Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is my favourite novel of all time, but why? Let's talk about it... Visit us here: booksandbao.com/ Support us on Patreon: / booksandbao
You took the words right out of my mouth. Frankenstein is, for my money, the greatest single work ever penned by a human hand. It's that good. No other book has ever moved me as greatly. No other book has ever captured (in less than 300 pages) such a wide breadth of human experience on paper. The writing is breathtaking. The characters are incredibly complex. The pacing is perfect. Literally everything about it is stunning. It was *far* ahead of its time. And it's also one of the rare classic books that you can read and not really be offput; it's sensibilities are deeply humane and it's aged quite well as a result. And it also gave me one of my favorite quotes: "Knowledge is knowing that Frankenstein wasn't the monster; wisdom is realizing he was."
I'm a literature major, and ever since I've been out of class your videos are my go to when I need my fix of in depth, well articulated, mesmerising literary commentary. Academia kind of dampened my love for literature for a number of reasons, one being that it burned me out to the point I read more about books than I read the actual books; but your channel, your love for what you do and read, it lit that fire back up again for me. And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Looking forward to seeing and reading more of you! Lots of love for you and your partner from Italy.
Wow, this is the kindest comment I've ever received. Thank you so, so much. My partner also burned out from literature for a while after her MA. I think it's normal, sadly. Teaching literature in front of a class never got me anywhere but comments like yours make me feel like blogging and RU-vid are where I should be. I'm sorry you've been burned out by academia and I hope my videos are helping! Thank you again, you don't know what a comment like this means to me!
I'm seventy years old and just read Frankenstein this past year...and then learned the backstory of how it came to be written and a cursory biography of Mary Shelley....and am still stunned and blown away. I've since read a few of her short stories and am seeking a good biography. Thanks for your review.
This book is one that resonated with me on so many levels that I remeber crying whilst reading it. As a child from a fatherless home due to abandonment, it cut deeply. Why even create a being if you are going to abandon it? It is assigning that being to agony. As I read the monsters' re-telling of his life I felt so many similarities. Blooming late, feeling outcast and dejected. Feeling like others understand something more and are so far advanced that you are not worthy of their company. The monster had so much potential, not only that, but victor had so much potential. The science he pioneered with the creation could have been used to save countless lives, I remeber thinking "If only you had pursued your goals more, you would be able to revive them" as Victor lamented at the loss of each of his friends. Even now, as a creator, as an artist, It resonates with me in that when I create something, I hold responsibility for it no mater how ugly or misshapen the first draft is. I am its progenitor and therefore I hold responsibility with it to see its growth into something more refined. And with that I give more value to my art than my father had given to me Thank you for making this video and providing an outlet, I know so few who have read this book and I feel like so few can sympathize and understand my own musings on it. Its amazing: Mary Shelly had created an Existential Horror bar non in the process of writing the first Science Fiction. Brilliant mind
Wow it's really enlightening and humbling to see a reading of this novel that is so personal. This is a layer to Frankenstein that I haven't accessed so thank you so so much for sharing!
I wait for your videos every week after I took up my long lost hobby of reading again, and somehow end up putting every single one in my To-Read list! Great underrated videos!
Couple of hot takes here. 1) I have no problem with the monster being called Frankenstein. That was his creator, his father's name, and abandoned or not the Creature still has legitimate right to it. 2) Considering the lack of actual science in the story, I've never thought of this as sci-fi. How the monster is brought to life is completely passed over, science may have been involved, but try replicating it. Just watch the silent Edison film version to see how little science was given the reader.
"I don't get bored of thinking about frankenstein" this statement absolutely describes my feelings towards the novel. ever since i read it for school two years ago, i just haven't stop thinking about it.
Frankenstein the novel is my favorite book ever. Victor Frankenstein, should have said something anything at Justine Mortitz’s trial. He was, ironically the true monster and villains of the novel.
No movie has done it justice so far. Maybe a good director like Christopher Nolan or Denis Villanueve. The key is it's not a horror, but a deep philosophical and drama. Hope someday!
I recently reread Frankenstein for the first time in like, five years, and I was floored by just how GOOD it was. It's now in my top five, if not my top three. It's such a fantastic novel. You hit everything right on the head with this review. I subbed. Can't wait to binge your videos!
I just finished the 1818 edition of Frankenstein and I loved it! Devoured it within 5 days and I'm usually a slow reader (that and English is my second language so I had to look up quite a few words, mostly those which had a different meaning then). All I knew about Frankenstein was the 1994 film (which, apparently, doesn't deviate much from the book) some popculture imagery (the screws-in-the-neck creature and suchlike) and a Mary Shelley biopic from some years ago I watched last autumn. So, naturally, after finishing the book I had to go on the internet and find other people who loved it, and I'm glad I stumbled across your channel this way! :) I also looked up differences between the 1818 and the 1831 ed. What do you think, should I read the 1831 ed too? Do you have a favourite ed? I'd love to hear your thoughts. (I got the 1818 one because I had heard that it's truer to Mary Shelley's original intentions.)
I’m so glad I found this review. I first read Frankenstein at school and couldn’t appreciate it at the time. I re-read it later and realised how genius it was. It also makes it extra special because Mary Shelley is just one of my favourite people from history. She really was a genius and completely “out there”. I got a tattoo of her portrait as well as ones Bram Stoker, Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe, but of all of them Mary is my favourite tattoo.
That is very cool dedication and I agree, she was an incredible woman! I just read and reviewed (for another publication) the novel Love and Fury, which is a novelisation of her mother's life. Highly recommend!
I just adore watching your videos. I don't have a lot of people in my life that love to read, and when I watch your videos I feel like I am talking to a friend that understand what it feels to love everything about books: the process of reading, analyzing it over and over again, and the nostalgia of talking about the story once it's over.
Have you read the book "Looking Backward" (or Backwards)? Is the M. Shelley's Frankenstein movie (a few years ago) based on an earlier (?) Version of her famous story? The part that just about disappointed me was when in the movie Viktor takes his dead spouses head and attaches it to the other lady's body. Fill me in!
@@WillowTalksBooks So far I've loved everything you've recommended (and 100% agreed with your review of The Midnight Library), so I think I'm in good hands! 😊
My cousin's problem with "Frankenstein" is the same problem a lot of people---especially Americans have with Shelley's novel. For him, "Frankenstein" is a classic FILM directed by James Whaley and starring Boris Karloff, and his mind allows NOTHING to supplant it, including the original novel.
I just found your channel and was bold over by your thoughts on Frankenstein. I totally agree with you about the brilliance of this novel. I am a psychiatrist and for me, the novel is full of major psychological insights and the dire outcome of an individual feeling outcast, abandoned, and unloved. I am retiring in seven weeks, and one of the special books I bought for myself to mark this auspicious occasion is a beautiful Folio Society edition of Frankenstein. You have a new subscriber.
Ok so my favorite classics of all time are Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 🖤 you can tell I love a good Byronic narcissistic toxic (anti-) hero haha ! And a good old haunting gothic atmosphere ! I am so happy that I found your review! you sound so passionate about this classic and rightfully so ! And we seem to share the same taste for the Hammer Horror aesthetic too ! I just subbed !
Wuthering Heights is my other favourite! Love me some nasty, bleak gothic deliciousness. I could honestly do another video on Frankenstein and cover a whole other list of things I love.
@@WillowTalksBooks definitely I would love to see another Frankenstein video on your channel ! I can never get tired of hearing about this masterpiece !
i absolutely cannot belive you got to go to that exhibit i would KILL to have seen that😭😭😭 frankenstein is my favourite novel of all time, and continues to be nonatter howmany books i read, it’s so lovely to see another person who loves his book as much as me and for the same reasons as me too !!! also you’ve inspired me to learn more about mary shelley and who she was as a person, thank u for this video!!!! :))
Hey, great video. Very personal and very illuminating. I didn’t know how to feel about the ridiculousness of some of the content of Frankenstein because I too love it so much. Now I can file it under “camp”. Thanks :)
I found myself quite blown away by Anne K. Mellor’s lecture on Frankenstein after reading it - excavating Mary Shelley’s personal life experience that manifested itself in the novel (fear of child birth/the loss of 2 of her children, feminism, the positive/negative influence of her parents, Mother Nature, science of the time, etc.) Would recommend it. Great video as well! Enjoyed your insight.
Frankenstein is my favorite novel of all time, as well! I’d love to hear your thoughts on Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson, if ever you got around to reading it! Thanks for such articulate and enthusiastic videos about books!
Oh awesome! Actually yeah I read Frankissstein when it came out and I really enjoyed its odd shifts in tone and pacing. I found it an enthralling and beautiful novel in many ways. Winterson is a bit problematic from where I'm standing but she wrote a novel I ended up enjoying a lot!
i was excited yesterday for having found your channel as someone who's also passionate about books in translation, but to think i'd wake up to a video about one of my favorite books the very next day! i loved it!! have you read carmilla? those were the two books that made me fall in love with classics and while i don't think it's objectively as good as frankenstein it still holds a very special place in my heart :)
Well thank you very much! I'm glad my channel doesn't disappoint! I haven't read Carmilla but I would absolutely love to. I'll try and read it soon and do a video on gothic classics.
The first time I read it it took me forever and I really didn't get much (joy) out of it. Rereading it in Gris Grimley's version gave me another acces to the text that made the story come to life for me more and now I really enjoy the story.
I really want to buy a Frankenstein book, I've been wathcing all the movies I can find and youtube reviews 😂, its a proper classic but i recently read Dracula which i was so excited for and I'm half way half way through and not much has happened with Dracula yet and it's putting me off buying the Frankenstein book.
One of my favorites!!! 🧟♂️ I just read Romantic Outlaws, it’s about Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft life alternating chapters between them. Absolutely recommend!!!
I also had the chance to visit the Alps region described in the book about 2 years ago (when we were allowed to travel...) which made it even more special!!!
Looked up this video because I’m hating every second of the book (sorry) in hopes of being corrected, but all the things you loved, I can’t bare 😂😂 selfish assholes and a million pages about the mountains lolol (oh ugh and the thousand pages of the sailor writing letters to his sister omg 💀💀) You worded everything so well and educational and I thank you ❤️ Oh and I REALLY wanted to like it!!!!!!
I finished the book a couple of weeks ago. I typically read sci-fi and recently geen getting into fantasy (via Discworld) and Stephen King. I have always been intimidated by reading Classics as they have always seemed unapproachable. I wolfed down this book - it was so rich yet so moreish and I couldn't get enough of it. Whilst I did need to google many words, it was so compelling that I found it hard to put down. I will read the 1818 edition soon, both out of curiosity to see if it feels that different but also because I want to read the book again!
You know, I just commented on your twitter post but I've now actually finished watching your video and yes, all of this! I think, the thing that most fascinates me - and really why I want to reread the novel soon - are the landscapes (because there is such a huge overlap with art, especially landscape painting) and the way the novel incorporates scientific developments (magnetism! mesmerism! electricity!), but really it's just all of it? The book is so incredibly good!
I read frankenstein in january and i loved it! So many THEMES!! I read it in 2 days which i wasn't expecting since the 1st chapter was kinda rough to get into
According to the 2022 article "Frankenstein: how Mary Shelly's sci-fi classic warns us of the dangers of playing God": - ...Like much great art, [the novel's] strength lies in its ambivalence and complexity.
Wow! I've been out of college for ages but still tend to DO TO MYSELF what academia did to me. Life is not a series of term papers, not a masters thesis, not a dissertation, but I find myself slipping back into those constraints so easily and so unhappily. I realize I've done this with Frankenstein and that I need now to just let it rest in me a while. Thank you, Willow.💜🧟♀️💜➡️💜🧚♀️💜
I finished reading the book today. The eloquence of the writing style is unforgettable. You're right about how all-consuming the descriptions of nature are - (as I'd taken note of that when I was reading) - The backstory of the monster is as beautiful as it is heartbreaking; and more than anything else, this was an extremely sad book. It definitely touched my heart like no other book could. Deeply thought-provoking, the notion that science cannot explain everything in the human experience is made clear.
@@WillowTalksBooks I just think that a lot of your friends and supporters know how much the book means to you. I know your videos are always upbeat and lovely but to hear you talk about something we KNOW you're that passionate about is 👌👌👌
I will definitely buy this book and read it. Kindly, I would like to know your thoughts on The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa if you have read it. Thank you.
I adored this book. I'm not a literature nerd or any kind of history buff. And usually when it comes to books I'm not a particular fan in general of the medium. But this was such a cleverly written story. I'm a little amused that the history was to write a "spooky story" but this book reads more like a tragic story.
Does this quote apply to Frankenstein?: - We decided to play God, create life. When that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really. You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. "Battlestar Galactica" (Commander Adama)
18 is such a perfect age to first read a book like Frankenstein. I was jealous of my students (especially the ones who really loved it) for reading such a camp and powerful book as a teenager.
@@WillowTalksBooks And your parents live near Tintern Abbey? Mine live about 20 minutes' drive away! Near Magor Services if you know where that is lol.
Hi willow! I just finished reading frankenstein and I think it is the best book ive ever read. BUT what do you think about Ernest? I just felt like he was forgotten, given that he was the only frankenstein that survived
Recently discovered your channel and love it! A periodic bookie here. You inspired me to read Frankenstein. Just wondering, would you recommend the first 1818 uncensored edition or the later one and why? Keep sharing your thoughts, love your way of expression. Greets from the Netherlands! ❤
In two days, I’m posting a video all about the 1818 edition and my experience reading it! So that should give you your answer :) Love to the Netherlands, one of my favourite countries 💜
I just saw it and blew my mind! Also just finished the book (1818). Who knew that there are so many profound changes dictated by the fate of the author... Wow. I need some time to digest it.
I don't see Frankenstein as a science fiction novel. I see it more like a philosophical social horror novel. It is the first monster novel but as a science fiction, not really. The first science fiction novel was Jekyll and Hyde which is another masterpiece.
Mary was not your ordinary young girl, when she wrote frankenstein she had given birth to a stillborn child, her mother and father were grand politiacal revolutinaries in terms of womens rights and other issues. Percy her rock star husband (think Mick Jagger) proofed the book and wrote some passages. I don't like using the word absurd to describe this book it makes me mad. My favorite book of all time I wrote several stories with this book at its core (Lovecraftiana published doznes of them.) Never another book like it.
that is where you are wrong sir, possibly one of the most shittiest books i am reading right now, forcefully implemented by our evil english department