Seymour Flops
Diamond Member
It was a great novel, written by a young woman from a literary family. She was the original Goth Girl.
Anyway, what follows is a semi-spoiler of the book, but it will only spoiler it if you have not seen the movies made for it.
There is a plot twist at the end, that cannot translate into a movie.
In the novel, the central narrator, Dr Victor Frankenstein, appears to be an unreliable one. By that I mean, Dr Frankenstein is a narrator within a narration by a ship's captain who is repeating the story that Frankenstein told him in letter to his wife.
In the movies, there is an elaborate explanation of how Frankenstein brought the monster to life, that often takes up at least a quarter of the screen time. In the book Frankenstein simply says, WTTE of I tried to do it and surprisingly did it.
As Frankenstein tell the story, the reader has to think that the monster he speaks of creating and unleashing on the world is an illusion, a hallucination or a false memory. It seems more likely that it is Frankenstein who is committing all the murders that he attributes to the monster, and that his pursuit of the imagined monster is part of his insanity. The monster has super-human strength, and always seems to appear to taunt Frankenstein when Frankenstein is despairing of ever catching him. He seems to whisper in Frankenstein's ear though he is rowing across a lake with super human speed while Frankenstein watches from shore.
The plot twist is that at the end of the novel, Frankenstein aboard the captain's ship, and the monster appears to the Captain. Surprise! Either it is real, or the Captain has succumbed to the fantasy also.
Great movies, yes. But read the book before you see them, if you haven't already.
Anyway, what follows is a semi-spoiler of the book, but it will only spoiler it if you have not seen the movies made for it.
There is a plot twist at the end, that cannot translate into a movie.
In the novel, the central narrator, Dr Victor Frankenstein, appears to be an unreliable one. By that I mean, Dr Frankenstein is a narrator within a narration by a ship's captain who is repeating the story that Frankenstein told him in letter to his wife.
In the movies, there is an elaborate explanation of how Frankenstein brought the monster to life, that often takes up at least a quarter of the screen time. In the book Frankenstein simply says, WTTE of I tried to do it and surprisingly did it.
As Frankenstein tell the story, the reader has to think that the monster he speaks of creating and unleashing on the world is an illusion, a hallucination or a false memory. It seems more likely that it is Frankenstein who is committing all the murders that he attributes to the monster, and that his pursuit of the imagined monster is part of his insanity. The monster has super-human strength, and always seems to appear to taunt Frankenstein when Frankenstein is despairing of ever catching him. He seems to whisper in Frankenstein's ear though he is rowing across a lake with super human speed while Frankenstein watches from shore.
The plot twist is that at the end of the novel, Frankenstein aboard the captain's ship, and the monster appears to the Captain. Surprise! Either it is real, or the Captain has succumbed to the fantasy also.
Great movies, yes. But read the book before you see them, if you haven't already.
