The Brontes, Austen, Alcott, Shelley

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
For Halloween-If there is one classic that terrifies me the most, it is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Ever since I was a child my worst nightmares have been of the monster pursuing me while my running gets slower and slower. Call it a psychological hang up, I call it terrifying.

It is yet another Victorian commentary on the Industrial Revolution or science gone wrong like Jekyll and Hyde. Neverthelss the idea does not seem so outrageous anymore, not in a world that is developing cloning.

All in all, I thought Frankenstein was an excellent book until the end when Shelley puts the monster up in the Arctic or was it down in Antarctica? It seemed so random and unnecessary, like she was filling space. Am I missing something? Anyhow, if you want to complete the tour of classic horror, don't miss it.



Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen is "big" right now, but I cannot jump on the band wagon in adoration of her books. I think they are difficult and tedious. I LOVE her stories. She is a master at drawing room dialogue and, comedy but I think her work translates better for me onto the silver screen. Pride and Prejudice in maybe twenty five years so maybe it is time give it another shot or any of the Austen novels, but until then I will stick the wonderfully romantic and witty adaptations by Hollywood.

I am sure many people would say the same of Charles Dickens which I totally get because he too is difficult to wade through, but I take my time and enjoy savoring his lengthy descriptions. With Jane Austen, I get confused about who is speaking, and the formal writing style of the day overwhelms me. I have not read













Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte

Although Dickens is my favorite author of all time, Emily Bronte is a close second. I should say that the novel Wuthering Heights is a close second. I don't even know if Emily Bronte wrote anything else so I cannot say that I like her body of work. She died so young that I don't think she wrote anymore novels (Just a little gruesome sidebar here, I was reading that there is speculation that the parsonage cemetery of Haworth was contaminating the Bronte drinking water causing premature deaths in the family).
Early on, Wuthering Heights activated my love of the tragic romance. When I was a teen, I was interested because my mother told me there was a ghost involved.

A few years later, when I read it I was moved by their despairing love. I traveled to the modest home of the Bronte's on the moors and loved the landscape, again the romantic in me. Years later when I re-read the novel, I was moved in a different way. I saw Cathy and Heathcliff as less romantic characters and more as selfish brutes.
That is what I love about the classics. They speak to you differently at different times in your life. When my oldest daughter read Wuthering Heights, she hated it, saying Cathy and Heathcliff were selfish pukes, but she has since re-read it and feels differently again (maybe she will comment).
My mother always wondered how these Bronte women with so few life experiences outside the lonely moors could write such wrenching romances and I wonder too, but then inspiration, I guess, is not necessarily an outcome of life experience. Obviously.
On Cathy and Heathcliff, I would love to hear what you think...
Although Heathcliff, became an abusive brute as an adult, I was more sympathetic to him, and I felt like he was more of a victim. Whereas Cathy was a spoiled brat from beginning to end. What do you think?
I LOVE this book!