As I planned last week, I watched season one of Interview With The Vampire. It’s an absolutely incredible adaptation; it takes the plot, characters, and themes of the original novel and remixes them in a way that’s both surprising to fans and more relevant to modern society. It’s also grimly funny. Looking forward to checking out season 2 when it drops on Netflix at the end of the month.
Speaking of adaptations, in preparation for Guillermo del Toro‘s upcoming film I read Frankenstein for the first time.
At the behest of a literature teacher friend, I went with the 1818 text. The Penguin Classics version is great, with a lot of additional context and essays (which I haven’t read yet). It’s difficult to think of something original to say about a classic novel that has been studied for over two centuries, but I’ll give my take on it anyway.
Like its contemporary by association Dracula, a significant amount of Frankenstein is told via letters. The book has been analyzed from many different angles: feminist, horror, religious, scientific, and more. I saw all of those aspects as I read, but to me it was primarily a story of obsessive regret.
Victor Frankenstein made a semi-well-intentioned mistake that was fatal to those around him. He became depressed and his inability to pacify the monster he created led to a cycle of powerlessness and despair. It’s not necessarily a scary story, but definitely a depressing one, for both Frankenstein and the monster. I found myself empathizing with both of them, but unable to forgive either. Hopefully del Toro’s adaptation manages to capture some of this tragedy. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite passages:
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