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cimoreneI moved on from listening to Dracula to listening to Frankenstein, which I vaguely remember being slightly more engaging than the former for me when I read it 22 years ago, in spite of Frankenstein himself being such a famously insufferable narrator.
I think the fact that he's sort of an antihero made it more bearable for me, or maybe it's just that an annoying narrative is more annoying to listen to than to read, but... whatever it was, I had to take a break at about 2/3 of the way through the book this time. I was just completely unable to listen and relax, and was instead physically tensing up and exclaiming "Oh for fuck's sake" and "What a revolting excrecence of a man" every other line.
I think much of this is just my brain being older now, and more able to step back and keep a critical eye on the context without getting distracted by the experiences of the unreliable narrator, and hence more able to see how rich, layered, and fully thought-out all the details of his character and actions are. There's so MUCH of it and it's ALL TERRIBLE. Every flawless, glittering detail of Victor Frankenstein is SO clearly selfish, self-pitying, pompous, irresponsible, short-sighted, foolish, and deliberately self-deceiving... it is a breathtaking and monumental achievement. I should probably buy one of those cheap paperbacks of it - if we don't have one - and mark it up with a pencil as I go in order to somewhat soothe these feelings.
But anyway, in the break I listened to an abridged The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, a novel about a guy who gets addicted to an experimental time travel drug and survives just long enough to witness a melodramatic novel's worth of 14th century interpersonal drama before it liquefies his brain. While his marriage is falling apart. I am always fascinated by things like time travel narratives approached from outside the sff genre. The fantasy element in a novel that is otherwise written on the framework of psychological horror could have been quite 'Turn of the Screw' if she had wished, but DDM chooses instead to make it quite clear that the time travel is real and he's learning facts he couldn't have known... but apparently not for any external plot reason, because then he just dies (and so does his homoerotic boyhood friend who invented the drug and keeps it in an old laundry room in his basement along with - I am not making this up! - fetuses in jars and a dried monkey's head). I think at this point (three short stories, this novel, and a couple of chapters of Jamaica Inn before backbuttoning in disgust) I have a clear feel for what DDM's whole vibe was and how Rebecca fits into that while still being the most standout, sort of like those bands who essentially write the same song all the time and yet still manage to have exactly 1 top ten hit, so everything else you listen to is the same as it but just not as much of a banger.
I think the fact that he's sort of an antihero made it more bearable for me, or maybe it's just that an annoying narrative is more annoying to listen to than to read, but... whatever it was, I had to take a break at about 2/3 of the way through the book this time. I was just completely unable to listen and relax, and was instead physically tensing up and exclaiming "Oh for fuck's sake" and "What a revolting excrecence of a man" every other line.
I think much of this is just my brain being older now, and more able to step back and keep a critical eye on the context without getting distracted by the experiences of the unreliable narrator, and hence more able to see how rich, layered, and fully thought-out all the details of his character and actions are. There's so MUCH of it and it's ALL TERRIBLE. Every flawless, glittering detail of Victor Frankenstein is SO clearly selfish, self-pitying, pompous, irresponsible, short-sighted, foolish, and deliberately self-deceiving... it is a breathtaking and monumental achievement. I should probably buy one of those cheap paperbacks of it - if we don't have one - and mark it up with a pencil as I go in order to somewhat soothe these feelings.
But anyway, in the break I listened to an abridged The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier, a novel about a guy who gets addicted to an experimental time travel drug and survives just long enough to witness a melodramatic novel's worth of 14th century interpersonal drama before it liquefies his brain. While his marriage is falling apart. I am always fascinated by things like time travel narratives approached from outside the sff genre. The fantasy element in a novel that is otherwise written on the framework of psychological horror could have been quite 'Turn of the Screw' if she had wished, but DDM chooses instead to make it quite clear that the time travel is real and he's learning facts he couldn't have known... but apparently not for any external plot reason, because then he just dies (and so does his homoerotic boyhood friend who invented the drug and keeps it in an old laundry room in his basement along with - I am not making this up! - fetuses in jars and a dried monkey's head). I think at this point (three short stories, this novel, and a couple of chapters of Jamaica Inn before backbuttoning in disgust) I have a clear feel for what DDM's whole vibe was and how Rebecca fits into that while still being the most standout, sort of like those bands who essentially write the same song all the time and yet still manage to have exactly 1 top ten hit, so everything else you listen to is the same as it but just not as much of a banger.
