Frankenstein (Collins Classics)

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Part of the fun of reading Frankenstein is to see how far this cobbled-together man has traveled from Shelley’s original iteration. Frankly, this was probably the only fun I had, as Frankenstein, for all its bursts of creativity, its sudden flashes of discrete violence, is a bit of a wordy drag. It is fully a piece from the Romantic era, from the overwrought emotional excesses of its characters, to the gorgeous, travelogue-like descriptions of the Alps. What remains today of good literary work? The plot is very moralizing. Like Prometheus, can a man play the Demiurge? The good feelings, the good, and the bad repeated to excess weigh down the story. Too many lengths on existential themes end up harming the action. From my point of view, this romanticism no longer passes for today's reader. For the bicentennial of its first publication, Mary Shelley’s original 1818 text, introduced by National Book Critics Circle award-winner Charlotte Gordon. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read

Fue en abril, durante el verano del año 1816 en Villa Diodati, una localidad Ginebra que el más famoso y más romántico de los Románticos, el poeta inglés, Lord Byron, organizó un desafío literario para escribir el cuento más terrorífico que se les ocurriera, junto a su médico personal, John Polidori, el célebre poeta inglés Percy Bysshe Shelley y su amante, Mary Goodwin, quien más tarde se convertiría en su esposa y con nuevo apellido le daría chispa a la vida de la criatura más emblemática, conocida y arquetípica en la historia de la literatura: el monstruo creado por el científico Víctor Frankenstein. Mary Shelley takes the reader on a journey through St Petersburg, to the beautiful Swiss Alps, to the desolate waste of the Arctic Circle, in a story that has sent a chill down the spines of generations. As an aside, Shelley’s life, and her relationship with the doomed Percy, is worth exploring. There is free love, unfounded suggestions that Percy penned Frankenstein, and tragedy aplenty. This being, created from different parts of corpses, seeks love and finds hatred, so he instead decides to embrace it. Fuelled by his own rage at the unfairness of the world, he gradually turns towards evil.Listen to the passion, to the intellect and witness such a wasted opportunity. Victor, you’re a silly, silly, man. In 1813 Mary met Percy Bysshe Shelley. He was only twenty-one but was already unhappily married. He was destined to be one of the geniuses of English poetry. The two fell in love and eloped, despite Mary's age. Her father, William Godwin, disowned her, but still she and Shelley were married in 1816. They settled in Italy but tragedy seemed to follow them. Only one of their four children lived very long and then, in 1822, when he was just thirty, Shelley was drowned. Mary lived for another thirty years but she lost the promise that she had shown in the company of her brilliant husband and his friends, such as the poet Lord Byron. The single book that we remember her for belonged to her happy time in Italy.

Ecco il primo Frankenstein della storia del cinema: 1910, è un cortometraggio muto, americano, regia di James, Searley Dawley. I did enjoy it again this time and it stands up to the 5 star review and designation of classic. There were a few slow parts - mainly when Dr. Frankenstein would stop the narrative to wax poetical about something - but, not enough t take a way from my overall enjoyment. I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.’

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Mary Shelley raises questions of the danger of knowledge, and shows a probable consequence of trying to play god; the novel portrays nineteen century fears for the rising field of science and knowledge and questions how far it could go. Indeed, in this case Victor takes on the role of a God by creating new life. She also shows us what can happen to a man if he so driven by this thirst for knowledge and how it will ultimately lead to a fall. Victor reminds me somewhat of Doctor Faustus ( The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus) in this regard. Faustus is a man who sold his soul to Lucifer for unlimited knowledge in the form of arcane magic. Victor, like Faustus, has stopped at nothing to gain his goal, but in the end is ultimately dissatisfied with the result. Fourth: As surprised as I am to be saying this, this novel has ousted Dracula as my all time favorite of the classic horror stories…sorry Bram, but the good/evil, sad, desperate loneliness of the orphaned monster trying to find a purpose and to define himself in the world trumps The Count. Eleven: I expected the prose to be good but, having never read Shelley before, I was still surprised by how exceptional and ear-pleasing it was. Her writing really resonated with me and I loved her ability to weave emotion, plot momentum and a high literary quotient seamlessly together. Good, good stuff. Pero esto no es todo. Existe un dato que no muchos conocen acerca de Mary Shelley: cuando el cuerpo de Percy Bysshe Shelley es llevado ante ella, pide que le saquen el corazón, dado que cuando Shelley es cremado su corazón, por razones completamente inexplicables, ¡no se quemó! Victor Frankenstein es un científico y alquimista obsesionado con crear vida. Descuidando a su prometida, amigos e incluso a sí mismo, dedica toda su energía y esfuerzos a la construcción de su Creación, una innombrable cosa formada de partes humanas recuperadas de cementerios y otros indeseables lugares, a la cual intenta hacer volver a la vida. Su sueño convirtiéndose en pesadilla cuando finalmente lo logra.

La terrible e infortunada historia del Dr. Frankenstein y su Creación. Dos personajes inmortales que transcendieron la literatura. El Dr. Frankenstein era más que un científico; y su Creación más que un monstruo. Ambos personajes sumidos en una pelea imposible contra la adversidad y la desdicha, luchando uno contra otro, y contra sí mismos. Cada uno con las desventajas propias de su naturaleza. Cada uno una persona, y un monstruo. Ambos trágicamente vinculados por un momento definido en el dolor; el dolor de perder el amor, y el dolor de nunca haberlo conocido. Una historia que da para pensar, y sufrir, por ambos dos. Lustrous eyes?! No ( straight) sailor ever, in the history of the world, EVER referred to another dude's eyes as lustrous. I'm not sure when it happens, but at some point, every woman finally realizes the ( fairly obvious) truth.Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.