"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley; 5/10

Read By George Guidall

"Or The Modern Prometheus" to give the novel it's first title.  So, interesting factoid, this is often considered to be the first science fiction novel of merit.  I HATED it.  Was that interesting?

I suppose that if "Time Machine" was dull and generally underdeveloped, at least it wasn't actively bad.  I can't think of very many more detestable protagonists in literature, and I suppose that was intentional, but it just made me loathe the idea of even turning on this book to listen to it.  I found essentially every twist or other movement of the plot to be entirely contrived.  There was pretty much nothing that felt organic in this novel.  Shelley was only 21 when she wrote it, so I suppose she may be forgiven for this, but grudgingly.

There is a point in the novel when the narrative has become a story within a story within a story within a story.  I'm not even exaggerating that! At least the movie had interesting people with pitchforks and torches screaming and caring about what was going to happen in a rationally irrational way.

This book was nearly 100% bitching.  Narrator bitches, then turns it over to protagonist who bitches, then turns it over to monster who bitches, then back to narrator, and so forth.  The protagonist ran out of synonyms for the word "tortured" to describe his emotional state early on, and thenceforth recycled them with great rapidity. The "monster" was just droll. If I had been the character listening to him telling the story (within a story within a story) I'd have politely asked him to come to the fucking point many times. So...

Fuck this book.  It was awful.  You've got one great idea (see the 5 rating! see the 5!) that inspired tons of cool things later and made it important as a work of SF and as a work of romanticism. Fine.  The book is still terrible, and I hope very much that I never take it into my head to read it again. 


George Guidall was not as bad as the book, but I just don't care for his tone of voice.  I first thought maybe it sounded like whining primarily because most of the dialog was whining, but actually even descriptions of scenery sounded like that.  Didn't care for his reading at all. Want to spend your Frankenstein time wisely? Watch Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein," or the classic horror film "Bride of Frankenstein."

Any way you cut it, if you can...


AVOID!