Book #4.FRANKENSTEIN

(Just FYI:  it's odd saying that Frankenstein is book #4 for 2011, considering the fact that I'm also reading Hannibal by Thomas Harris and a great memoir, Zippy...both of which I started BEFORE Frankenstein, but I can't help writing about Frankenstein now rather than later.....!)

This is actually the 3rd or 4th time I've read Frankenstein throughout my life.  It definitely is a book worth reading several times.  I don't begrudge my students choosing it again this semester at all.  In fact, I've hardly been able to keep the smile off my face or my hands off the book since the day it looked like a possibility that we'd read it!!!  I'm trying very hard to read only what's scheduled to be read for each class so I don't get overly excited about the book and talk about parts of the story that give away details my students haven't gotten to yet.  It's not easy.  I LOVE Frankenstein. 

It is so awesome to work with a novel as great as this and to have more folks realize the truths of the story rather than continuing to believe the myths that have come about as a result of modern movies and such about the story.  The movies certainly have their place and are interesting in their own right, but the original book written by a very young woman (she wasn't even 20 years old when the book was originally published!  I think she was 17 when she wrote it and 18 when it was published!) and the book deserves to read and understood in all its own glory. 

No one in class chose to work with the novel which means that they have to put up with whatever I choose to do with it....I hope that we do or talk about at least one activity throughout the discussions of Frankenstein that everyone in class realizes what a wonderful work of literature it really and truly is....and that most of them actually READ it......

There are so many issues and themes in Frankenstein that are still so very relevant to today.  One of the most important themes raised in the text is the notion of true HORROR.  Not as modern Hollywood has made the horror genre to be, but true horror in the context of what literally scares the bejeezus out of a person--to the point where his/her heart palpitates, he/she shakes or convulses all over, he/she might even faint or at least become very light-headed, and he/he TRULY feels F-E-A-R down to his/her bones. 

Hollywood has made the horror genre something that is quite laughable much of the time.  I don't watch a lot of Hollywood-ized horror movies, but one that I've seen bits and pieces of reveals just absolute ridiculousness rather than true horror.  In the older/first version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, towards the end of movie after the girl has escaped the chair and she's running from the dude with the chainsaw, she keeps turning around to look behind her.  The whole screen is filled with one of her eyeballs as it rolls around crazily in its socket.  Then, as the camera pans back so the audience can see the chainsaw guy chasing her, we see that's he's barely a foot behind her and if he'd just reach out with the chainsaw a tiny bit, he'd be able to hack her to pieces and put her--and, to be honest, the audience--out of her misery, but yet he continues to act as if she's hundreds of yards ahead of him, which, of course, within seconds, it appears she is.

This movie is an example of what I'm talking about how ridiculous Hollywood has taken the horror genre and made it more of a joke than true horror.  I suppose there's obviously an audience for that type of film/story, but when we get down to the dirty of Frankenstein, we find true horror that makes the blood run cold in true fear.  It finds our deepest fears and preys upon them in the sincerest fashion.  The reader can, on some level at some time throughout the story, relate to Victor Frankenstein...whether it's in the beginning as he becomes uber-obsessed with learning about life and death and the reanimation of human tissue, or as he suffers one tragedy in his life after another, or when he debates whether or not to end his life because of the horrors he himself has created as well as the horrors he's having to live with, or when he realizes that he must take responsibility for his actions, or even as he determines to tell Captain Walton his story in the hopes that the good captain will learn from his mistakes. 

I am having a very difficult time choosing which movie version of Frankenstein to watch.  Every movie version ever made takes quite a few liberties with the story.  Even one of the most recent versions, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with Kenneth Branaugh, which is supposed to be THE version most closely like the original text, takes quite a few liberties with the original novel that, even though I've still only seen about 30 minutes of it, make me want to screem in frustration.  This version has Victor's mother die in childbirth.  In the novel, she dies of severe scarlet fever after she's nursed Elizabeth back to health from scarlet fever.  Granted, there is a young son (brother to Victor) who was obviously still an infant when Victor's mother dies, but in the novel, she does NOT die in childbirth.  This movie uses Victor's mother's horrific death in childbirth as his motivation that drives him to attempt to reanimate dead human tissue. 

What makes the movie versions even more frustrating is the fact that the "normal" public has taken whichever version they've watched and determined them to be the definitive versions of Frankenstein.  I was even reading a comment to a YouTube video that complained about a silly Lego version of the story, reminding the creators of the video that Victor's inspiration for the reanimation of human tissue was because of his mother's death in childbirth!!!  UGH!!!!! 

I guess I'm going to have to get over that if I feel that it's important to watch SOME version of FrankensteinY in the classroom.  I'm leaning towards watching Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks with Gene Wilder playing Victor Frankenstein just because it's silly and obviously meant to be a funny play on the story itself.  It's not meant to be taken seriously, which makes it easier to enjoy.  When I watch the version that even calls it Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I want to hit somebody because the writers, director, producers, and especially Kenneth Branaugh, are advertising that version as THE DEFINITIVE version of the story based CLOSELY on the original novel....when in actuality, it takes as many liberties with the story as Young Frankenstein does!!!!!

If you're going to make a definitive version, make it true to the TRUE text and not your own interpretation because you think it makes good movie magic.......UGH!  It's for movies like that one that make me wish Hollywood would quit trying to make movies from books.............

Of course, I love the Twilight films....they aren't nearly as awesome as the books, but the movies are still enjoyable.  And I also enjoy the Harry Potter movies, but again, they're NOTHING like the awesome, amazing, so well worth reading books!!!!  Of course, How to Train Your Dragon is an amazing movie; I had to watch the movie with the clear understanding, though, that it's LOOSELY based on the book....

Oh well.  Movies are only getting bigger, better, badder, and more awesome.  As much as I love to read, I also enjoy watching movies, so, regardless of my negative feelings of the movies made LOOSELY based on books (even though they're advertising that they're the definitive version), just like so many of my peers, I will continue to watch movies...yes, even the ones based on books....regardless of how angry I will continue to get when they ruin the original story to make their version of the movie....