Re: Frankenstein

2005-03-04 - 9:09 p.m.

I have this habit of recommending books to everyone when I already know that those books appeal to a particular taste. My friends' bookshelves are littered with recommended-by-me books that they meant to read, or started to read, but couldn't, or lost or something (I guess they don't have those books on their bookshelves). I guess I get excited about a book I enjoyed, even when I know that it's the bookworm equivalent of shoving a strong perfume under everyone's nose and saying "Smell this! Smell this!"

I liked Frankenstein, in part because I sometimes like overblown descriptions of desolate scenery. I don't like Wuthering Heights terribly much (I don't really remember enough to dislike it, even though I read it only a couple years ago), but I enjoyed Grapes of Wrath. I also liked some of the ideas inside the story, sometimes because I disagreed with them but believed that someone else could have had (and still have) them. There's a fear about having a child and the child being hideous...how do you deal with that? There's also a lot about responsibility. The doctor, only a young man (if it were made into a movie - one I wouldn't see but everyone would love - it would have Johny Depp in the Frankenstein role, or, if he's getting too old, his modern-day equivalent), makes really horrible choices, but he felt all the time that he had no choice. Until the very end, everything happens to him: he's flotsam in destiny's ocean (or whatever. I have a head cold and the first rugby practise is tomorrow. Gah!). At least according to him. I'd like to read more of Shelley, even though I hear that this was her best.

Anyway, there are lots of good reasons to not like the book. But, I do think it would make a decent movie, if you had the dialogue made less windy and were able to use desolate location to good effect. Do something in the spirit (if not the style) of Bram Stoker's Dracula, another film that I don't think I like as much as I should. It just tastes bad to me. But I think some bad-tasting films are necessary.

This entry has been brought to you by a book on writing that my mom gave me that suggests writing when you're tired, hungry, sick, and drunk. I like this writing book; I assume that "drunk" can mean "stoned", which is what I'm trying now. Possibly in memory of Hunter S. Thompson. I'm not a fan, but I kinda want to play around with him a bit. It sucks that this is happening just when he died. It makes me seem like such an opportunist.

Cheers,

The Magus

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