You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by kaymarco
Frankenstein: The 1818 Text by Mary Shelley
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I usually skip the end credits of audiobooks (I know who wrote the book and narrated it; these are things I take into consideration when picking audiobooks to begin with), but like a Shakespeare play that's particularly horrific or just generally fucking wild, I had to wait until the end and let the music play out and listen to the person at the end tell me these details as if to assure me that it was just a story, it's fine, it's not real, you can close the tab now and forget about it if you want. That is how devastating this book was.
But I don't want to forget! This was fantastic. I'd never read the book before, but one of my students who recently graduated had been reading it and telling me about it, and I really enjoyed her takes on the different events that happen in the book, so I decided to give it a try. I'm also very much looking forward to the Guillermo del Toro film coming out later this year and wanted to make sure I had a good grasp of the original text going in.
I thought Dan Stevens did an amazing job narrating the audiobook. He's a very good actor, so I'm not surprised. I really enjoyed the distinct voices he gave to each character, and as one of my friends who has also listened to this version of the book said, he's got a voice that's well suited to classical literature and period pieces.
The story itself was much better than I ever imagined it would be, and it's interesting how funny certain aspects of it are from a modern perspective. My student who read the book was always talking about how Victor was her special little boy, and he'd probably be diagnosed with some kind of major anxiety disorder if he was a man of our time. She wasn't lying! This guy made some wild decisions, and then reacted to the consequences of his actions in the most illogical, stress-induced ways. It was also interesting to see the differences between his view of the world as a man raised, presumably, in the upper or upper middle class of his region and the Creature/Adam's view of the world as a being thrust into the middle of that same society but who exists separate from any socioeconomic niche. I couldn't help but sympathize with Adam, too, though I didn't always agree with his actions. His frustration was warranted, though his actions are extreme. At the same time, while Victor is a sophisticated, educated modern man, he is cowardly and rife with prejudice, and thus unlikable (at least to me) for much of the book; still, I sympathized with him, too, at certain points.
It also surprised me how progressive a lot of the politics in this book were for the period. I studied Victorian and early Edwardian history and literature in undergrad and when I pursued my MA, but I knew little about Georgian/Regency era literature, and as I had never read this book before and had only seen a few films, I wasn't aware of how much social commentary there actually was in it. I was surprised to read about Shelley's presumed stances on the slaughter of the Native Americans, wealth inequality, racism, Islamophobia, and sexism. There's this idea that people in the past were much more conservative than we are today and that the desire for fairness and equality is a modern one, the result of "progress," but this is a misconception. It was refreshing to see such strong evidence of that in this book. I'm just disappointed that no one really talks about this aspect of Shelley's novel, and that it hasn't shown up as of yet in any of the film adaptations I've seen.
But I don't want to forget! This was fantastic. I'd never read the book before, but one of my students who recently graduated had been reading it and telling me about it, and I really enjoyed her takes on the different events that happen in the book, so I decided to give it a try. I'm also very much looking forward to the Guillermo del Toro film coming out later this year and wanted to make sure I had a good grasp of the original text going in.
I thought Dan Stevens did an amazing job narrating the audiobook. He's a very good actor, so I'm not surprised. I really enjoyed the distinct voices he gave to each character, and as one of my friends who has also listened to this version of the book said, he's got a voice that's well suited to classical literature and period pieces.
The story itself was much better than I ever imagined it would be, and it's interesting how funny certain aspects of it are from a modern perspective. My student who read the book was always talking about how Victor was her special little boy, and he'd probably be diagnosed with some kind of major anxiety disorder if he was a man of our time. She wasn't lying! This guy made some wild decisions, and then reacted to the consequences of his actions in the most illogical, stress-induced ways. It was also interesting to see the differences between his view of the world as a man raised, presumably, in the upper or upper middle class of his region and the Creature/Adam's view of the world as a being thrust into the middle of that same society but who exists separate from any socioeconomic niche. I couldn't help but sympathize with Adam, too, though I didn't always agree with his actions. His frustration was warranted, though his actions are extreme. At the same time, while Victor is a sophisticated, educated modern man, he is cowardly and rife with prejudice, and thus unlikable (at least to me) for much of the book; still, I sympathized with him, too, at certain points.
It also surprised me how progressive a lot of the politics in this book were for the period. I studied Victorian and early Edwardian history and literature in undergrad and when I pursued my MA, but I knew little about Georgian/Regency era literature, and as I had never read this book before and had only seen a few films, I wasn't aware of how much social commentary there actually was in it. I was surprised to read about Shelley's presumed stances on the slaughter of the Native Americans, wealth inequality, racism, Islamophobia, and sexism. There's this idea that people in the past were much more conservative than we are today and that the desire for fairness and equality is a modern one, the result of "progress," but this is a misconception. It was refreshing to see such strong evidence of that in this book. I'm just disappointed that no one really talks about this aspect of Shelley's novel, and that it hasn't shown up as of yet in any of the film adaptations I've seen.