Beverly, have you read Lives of the Monster Dogs, by Kirsten Bakis? I just read it, and it was pretty good. I haven't read Frankenstein yet, but it's in a very similar vein, down to incorporating journal entries and news articles as part of the narrative.

The movie "Gothic," while disturbing, is an interesting look at how MWS was inspired for Frankenstein.

I think the book is also about the force of creation; the unstoppable impetus some people feel to create, to hell with morals or social mores, they have to get the angels/demons inside them out. The creature can be read as an analogy for a book or a poem or a painting, but one born from the dark subconscious side of the creator's brain. Van Gogh or Picasso, not Kinkaide.

And that kind of creation tends to have a life of its own. Once the creator births it, it is in the world, and the world treats it as the world sees it. Readers critique books, viewers critique movies, and the creation has to survive these assaults on its own.

For me, the tragic figure is the creature, suddenly sentient in a strange and beautiful though baffling world, bereft of the tools he needs to survive and succeed. I think all of us empathise at times with the creature.

This though, for sure.

I think the book is also about the force of creation; the unstoppable impetus some people feel to create, to hell with morals or social mores, they have to get the angels/demons inside them out.

Interesting, given that my understanding is that the book itself was written when she and Shelley and Byron, I think, were up at some hunting lodge and challenged each other to write horror stories to fend off the boredom.

Also, vw, I wrote some of my best papers about books I passionately disliked or disagreed with. It can be REALLLY satisfying to tear a novel or author to shreds in an academically precise, well-researched way.

(OR maybe that's just my little lit kink coming out, non?)

Thanks for the rec, P-C, I'll have to look for it. I'm a journal junkie. That and correspondence. It's like eavesdropping, even in fiction.

Just finished the latest Kim Harrison. She brought me back tothe fold with that ending

We're having our charity book sale here at work today. As is usual, while we were setting up the books on tables in the cafeteria, people started coming over and looking through them even though we weren't ready to open up yet (no money, no signs with prices, etc.). I did a fast look-through to see if there was anything I'd want, and got Molly Ivins' Shrub, The Alienist, and Time-Travelers Wife, for $4 total! And then, while I was handling the sales for the first few hours, someone came up with Eats Shoots and Leaves, which I totally missed on my cursory lookthrough and I am thoroughly bummed because he got it instead of me. Humph.

The Onion's AV Club is firing on all cylinders this week: neither the random rules interview with Berkeley Breathed nor the collection of favorite Vonnegut quotes should be missed.

Dear Book Pimpers:

Have finished Shards of Honor. Stop. Library has Barrayar on hold for me; will pick it up after work. Stop. Was at Half-Price Books at lunchtime; bought To Say Nothing of the Dog. Stop.

I also noticed, when at Half-Price Books and looking for Barrayar, that LeVar Burton has a book in the Science Fiction section. This both amuses and troubles me.

I'm still troubled when I catch Reading Rainbow and see his actual eyes.