Mary Shelley, the writer, was able to show an impressive premise that not only is one of the early instances of horror novels but also easily one of the first examples in science-fiction/steampunk works since the process to give "life" to The Creature is through science instead of recurring to magic or some kind or paranormal force.

The socio-cultural impact of this novel has been monumental in all kind of media. Some remarkable examples are the 1931's film adaptation with Boris Karloff; the filmed sequel Bride of the Frankenstein of 1935, the 1974's fantastic parody Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder, Mel Brooks and Peter Boyle; the 1985's twist movie The Bride with Sting and Jennifer Beals; the 1994's film adaptation with Robert De Niro; the two adaptations of Frankenweenie by Tim Burton in 1984 & 2012; and even the outstanding current TV series (2014- ) Penny Dreadful which includes this theme on its merged story.

How the novel was created could be covered as a "reality TV show" nowadays: "So You Think You Write Horror: Pros versus Rookies"...watch it only here on GRTV!!! Since all began with a friendly contest, of who can write the best ghost story, between four friends: Percy Shelly (Mary's husband, a famous poet & novelist), Lord Byron (another famous poet), John Polidori and of course, Mary. And the winners are... The rookies!!! Since while Percy Shelley and Lord Byron were acomplished writers, they weren't able to come up with something to compete against Polidori's The Vampyre and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

Also, there is the tale of how Mary Shelley came up with the basic idea of the book. She claimed that she had a dream showing the lab with the mad scientist giving life to a hideous creature through the power of a lightning. I won't question her version. I only want to point out the existence of an actual Frankenstein's Castle, located in a town of Germany where, besides several paranormal stories about it, there is a local rumour, that a fellow with the name of Johann Conrad Dippel was a supposed alchemist that created a monster using a bolf of lightning (Where did I heard something just like this? Where?!), even a related rumour tells that this legend was told to Mary's step-mother by none other that the very Grimm Brothers!!! (Ah? Ah?! Try to came up with a cooler legend!). However, Mary always declared that she wasn't aware of that castle and the legends tied to it. Let's take out the part of the step-mother and the Grimm Brothers. It's virtually impossible to believe that Mary Shelley never heard, in some way, about the existence of Frankenstein's Castle and the particular tale of Dippel.

Without irrespecting the memory of Mary Shelley, this is just like the story of Diablo Cody, winner of an Oscar for Best "Original" Screenplay for the film Juno of 2007. The main theme of this film is about a teen pregancy. However, in 2005, there was a South Korean film titled Jenny, Juno that it was a romantic dramedy movie about teen pregnancy too. Diablo Cody declared that she never heard before of that South Korean film. Sure, because Juno is such a common name in America that it was an innocent coincidence. (By the way, Juno is the name's boyfriend in the South Korean's movie, instead of the female Juno performed by Ellen Page).

American Juno and South Korean Jenny, Juno have totally different stories, different approaches to the subject and even different reactions to the event along with different endings. The only dang similarity is that both are about teen pregnancies. I am not accusing Diablo Cody of plagiarism. That's not the point. I only say that was so hard for her to admit that she watched or heard about the South Korean film and that gave her an inspiration for her own screenplay?

In the same way, was so hard for Mary Shelley to admit that she got in contact in some way with the legend of Dippel and the Frankenstein's Castle and she used it as inspiration for her own original book?

TIP: If you are using legends, books and/or movies as your own inspiration for your work... change the dang names!!! At least that will make harder to make the connections and even making a more plausible deniability!!!

I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.


THE BAD

The writing of the book is tedious, or to be more accurate is a too slow burner that it took too much to get into the real story and even worse, once the "action" started, you have again intervals of tedium. It's indeed a roller coaster but in a bad sense, since you took too much time in the tedious way up and the moments of intensity are like split-seconds on the way down.

The narration style is odd since the book begins with some letters written by a ship's captain, and the first four letters are boring filler stuff non-relevant to the actual story, and until the fifth letter the story really started. However, later of that, the narration changed to the "voice" of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, but again, our good mad scientist takes too much time to get to the point telling a lot of non-relevant boring details, even worse, it's told in the most tedious "tone of voice" that you can imagine. Without emotion or trying to entertain to the reader. The chapters of the Creature are more entertained but also, sometimes you wonder how possible is that this monster so submitted to rage and murder is able to articule so well his part of the story.

So, between that the novel is slow burner, and the moments of real horror with awful deaths are so scarce and presented so quick that you can't even develop the proper emotion on that moments, I wasn't able to enjoy this book as I expected that I would. However, I can't deny the relevant place that this novel has in the history of literature and its impact in multiple ways of the spectrum.

Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?