Book Report; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Someone told me that this Gothic horror novel was actually an allegory for a girl going through adolescence.

I don't know about that, but both the characters of Victor Frankenstein and the creature he assembled (basically in his college dorm) are deep, troubled, and tortured much like ANY teenager, male or female.

The back story is that she was snowbound with her husband Percy Shelley and his friend Lord Byron and they entertained each other by making up ghost stories. The men bet that a girl couldn't write a decent horror novel and she penned this to prove them wrong. Incidentally, she only about 19 or 20 when she did it!

I can see how parents, artists, and scientist can all identify with either character. Shelley wrote in 1817 that some of it was inspired by Darwin's writing. There are plenty of ways in which this book is still poignant in our times between the rapid advances in technology and bio-sciences and the regression we seem to make in our ethical and societal interactions. Abortion, homosexuality, Islam, racism, intolerance, immigration, economic class, prejudice, and society's concept of beauty... this is a book that struggles with 20th and 21st century struggles, And yes, I can easily see how many of the burdens of both Victor and the creature could be similar to the struggles that teenage girls go through.

Identity, depression, belonging, anger, learning, obsession, relationships, self-image... God... you name it.

It's not all that scary. Brahm Stoker's Dracula is just meant to scare you. Frankenstein is something you can relate to. Hopefully cathartic, definitely deeper, intensely personal. Just as I began to stop empathizing with Victor and started to lose patience with him like some attention seeking, self loathing Emo kid, you finally meet the creature and wow. Nothing like the 1930's green horror movie icon or Mel Brook's 1980 spoof. This creature is smart, articulate, reflective, and someone you can identify with and care about.

I highly recommend this book to everyone, but especially to the young women I know. It may not be as sexy and romantic as the 'Twilight' vampire series many of you are reading, but I can see why this novel is considered a classic.

Has anybody else read it and feel the same way? Has anyone read it and now think that the 30's movie was a travesty? Has anyone seen the movie with Sting and Robert Denero? Is it closer to Mary Shelley's version?

Anybody got a different book you'd recommend that deals with identity like this?

Theodore Von Holst's original frontpiece for Mary Shelley's, 'Frankenstein' published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831, Steel engraving in book 93 x 71 mm

1984; not just a Van Halen album

Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	George Orwell

Wow. This was good. The last time I read this book, I think it was 1984.
At that time, I saw it merely as some weird science fiction thing that fortunately hadn't come true. Of course, my English teacher at the time tried to help us see how it was about conformity.

Two things motivated me to give it another look. Someone said that it was a brilliant political satire. SATIRE, I thought, satires are funny. Okay, you know how people imagine different actor's voices as different characters when they read a book? I thought I'd try to imagine what this book would be like if it were a movie made by the Coen Brothers or Tim Burton. (I figured that Woody Allen or Mel Brooks was a little too silly). It helped, especially early on when Winston Smith's life is so bleak and lonely.

The other thing that encouraged me to read it was when a friend suggested a cartoon idea to me- (see below) I just figured he was referring to the illegal wire taps and email phishing, but it it SO much more than that- the propaganda, the use and abuse of the media, TORTURE, and the psychological tricks of perpetual war. Wow. It is really frightening.

The first part of this book is bleak and depressing, the second part is an exciting combination of political thriller and romance. The third part is almost as surreal and existential as a Jean Paul Sarte play.

What is truly frightening is not the idea of this book being somehow prophetic, or of how it features many of the kinds of ideologies and tactics of the current administration, what is really scary- and shaming, is that this isn't just a satire of Socialism or post WWII Brittan or 1940's America, or the NAZIs or the Soviets or the cold war, it isn't just a satire about conformity- and it is, by the way. It occurred to me that John Hughes or somebody could rip off the basic plot and turn it into a movie about how miserable high school can be. It's not just a warning about how society or governments could evolve. What it is is a searing commentary on human nature. Very much in line with the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. We are all oppressors and followers. We are all capable of torture or betrayal. That's the frightening part.

If you read this and really take it seriously, you will be bound to become skeptical of any politician- regardless or party or promise. You will treasure and appreciate you rights, freedoms and your relationships. And you just might be a little less comfortable undressing with the TV on. I don't have a web-cam on my computer. Do you?


See you in the place where there is no darkness. (or room 101, whichever).
Read more of Mr. Mallory's book reviews at http://tmal.multiply.com/reviews

Our post-literate society

Book Review; Slaughterhouse Five

Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Kurt Vonnegut

One of America's most prolific 20th century authors, Kurt Vonnegut was also a WWII POW. He and about a hundred other American soldiers were being used as forced labor in a German meat processing plant when the city they were in was bombed by the allies. For some reason, the shelter they were in under the hog confinement was spared. They were the only people to survive the Bombing of Dresden in 1945. 135,000 people were killed as a result of this air attack using conventional weapons. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan only killed 71,379.

Slaughterhouse 5 was published in 1969 at the height of American involvement in Vietnam and is often considered a powerful antiwar book, along the likes of Josef Heller's "Catch 22" and Richard Hooker's "M*A*S*H."

Slaughterhouse 5 follows a character Vonnegut invented, who was one of the hundred Americans who survived Dresden along with him. "Billy Pilgrim" is a Forrest Gump sort of character. Billy is an under trained, unarmed chaplain's assistant sent over during the Battle of the Bulge, caught behind German lines, first sent to a concentration camp in a prisoner train, then to the meat processing plant in Dresden. That would be enough to give anyone Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but twenty years later he is the only person to survive a plane crash on his way to an optometry convention. Billy sustains a major head injury in the crash. Somewhere between WWII and the sixties suburbs Billy believes he is abducted by aliens and "un-stuck" from time.

As a result, the book follows Billy Pilgrim as he jumps from memory to memory in the war, the prison camp, and various other misadventures back home. You can imagine homeless Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD and having LSD flashbacks, but Billy is a clean-cut, conventional, soft spoken, upstanding member of the Rotary club.

If you're a science fiction fan, you'll probably love this. If you're opposed to the war, you'll probably find plenty of reason to like it. If you're just interested in a classic and influential work of American literature, Vonnegut makes you care about Billy and the people around him to stick with the abrupt changes in settings and time. He also makes you relate to the other characters around Billy- even the Germans, even the alien abductors, so you can relate to everything that's going on even when it's either tragic or surreal. We've all met people like Billy's wife, the soldier who saves his life, the English officers, and General "Wild" Bob.

TV Journalist Linda Elerbee has had a tag-line that she uses at the end of her reports for at least the last thirty years, turns out she may have copied it from Vonnegut. I never know what it meant until I read this book, it's actually a pretty sad and somber sentiment, "and so it goes."

This is a fast, funny, easy read that really makes you think. It is black humor, but it is a lot lighter than say "Night" by Elie Wiesel, but it certainly makes you think and even if it doesn't turn you into a pacifist, it will probably make you at least a little more empathetic to people around you. I hope.

And if you're ever in Cody Wyoming, just ask for Wild Bob!"

Click here to read more of my book reviews: http://tmal.multiply.com/reviews

PaperBackSwap

Looking for a good book, but you can't find it at Wal-Mart and you don't have the time or the ride to get to a Borders or Barnes and Noble's in Omaha or Sioux City? Don't have the credit card for looking online? Feel like you've seen everything you're interested in at your local library?

May I suggest you check out PaperBackSwap? All you have to do is offer to send other people your used books, and then you get to choose from some of theirs! Cheap, easy, actually kind of fun.

PaperBackSwap is a group of readers who share books with each other (NOT just paperbacks) for nothing more than the cost of postage! You can learn more about this exciting site by flipping through their PaperBackSwap book.

http://www.paperbackswap.com

Potent Quote

"You don't have to
burn books
to destroy a culture.
Just get people to
stop reading them."

~Ray Bradbury
(Author; Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles)

DEAR Time

"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
~Confucius