The Monsters by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler was the first book we had to read for Prof. John Panza's Humanities class - The Individual in Society. It was the first of four books. The other being Dr. Haggard's Disease, Dr. Faustus, and The Sheltering Sky. Once again these are books I would never known I'd enjoy because I would have never picked them up. The impact of these books, and the class was empowering and I will say helped me find who I am.
In this review I will talk about the book, the branches of the book that one might be interested in, and the class and how the class embraced these books (See posts titled Humanities Book). I will discuss (wow just the memory of the class makes me mighty emotional and it has been a month since the last class. One would think it was a love affair rather than just a class), how the books slowly transformed my view on romantic/Gothic literature over the course of the four blogs.
The Book: Everything you know about Frankenstein, is wrong. That is, if you have not read the 1818 version. If you have not read either of the publication your idea of Frankenstein is still very wrong. This book explores in great detail how "Frankenstein" came to be, not just the book, but this legendary idea of horror that has yielded so many horror, science fiction books throughout the ages. It is from this one idea, her "child", that we have other monsters today.
The book opens with Mary Wollstonecraft, and her story. Some of you may know her as the first feminist writer ever. When I read about her in this book, many ideas matched my own. A lady living in 1700s England and France had the ideas for the modern woman today. Mary Wollestonecraft was independent, well read, educated, and very liberal. She moved to France and saw the French revolution first hand. In fact the ideas and writings of Voltaire etc. was what moved her to move. She may have been a feminist but she was romantic in the notion she knew what this revolution meant to the people. Until it got violent. She then moved. She eventually met her husband William Godwin, who as revolutionary as he was had a very strange and different background than Mary. They eventually married because Mary W. got pregnant, in those days these things were not looked upon well in high society, and that is the only reason they wed. Otherwise both of them were against marriage. Mary W. gave birth to her daughter but died 11 days after due to an infection. This daughter would later be known as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. After his wife dies, Godwin is filled with grief for he deeply loved Mary W. Either way he eventually re marries, and Mary Shelley is not treated as well by her step-mom.
We follow their stories very closely as all these people kept intricate and intimate journals. All their thoughts, feelings, actions are documented. Except for some missing pages which are thought to have been ripped out by Mary Shelley herself to clean up her image, for she feared the conservativeness of the Victorian era would tarnish her family name, although she grew up during the more "liberal" Romantic era.
We learn in this book exactly what Romantic means, and what it meant then to be a romantic. It is quite different from what and how it is depicted these days. They were the original Punks, and they were Kurt Cobain, they were the Rock Stars of the era. They crashed and burned, and burned deep. It was not just about love, but about death, and sex, and sex on a grave stone. (Read the book). Mary S. (she never wanted to take her father's name, she rather used Mary Wollstonecraft-Godwin, like her mother, later Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), met her boyfriend who was at the time married to someone else. They ran away with each other to France, with her step-sister in tow. Her step sister was Clair Clairmont. We get to read about the juicy drama between them, and her bf. Mary Shelley's BF - Percy Bysshe Shelley, eventually gets a divorce and marries Mary. However, Mary gets it in her head that if he was married and cheating on his last wife, he might be doing that now too. There ends up being friction there.
The threesome travel France, and Italy and France. They end up meeting Lord Byron, who is womanizer. He sparks love and idealism in many a girl, but some smart girls (like Mary) stay away from him. He might have been bisexual and shortly after him, the term bisexual was coined. He lived the life though loving women physically but men even more - intellectually and physically. Lord Byron was an all rounder, he was the first super star in England. He was a poet, but people sought to be around him.
It was after meeting Lord Byron at Villa Diodatti on Lake Geneva that Percy became kind of obsessed with Byron and vice-versa. They were enamored by each other's intellect, their minds fascinated each other and often spent many hours on the lake and at the mansion talking. Sometimes Mary would be allowed to be there to listen. It was during the storm of 1816 due to the Mt. Tambora in Indonesia erupting, that Byron challenged each of the party to write a horror story wore than the horror stories they had been reading- Fantasmagoriana. There was Claire, Mary, Percy and Byron's buddy/doctor Polidori and Byron himself. They each went to their rooms, and wrote. This was the inspiration of Frankenstein and also their travels through Chamonix and Mont Blanc during a snow storm mixed with her emotions for Percy and jealousy towards her sister and her interest in the up and coming subject called "science". This tempest within Mary S. resulted in the very dark but loving "child", as she called it, The Modern Prometheus. It was only Polidori's work The Vampyre and Mary's Frankenstein -or The Modern Prometheus that ever made it. The Vampire and Frankenstien's Monster are characters that live on today. The rest is history.
But wait! There's more... more drama, more juicy gossip, and deaths. It is all very "romantic" and intellectual and I won't ruin it. However the book explains why the 1818 publication of Frankenstein is so important. The later publication is but a censored and watered down version of the 1818 version. To experience true Gothic Romance one must read the 1818 version.
So other books and writers this book will Inspire you to read:
Mary Wollstonecraft-
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life (1787)
Maria; or The Wrongs of a Woman (1798)
An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; and the Effect It Has produced in Europe (1794)
Letters - Posthumously published by Godwin.
William Godwin -
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1793)
Percy Bysshe Shelley -
Poems
The Cenci
Queen Mab
Ozymandias
To a Skylark
The Revolt of Islam
Alastor
Prometheus Unbound
Adonais
The Triumph of Life
Mont Blanc
(interesting to read about this not well known poet who has inspired so many through the ages).
Lord Byron -
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
She Walks in Beauty
The Corsair
The Giaour
Don Juan (the poem)
(His life, affairs, his looks, his legacy are much to be read about in this book).
John William Polidori-
The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori (1816)
The Vampyre: A Tale (1819)
Lady Caroline Lamb -
Glenarvon (1816)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge -
Kubla Khan
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Biographia Literaria
(He was a good friend of Godwin, and Mary grew up listening to him from behind the sofa).
William Wordsworth -
The Prelude
Lyrical Ballads
Other Poems
John Milton -
Paradise Lost (1667)
Voltaire -
The Age of Louis XIV (1751)
Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756)
Henriade
The Maid of Orleans
Candide
Rousseau -
General Will
William Blake -
Illuminated Books
Tiriel
The French Revolution
A song of Liberty
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe -
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Faust
Mary Shelley -
The Modern Prometheus: Frankenstein (1818)
Frankenstein (1831)
Mathilda (1820)
Collections of Mary Shelley's papers are housed in Lord Abinger's Shelley Collection on deposit at the Bodleian Library, the New York Public Library (particularly The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle), the Huntington Library, the British Library, and in the John Murray Collection. (Source Wikipedia).
Alfred Lord Tennyson-
Poems
Prosper Mérimée-
Carmen
Poems
Edward John Trelawny -
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858)
Adventures of a younger son (1831)
Thomas Medwin-
The Shelley Papers; Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Immanuel Kant -
works
Sir Humphry Davy -
Elements of Chemical Philosophy
The books The Monsters ties all the above works in very well. Yes all these amazing writers from the past hung out, gossiped, and had immense drama with each other. This book was so inspiring that a fellow classmate and I were and still are inspired to write a play about it. As a dark as all of this was we, as a class discussed it with light, and realized a lot of things in our lives, in society now (vs. then), and how we can improve our own relationships. One thing I loved about this book is how all these people who until this book you did not realize were connected, hung out like palls - kind of like how Kevin Love has all the Cavs over for dinner (Cleveland Basketball team reference FYI).
If you are interested in Gothic or romantic era novels, this is a great place to start. I also suggest a trip to the local art museum with or during reading this book. It takes you back and helps you get into that appreciative mood for art, poetry, and heavy literature (lots to think about not all light and fun). BTW I promise to write some fun/ light reading reviews soon.
Plot: 9/10
Entertainment: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing Style: 7/10
Thought Provoking: 8/10
Recommend: 10/10
No comments:
Post a Comment