Frankenstein

Mary Shelly

2/12/2000

Excuse me? I thought I knew this story.  I have seen the movies despite my dislike of horror. Anybody living in our culture knows the story of Frankenstein and his creature without having read the book. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

This is not the story of a man creating artificial organic life. This is not the story of grave robbing, stitching together body parts, dank, dark castles, thunderstorms and electricity bringing life where there was none. In fact, bringing the creature to life probably has the least focus in this novel. This horror story deals instead with Victor Frankenstein. Why did he bring the creature to life? What happened afterwords?

Horror or not, this is a fascinating book. I still do not know where Mary Shelly got this vision. The fear is in the telling and the build up, not the actual acts of violence, let alone the reactions to the violence. The creature is not the innocent I expected. Nor is he to be blamed. This is an experiment gone wrong, and all are to be pitied.

If you have not read this book, you do not know the story. Find it at and discover the true story of Frankenstein and his monster.

After you've read this book, visit . You'll like the tongue-in-cheek abridged version of this novel you can read in a minute or less. Great humor!