Book 66- Frankenstein

I enjoyed reading the famous Mary Shelly science fiction- horror novel Frankenstein. I can't believe that in all the years I was teaching and going to school I never read this classic. Boy, was I mislead.

Frankenstein is NOT the name of the monster, nor is the monster stupid. See, there's a young man named Victor Frankenstein who is obsessed with death so he collects dead body parts and brings to life a monster. When he sees what he's done, he freaks out and the monster flees and goes into hiding. Then people die and Victor knows the monster he made did it but he never comes forward.

Then the monster finally comes to Victor and demands that he build him a wife because he knows he so hideous that everyone runs from him and he doesn't want to spend his life alone. Victor thinks about it but doesn't do it. The monster vows revenge and then Victor vows revenge right back.

People, this is a cool book. It's told from the perspective of the monster, WHO NEVER GETS A NAME, from Victor and from Victor's cousin Walton. This is a very smart monster. It's also chocked full of science that well advanced and beyond the years of the time it was written, the early 1800s. Galvanism then? Really? And to think Mary Shelly was just a teenager when she wrote this tome.

It's a dark story and pretty gruesome. I honestly think a great debate could be had between who the real monster is: Victor or the monster he created. I love the parallel of this story to the Creation story of Adam and Eve. Yahoo to Mary Shelley for providing me some much needed intellectually stimulating reading material. I learned stuff, too!