32k reviews for:

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

3.86 AVERAGE

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I struggled with the flowery language but enjoyed the book. 
dark reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
dark emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Oh, this book. At the start I was a little bored (you know what I'm talking about with the letters...). But once the sailor met Victor Frankenstein and Victor began his fantastic tale, I was enthralled. Victor was addicted to the sciences and dedicated himself more than any person probably has. He dreamed of being a light, a beacon to the sciences and to making his work a standard of which other people could only hope to aspire to. When he realized he could animate the inanimate, his mind was filled with great dreams and imaginings and he thought of all the things he could possibly do and the glory he might receive. He worked tirelessly, stealing from graves and committing acts that would normally disgust a person, but under his glow of excitement he felt no horror.

He said he had chosen the features of his creation to be beautiful. But when his creature opened his eyes and moved, the horror that Victor Frankenstein felt was immeasurable and he fled. His health was shot, and he was in constant fear of the daemon. Years passed before he saw him again. But it was to be under sad circumstance, for Victor heard that his little brother was murdered. As he traveled back to his home in Geneva he saw, with horror, the figure of his daemon and he knew then that the creature made by his own hands was the killer.

Another, a girl was tried and killed for the murder but Victor knew otherwise and sought out his daemon. Up to this point in the book, you feel horror along with Victor, and utter sorrow at his loss. But your feelings shift after his creature tells Victor what he has been through. He has become educated and learned to speak, and yet his sadness is immeasurable because he knows because of his deformed figure he will never know kindness from another creature. He admits to killing the child but asks Victor to make him a mate, promises to disappear once it is done. Victor, moved and fearful, agrees. The pity and sadness that you feel when reading the daemon’s tale is moving, and you wish only for him to have the comfort he desires, to have someone with whom he can be with.

Victor originally plans to comply but after beginning, the horror of what he is doing comes back to him. He cannot make another creature, one that perhaps could multiply and create more vicious creatures. He destroys his work. The daemon is angry, and his hopes are dashed, and he vows that he will have revenge. It comes swiftly as he kills Victor’s good friend Clavel. After much more hardship, which I won’t detail, you are again tossed against the daemon for all he does to Victor. After Victor weds his beloved cousin, the greatest revenge is cast, and the daemon kills her.

This destroys Victor and he vows to right his wrongs. Well, he never gets his revenge for he simply cannot endure the toil that his personal daemon bestows upon him. After Frankenstein’s death, the monster howls in agony, angry that he, who only desired beauty in life, was forced into the ugliness and vengeful life that he led. He tells the sailor that now his revenge is complete, and he hates himself. He tells him he will run to the edge of the ice and then destroy himself.

I mean, I know I shouldn't just reiterate the story but it felt necessary to walk you through the feelings that this book puts you through. I perhaps didn't even explain them well. But there was grief and sorrow and pain in that book. I loved it.

“when i run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, i cannot believe that i am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness.”
He never even got a name :(

This book was amazing. Modern images of Frankenstein definitely distorted my ideas about the book in the beginning. I found Shelley's romantic writing to actually be to my taste. I found others that thought it was too much, but I thought it was perfect. Her narrative fitted each of the characters as they each shared their stories.
challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Un livre excellent tout d’abord par la beauté de son langage, tout y est très précis sans en faire trop (ce qui permet de garder un récit lisible et accessible).
Toute la complexité de cette œuvre réside dans la création d’un être vivant ressemblant mentalement à l’être humain (sensibilité, réflexion ect) mais d’une laideur horrifique le confrontant à une solitude éternelle.
Le lecteur est alors plongé dans un dilemme moral puissant, tantôt nous sommes attristés du destin de ce « monstre », tantôt nous sommes révoltés des actions meurtrières de ce dernier. Pour autant aucun personnage (que ça soit la création ou le scientifique) nous paraît être mauvais ou bons, chacun de ses deux personnes sont complexes et jusqu’à la fin notre perception de ces deux personnages restent profondément incertaines.
J’estime qu’il s’agit de l’une des œuvres maîtresses de la littérature de science-fiction. (qui permet néanmoins de se rattacher à beaucoup de thématiques encore (malheureusement) trop actuelles).