I Didn't Have Much Time To Think Of A Proper Idea For A Photo This Week, These Books Kept Me Very Busy

I didn't have much time to think of a proper idea for a photo this week, these books kept me very busy

(I suck at graphic design so here are the fake book tittles from left to right, top to bottom)

-The Heir's Secret Slave

-Summer Love

-The Musician

-The Biblically Accurate Angel's Lover

-Seducing my Gym Trainer

- The Boss's Affaire

You can go and see the full pic on each link.

Which one would you like to read? 😏

Book Review: Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, Mary Shelley

My Review in a Tweet:

Oh, Shelley, the care you put into the feelings and thoughts, dreams and nightmares of your characters shines through an exquisite writing. The dialogues read as if shouted to the crowd of a theater, trying to convey an emotion they feel new in its intensity.

My Full Review:

Continuing with the series of readings for Halloween, I went for the next one of the Classic Monsters (order entirely decided by the lenght of each novel). "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus" by Mary Shelley, published anonimously at first on 1818, tells a generally well-known story of a man meddling with powers of nature beyond his complete comprehension and control: the energy of life.

The novel is a collection of letters and retellings of stories from differents points of view, which makes it a little "The Thousand and One Nights"-esque, reaching a point where we are reading the letters the captain of the ship wrote to his sister about the story Viktor Frankenstein told to him about the things the creature narrated to him about the tragedy of the poor family that lived in the cottage the monster was hiding in.

While Viktor Frankenstein seems to understand the "science of life" well enough for him to actually create life (or more technically, give a new one to things that were once alive), he seems to lack... responsability? I wouldn't say morality, because all throughout the novel he seems troubled by his experiment, by what he did and what it caused to the ones he loved, but only after many killings does Viktor actually confess or tells another soul about what he did. By that point, one loses any empathy and pity one might feel or have felt for either Viktor or the creature, both too enraptured and imprisoned in their feelings of guilt, remorse, sadness and anger to consider what they are causing to other people's life.

It's understandable to certain extent why they believe they are in the right, but their constant victimhood and cries for death upon themselves or upon others end up putting them beyond redemption.

This isn't to say the novel becomes unbearable because of this, on the contrary: the rich language with which they denounce the moral wrongs and the Providence's punishments they suffer and endure is very passionate and compelling, probably very typical of the Gothic movement the novel belongs to (I should read more literary theory).

I am a bit surprised and perplexed about which story beats have been used and expanded upon on different media such as movies, series, cartoons and other literary retellings. I think the character of Clerval has been very rarely used, if at all. The incident of the little girl that almost dies but is rescued by the creature is much more used, but it's quite a short part of the novel, and it's only mentioned once again, almost by the end of the book.

I'll make one short commentary in Spanish for any other argentinean readers that might come across by this review: que Viktor se case con la prima me pareció medio santiagueño (?

It was a very good reading, I enjoyed it a lot more than "The Invisible Man".

9/10.

My other 2023 readings.

6. Robin Hood

Feel free to ask about the extra-spicy version 🔞😘🔥

#robinhood #fox #green #gayart #robin #hood #archery #bow #otter #hairy #hairygay #hairychest

Book Review: The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells

My review in a Tweet:

"Would men turn evil if they were free from society?" is a frequent question in fiction and phylosophy in general, and while it's present in this book, it has been exaggerated on literary analysis that followed it. Overall, an interesting read with a very dull middle part.

Complete Review:

I decided to pause my other readings to dive into special thematic books for Halloween, while also complementing the nights I watch movie classics. So, for the first special review, I chose "The Invisible Man", by Herbert George Wells.

Years ago, I read "The Time Machine" by the same author, and it left a good impression of his writing skills. This time, while it wasn't bad, I'd say it left me a little unimpressed. The prose and descriptions, like the dialogues, were precise and well written but a bit dense. Wells would go over too many details, and although it's probably a common product of its time, it lacks a more deep or meaningful story.

The book it's divided in chapters, but I think the plot it's separated in four parts:

The arrival of the Invisible Man to a small town, his secret protected by the costume he wears.

The reveal of the secret and the following chaos.

The origin of the Invisible Man, told by himself to an old friend he runs into.

The manhunt of the Invisible Man.

The first part it's quite interesting as a reader, because we know what his secret is, so it's fun to read the guesses of the townspeople and the "mysterious events" that surround the stranger.

The second part is also fun, because of the paranoia and desbelief that the reveal of the Invisible Man provokes.

This third part, his backstory, the one I was most eager to read about (driven by the curiosity of getting to know how would the author explain or justify Griffins' invisibility) turned out to be so dull and slow. The proccess is a bit uninteresting (applying the refracting properties of an object to another thanks to a machine barely described), but the tedious first days of Griffin as an invisible man and his laments for all the unfortunate stuff that happens to him because no one can notice him is so... unsufferable. Specially because H.G. Wells decides to describe a lot the most boring stuff. We barely get to see a truly evil Invisible Man.

He does tell to his old friend that he needs an accomplice to declare his Reign of Terror, but by the time we reach this point, we have 10% or 15% of the book left, so the last part is mostly his friends saying No to him and helping the local police capture him (because the narration of his first days invisible gave him the information he needed). Griffin kills a man and injuries badly a few more men, but besides that and stealing money and food, he's no more evil than any person left behind by society.

So maybe, another possible interpretation to this story is not "Do men turn evil when free from society's watchful eye?" but rather "Men will do what they must to survive in a society that won't notice (help) them". Then, maybe, after a life like that, they will grow resentful and bitter like Griffin.

Score: 6.5/10.

My other 2023 readings.

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